Fox    Gloves

     Someone gave us a package of seeds called foxgloves.  They grew to be nice little plants the first year, but it was not until the next year that they grew tall stalks of buds and bloomed all these little bells along the center stem, that have freckles all through the centers of each flower. 

 

 

 

                      

                                           

 

 

 

Sometimes these beauties grow along the road or by some stream in the wild. 

 

        

 

 

 

 

It may be that they need some help in supporting their heavy weight of glory with a pole.  They last nicely and are a thrill to see their progress up the center stem. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




  "It is offensive also to the unensnared mind. No man who is free from its enslaving potency can witness its physical aspects, or contemplate its personal or popular bearings, without pain. Take those who now use it, cleanse them from all its corrupting influences and associations, and send them to some place where the inhabitants, like the great mass of the American people, especially in the South and West, are presenting all the disgraceful features of this most offensive of all vices, and every single man would turn away with disgust from such society. He would not be able to bear, without pain, the various disgusting and loathsome aspects in which the habit presents itself. He would regard it as outraging all decency, and insulting every attribute of human nature.  

It is one of the most unnatural and poisonous things that can be taken into the mouth. Its principle chemical ingredient is Nicotine. It belongs to the same order of poisonous plants with Henbane, Thorn-apple and Deadly-Nightshade. The learned and celebrated naturalist Linnaus classifies it with Foxglove, Lobelia, Henbane, and other powerful poisons, under the name Atropa, one of the Fates. An appetite for it is entirely unnatural-artificial-created by habit. God never made in man the appetite for tobacco. A very few instances have occurred where a love for it is found to exist from birth. Those cases are doubtless to be accounted for by tracing their origin back to some mental freak of the mother prior to their birth, or by its inveterate use by the father; and not to be reckoned as coming from any direct law of Deity in the formation of man. God never purposed for man an appetite for this poisonous weed, nor made it to be used as a luxury. He made man for more elevated enjoyments; for more dignified practices; for more reasonable devotions."  




May 17, 1864 JWe, ARSH 198