THE FLOWERS 



ity seems to develop in it an arrogance which 

 will not long be tolerated. The result of most 

 attempts to make it a garden flower which 

 have come under my observation is that it is 

 soon banished from the society it has under- 

 taken to rule in too lordly a fashion. Like 

 many persons we have all known, it cannot 

 stand prosperity. It is well, perhaps, that it 

 is not adapted to garden culture, for too great 

 familiarity might breed a sort of contempt for 

 it. It would entirely lose the charm of wild, 

 vagrant freedom which always clings about 

 it when it grows in the garden of Nature's 

 planting. 



The Golden-rod has been a much-abused 

 plant of late. Some very scientific persons 

 have suddenly discovered that it is the cause 

 of hay-fever, and I have been requested in 

 some instances ordered to cease saying 

 friendly things about it. If I continued to 

 speak of it as a plant to be tolerated, to say 

 nothing of its being enjoyed, I would be set 

 down as a deliberate conspirator against the 

 health of my fellow-men. Now there happens 

 to be unlimited quantities of the plant growing 

 all about the locality in which I reside, acres 

 and acres of it, all along the lowlands near 



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