246 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and are just as welcome harbingers of sunny days. Even the first 

 note of the blue bird or twit, twit of the robin is forgotten as one 

 stops to pluck the first spring beauty or welcome violet. 



Our season of native flowers, however, is not confined to our 

 spring mouths alone. While the venturesome early flower, which first 

 peeps out to say that winter snows are gone, is, perhaps, most eagerly 

 looked for, it is no more beautiful, perhaps, than flowers which succeed 

 each other later on until Xovember comes with its frosts. Even with 

 the approach of winter, we still have visible beauties in our native 

 plants. There are the brightly tinted leaves of numerous shrubs and 

 Virginia creeper, the fluffy down of milkweed and Enslene, the heads 

 of sedge grass and reeds, the ripening rose hips, turning from green to 

 golden red and brown, and numerous fruits, like those of Smilax, grapes 

 and burning bush, that continue more or less throughout the winter. 



The beauty of the winter buds must not be overlooked, and should 

 be more often studied in selecting specimens for planting. The next 

 year's catkins of the birches, alders, etc., the flower buds of flowering- 

 dog-wood, magnolias and buckeyes, the numerous buds of flowering 

 currant, the velvet, scaleless buds of pawpaw, as well as those of m^ny 

 other species, have a winter beauty, always conspicuous to the casual 

 observer, and becoming more and more attractive with careful study. 

 In selecting these plants for home adornment, varieties may be chosen 

 which present a succession of these beauties, and keep our grounds 

 constantly attractive. 



1 would not urge the planting of our natives to the exclusion of 

 improved types, which are so generally used, and yet, as supplementary 

 to our improved forms, they should take an important part, especially 

 where little attention can be given to the care and cultivation so neces- 

 sary to our more delicate and tender species. There are a great many 

 examples of the beautifying effect of improved flowers and shrubs 

 judiciously planted about the home. There are also a great many 

 homes where little attention is given to the cultivation of plants which 

 might be made much brighter by planting masses of our natives, and 

 even allowing them to grow in their wild, uncultivated manner. 



Nothing looks worse than plants sutJering from neglect. I think* 

 then, that tender sorts or exotics should be used only when they can 

 be given the care and favorable conditions that they require. The 

 plants of our fields and woods are accustomed to grow among the 

 grass and brambles, or under the shade of trees; and present all their 

 natural beauty if allowed to grow on the lawns along the hedge rows, or 

 under the shade of shrubbery at our homes. There is no reason why 

 they might not oftener be seen about the home, even though no culti- 



