146 An7ials of Horticulture . 



this destruction, we must see to it that they cease to be wild. 

 Whatever the specimens we desire to preserve, some speci- 

 mens of them must be transferred to our own premises, where 

 we can keep guard over their safety, and where they will be, 

 not tenants-at-will but free-holders. Once fairly set as garden 

 growths, the perpetuation is assured. They will become 

 settled inhabitants, as much a detail of bed and border as the 

 pansies and clove pinks, side by side with which they stand, 

 and the same familiar delight to generations of loving eyes 

 ' far on in summers that we shall not see.' 



''As a rule, sun loving plants may be relied upon to take 

 most kindly to cultivation ; woodland blooms are exquisite in 

 form and tint, but our showiest varieties are flowers of the un- 

 screened open, growing where the sun glares upon, the storms 

 pelt and the winds buffet them, and in their fearless tenacity 

 to life, best calculated to endure the shock of change from 

 savagery to civilization. In the transfer of any flower from 

 the wild to gardens, however, the conditions of its original 

 habitat should, so far as possible, be repeated. Whatever 

 modifications of environment it may in course of time learn 

 to submit to, at the outset of its sophisticated career cinnamon 

 fern will not thrive on a hot sandy hillslope, or Labrador tea 

 in the damp chilliness of a shady border. Neglect of this car- 

 dinal precept has, more than any other cause, served to denude 

 suburban localities in the middle and New England states of 

 their flowers and flowering shrubs. Fairmount Park owes to 

 it the disappearance, so deplored by the park botanists, of the 

 exquisite wild azalea and the charming valerian. In like 

 manner free woodlands have been well nigh bared of maiden- 

 hair, evergreen fern, squirrel corn, hepatica, and anemones 

 which — snatched from out a leaf mold, light as toilet powder 

 — have been planted to swift death in a garden soil composed 

 of equal parts of street dirt and angle worms. Begin then 

 with shade for your woodland, sun for your prairie flowers ; 

 with moisture for your meadow growth, with sand, or loam or 

 sod for the plant accustomed to draw its life from such a 

 source. 



"This repetition of native soils and conditions does not, 

 however, involve the rejection of artificial fertilizers. On the 

 contrary, their effect will often be found to be the imparting 

 of vigor to struggling plants. The application of them likewise 



