Page 7 Advertisements Column 3

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11857, 8 January 1902, Page 7

Writing lately on the mission of flowers, Rider Haggard uses tolling language. Some lady, contemplating a bouquet of orchids or prize chrysanthemums that others have raised at her expense, says she adores flowers. But she never watched the - wonder, of their growth she never saw the shoot start to life; or the pseudo-bulb form, or day by day the flower-spike mature. All that such a one cares for is the blaze of colour when it comes, if even she really cares for this. With those who love the flowers, who, whatever their opportunities, are gardeners born, it is otherwise. The poor ' woman, for example, worn out with want and childbearing, a dweller, perhaps, in ... the grimy slums of some vast city, who nurtures on the' window-sill of her one room a cactus or a rose-cutting. When the cactus opens its gorgeous, dazzling cup, white as the robes of saints, or red as the sunset, what does she not see in it? A. flower—yes, and more than a flower. Or when at length the rose sheds its fragrance on the squalid chamber what memories may not its sweetness recall of childhood, of purity, of hopes buried in the midden heap of life, as life has been for her, poor soul? And what visions of another life,as it may be, even for her? We wreathe our dead;with flowers; they are the best we have to offer there. To our imagining, .the heaven, we hope for is a land of flowers. Gethsemano was a garden, and : to each human item as he wanders through his own Gethsemano such flowers as blow in it have a message. If any doubt it, let them visit a children's hospital, and see ; how the sufferers there 'turn their pale faces to the flowers as tho flowers turn their faces to the sun. '.."."'' ' * .-'

It is said that a weak solution of carbolic acid applied with a watering-pot to' gardon walks will prevent the growth of weeds. The solution should : not; ■ ; however, be stronger than one > part ; pure:• acid to 1000 or 2000 of water. ■ Pure: carbolic acid is a virulent '■"'■poison/. l''- .In a stronger solution larger plants might suffer. Very weak solutions only destroy small plants. :"■ Even flies and mosquitoes avoid the odour of the acid, and may thus bo driven away. ■.••? ■■ ■' ■-.'■ - Summer coats, alpaca and silk, fancy vests and tennis trousers, at Goo. I'owlds', .■■;.'