370 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
thousands and thousands of specimens in a day’s ride would hardly 
advise the planting of more of them. The aster-like Boltonia is a 
beautiful plant and would look well planted in front of a dark 
shrubbery, but one who has seen acres and acres of it on the prairie 
meadows would scarcely care to dig it up and remove it to his door- 
yard. 
Fashionable plant dealers will tell you that Maximillian’s sun- 
flower is elegant, and they will be right, but one who every autumn 
day sees the landscape yellow with it for miles and miles would 
scarcely care for more or take the trouble to plant it. 
The golden-rod has been adopted by some states as the state flower. 
The plant dealers will tell you that the golden-rod, known to botan- 
ists as Solidago rigida, is the finest of its class. The prairie farmer, 
if he listens atall, will smile with incredulity and think it strange 
¢hat anyone could call those stiff, yellow weeds in his pasture 
beautiful. 
No one will question the beauty of the blazing stars, and we are 
glad that they are cuitivated and appreciated in Eastern gardens. 
The prairie meadows are gay with Liatris pycnostachya and Liatris 
punctata, while on bluff-sides and prairie knolls Liatris squarrosa 
and Liatris scariosa unfurl to the breeze their purple banners. No 
farmer on the prairie will remove these plants to his flower border, 
nor will he care much for the equally beautiful Petalostemon viola- 
ceus and Petalostemon candidus. These plants are all too dread- 
fully common and plebian. 
The purple cone-flower (Echinacea Angustifolia) is looked upon 
as arare and curious plantin Eastern gardens, but who ever saw 
one ina garden in western Minnesota? Helenium autumale, Core- 
opsia palmata and Lepachys columnaris are all interesting plants 
and in the East are appreciated, for they are away from home there 
and not common. 
The Eastern landscape artist will tell you to plant artemisia in 
proper locations, but no one who has crossed the plains and become 
well acquainted with the sagebrush in all its desolate grayness 
would ever plant artemisia on the borders of his prairie lawn. 
The fact may as well be confessed that no person has ever moved 
from a well improved country where gardens are common outona 
new prairie farm without experiencing at one time or another a feel- 
ing of homesickness. The monotony of the vast stretches of prairie 
will at times have weighed down his soul, dwarfing and belittling 
the man, or making him discontented and rebellious. In such a 
state of mind, it would be idle to expect the settler to admire the 
prairie flowers. Something else must be planted in the flower 
garden back of the prairie lawn. What shall it be? 
I would plant hardy perennials. Among the early flowering plants 
there is nothing better than the old fashioned bleeding-heart. (Di- 
centra spectabalis). It is perfectly hardy. I would plant pconias, 
all the herbaceous varieties, as many as I could afford to buy, not 
forgetting the old fashioned red ones. 
I would plant German iris in profusion and in all its many varie- 
ties, remembering, however, that the family resemblance among 
