But  while  some  readers  may  not  be  interested  in  flowers
because  some  other  persons  make  great  profits  in  growing
and  selling  them,  it  is  probable  that  there  are  few  individuals
who  will  admit  that  they  have  no  interest  in  flowers  for  their
ornamental  value.    Have  you  ever  met  a  person  so  dead


STUDIES  OF  SEED--PLANTS  218

to  all  appreciation  of  the  beautiful  that  he  did  not  some-
times show  interest  in  flowers?  Perhaps  you  have;  but
such  persons  are  becoming  rare.  Study  of  flowers  was  once
thought  to  be  a  subject  for  girls,  but  in  recent  years  it  has
become  more  and  more  evident  that  appreciation  of  the  beauty
in  nature  is  just  as  valuable  for  men  as  for  women.  In  many
colleges  for  men  there  are  now  courses  in  sBsthetics,  the  science
of  the  beautiful.
It  is  evident,  then,  that  some  outline  study  of  flowers
belongs  in  applied  biology;  for  besides  the  application  of
such  knowledge  to  the  business  of  growing  plants  and  of
producing  new  varieties  mentioned  above,  an  imderstanding
of  the  nature  of  flowers  is  useful  to  every  cultured  citizen
who  has  any  sesthetical  appreciation  whatever.  Flower
study  is  certainly  applicable  to  our  daily  life,  if  we  mean  life
in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word.
These  comments  on  the  importance  of  appreciating  the
beauty  of  natural  things  have  been  suggested  in  connection
with  flowers,  because  to  most  people  flowers  are  the  most
beautiful  and  remarkable  of  natural  objects.  However,  in
many  other  structures  of  animals  and  plants  there  are  things
which  appeal  to  our  sense  of  the  beautiful  (sesthetic  sense),
and  the  student  of  biology  should  keep  constantly  on  the
lookout  for  them.
