Indulge me for a moment. Read over this passage taken from the July 9, 1853 issue of the New England Farmer:
"All things have their uses. The flowers not only please the eye but improve the thoughts, making them more gentle and better. The full blown rose, expanded to its utmost limits, and shedding its fragrance on all within its reach, seems emblematic of a good heart, beaming forth its kind influences on all around. If the flowers could think, and feel, and talk, what lessons of gentleness and love would they teach us. 
All children love them; the old man leaning on his staff, pauses by the wayside and contemplates them with delight. A vase of fresh flowers in the sick room stands as an emblem of the new life that will come when the tried spirit shall bloom with perennial lustre in the skies."
Wow. That's some heavy stuff, even for this flower lovin' Heirloom Orchardist. We could pick the passage apart, and question whether flowers actually do make our thoughts "more gentle and better." But that's missing the point. Beauty and sentimentality have their places, even for the practical Heirloom Orchardist.
Let it go. Enjoy. The above images come from my small collection of antique nursery catalogs. I've included links with each image to appropriate pages of the Nature Hills Nursery web site. Since July and August are typically slow months for plant sales, Now is a great time to get some good deals. Indulge yourself. It could make your thoughts "more gentle and better."
