94 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



to look upon them as "weeds," or "wild things," as if all 

 plants were not weeds and wild things somewhere, and so 

 unfamiliar are they with them that they cannot recognize 

 them when they meet with them outside their native 

 haunts. I remember that some j^ears ago I transplanted 

 a goldenrod from' the fence corner of the pasture to a place 

 in my garden. There it grew luxuriantly, and soon be- 

 came a great plant that sent up scores of stalks as high as 

 a man's head, each season, each one crowned wath a great 

 plume of brilliant flowers. It was a sight worth seeing 

 when in full bloom — a mass of floral sunshine, that bright- 

 ened the whole garden. One day, in the fall, an old neigh- 

 bor came along and leaned over the fence where I was at 

 work among my plants. 



"That's a beauty," he said, looking at the goldenrod. 

 "I never saw anything like it before. I s'pose, now, you 

 paid a good deal o' money for that plant." 



"How much do you think it cost me ?" I asked. 

 "Oh, I don't know," he replied, looking at the plant 

 admiringly, and then at some of foreign origin, growing 

 near by. The price of these he knew something about, for 

 he had bought some for his own garden. He seemed to be 

 making a mental calculation, based on the relative beauty 

 of the plants. Presently he said : 



"I wouldn't wonder any if you paid out as much as 

 two or three dollars for that plant. How near right am 

 I?" 



"That plant cost me nothing but the labor of bringing 

 it from the pasture, where I found it growing," I an- 

 swered. "Don't 3^ou know what it is? There's any 

 quantity of it in 3-our pasture, back of the barn." 



"You don't mean to say that's yellow-weed?" ex- 

 claimed the old gentleman, with a disgusted look on his 

 face. "I wouldn't have it about my house! There's weeds 

 enough, as it is, 'thout settin' 'em out." And away he 

 w^ent, with a look in his face that made me think he felt as 

 if he had been imposed upon. — Home and Flowers. 



