We are disposed to cull a flower from every field of the literature of gardening. Therefore, we pluck this from a rich soil, and offer it to the readers of the Horticulturist, for their admiration or criticism.

Perhaps not one among the many thousands of every class who read for amusement or for profit, but will admit that gardening has its peculiar pleasures. It is, indeed, an absorbing recreation, and among its votaries has ranked illustrious princes and renowned philosophers. The most eminent and worthy of mankind, whether occupying exalted positions in public life, or fulfilling the more retired and unobtrusive duties of a private sphere, have ever made it their favorite amusement. It is an enjoyment and occupation for which none can be too high or too low - at once the pleasure of the greatest, or the care of the meanest. The interest which flowers have excited in the breast of man, has, from the earliest ages to the present time, never been restrained to any particular class of society, or quarter of the globe. Over the whole world, nature seems to have distributed them as precious medicaments, to both the mind and body - to furnish agreeable sensations to its inhabitants, and to impart cheerfulness and beauty to the earth. In the joy of his heart, the untutored savage binds his brow with the native flowers of his romantic haunts, while in every country, in proportion as civilization and refinement advances, so does a taste for their cultivation increase.

It is for the love of a garden, that the most powerful influence is exerted in attracting men to their homes, and for this very reason, every possible encouragement that is given to promote a taste for ornamental gardening, secures an additional guarantee for domestic felicity, and the unity, morality, and happiness of the social circle. Nor must it be forgotten, thai as a recreation it conduces materially to health, advances intellectual improvement, softens the manners, and subdues the tempers of men.

Of all embellishments, flowers are the most beautiful, and man alone, of all the sentient tribes, seems capable of deriving enjoyment from them. With infancy the love for them commences; throughout the period of adolescence and youth, it continues unabated, increasing with our years, and becoming a great and fertile source of comfort and gratification in our declining days. No sooner does the infant walk, than its first employment is to put a flower in the earth, and to remove it ten times a day, to wherever the sun shines most favorably. In the care of his little plot of ground, the schoolboy is joyously relieved from his studies, and loses all the anxious cares and thoughts of his tasks, or the home he may have left. In manhood, our attention is generally occupied with more active duties, or, by more imperious, and may be, less innocent pursuits; still a few hours employment in the garden, affords a delightful recreation, and as age compels us to withdraw from the busy cares of life, the attachment to flowers, and the delights of gardening, come to soothe the later periods of our existence.

In the growth of flowers, from the first tender shoots putting forth from the earth, through all the changes which they undergo, to the period of their utmost beauty, man will do well to behold and contemplate the wonderful process of creative wisdom and power. What can be more interesting than to watch Nature in all her progressive stages, from the planting of the seed to the maturity of the perfect flower? and who, upon observing the perfect order which prevails throughout her whole varied and extensive territory, and gazing on the delicate texture, admirable structure, and fairy pencilling of such a flower as the Phaius albus, but will exclaim, that:

Nature is but a name for an effect '

Whose cause is God. Not a flower

Bat shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain,

Of his unrivall'd pencil. He inspires

Their odors, and imparts their hues,

And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes

In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,

The forms with which be sprinkles all the earth.

Happy who walks with him! whom, what he finds

Or flavor, or of scent, in fruit or flower,

Or what bo views of beautiful or grand

In nature, from the broad majestic oak

To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,

Prompts with remembrance of a present God!

We view the bud as it swells, look into the expanded blossom, and delight in its rich tints and fragrant odors; but more than all, how great the charm in contemplating the precise conformation and mutual adaptation of its organs, and the undeviating regularity with which their various metamorphoses are effected; before which, all the combined ingenuity of roan dwindles into nothingness. For, while the simple cultivation and mage-ment of flowers is productive of much innocent pleasure, how immensely is that pleasure enhanced, when science is secured as its auxiliary! The cultivator of flowers or fruit, on whom the light of science has just dawned, feels like one emerging into a new sphere of existence. A multitude of subjects, previously unheeded, present themselves to his consideration, which, as he proceeds to contemplate them, diverge into a successive series of interesting associations, and awaken in his mind emotions of pleasure and gratification, of which he had been hitherto unconscious. Instead of being content to follow blindly the ordinary routine of the management example has prescribed, he perceives that certain plants require a peculiar mode of treatment, and is lead to inquire why that treatment is necessary.

In prosecuting this investigation, other and more intricate subjects present themselves to his mind; thus inquiry begets inquiry, and one thought gives birth to another, until, in the solution of them, he makes the discovery, that all nature is governed by universal and unerring laws, that the annual changes to which plants are subjected are intended to answer specific and important ends, and that the whole chain of gradation in organised matter, is linked together in the most perfect harmony and order. This knowledge attained, he suffers not the most trifling of nature's phenomena to escape his notice. The development of a leaf on the most familiar tree, offers a field for his observation, for he learns that it is destined to bring forth, nourish, and mature a germ, which is capable of producing a distinct tree, that in process of time would equal or exceed in size, the parent that forced it into existence. He observes the autumn leaves in their fall and decay without regret, because they have duly performed their important functions, and knowing, that were they capable of remaining, they would probably excite the young buds into premature action, and cause them to fall a prey to the inclemency of the approaching season.

These are some of the delights which science affords, but they are not all, for it is likewise capable of imparting an interest to the most common operations of the garden. Why does the pupil of science scatter his seeds in the ground, and cover them with the soil? Because he knows that they must be thus enveloped, and excluded from the light, in order that the various genial gaseous elements involved in such a situation, may stimulate into action the vegetable vital principle; he knows too, that the soil must be spread over them very lightly, because a proximity to the atmosphere is alike essential to their germination. He watches the young seed lobes as they appear through the ground, and in imagination perceives the little rootlet issuing simultaneously from the newly excited embryo; soon the first leaves are formed, and calculating correctly on a similar extension and ramification of the root, the earliest opportunity is made available, to transplant it to its desired destination. This operation be either defers till dull and cloudy weather, or affords his plants an artificial shading from the sun. This shading they require, for all the delicate seedlings need time gradually to accommodate themselves to their new position.

Were they not screened from the sun's rays, evaporation would become profuse, and the plant die, before it could absorb sufficient liquid nutriment, to counteract it.

But after all, it is needless for us to expatiate on such a subject, for the pleasures of gardening are not derivable from elaborate treatises, nor very easily communicable. To be properly appreciated, they must be diligently sought after, and when once tasted, the mind will rarely become satiated, but will row as the bee, from flower to flower, in search of nutritive and delicious sweets, extracting from each successive object, fresh stores of wisdom and delight, till at length it succeeds in amassing that which most truly constitutes the wealth of man - a fund of knowledge of the great Creator's works.

Flushing, Aug. 13,1852. • Wm. W. Valk.