176 A Little Maryland Garden 
mountain in the shape of ferns and asters, 
among them a noble Christmas fern, whose 
dark, rich foliage makes it one of the hand- 
somest. 
The country gardens always interest me 
particularly at this season, they are so gay 
with dahlias, and I have never seen in a town 
garden such a profusion of flowers as nod 
over the fences of farmhouses and mountain 
cabins. Pink, scarlet, and orange, they 
make the roadside gay. Their hearty blooms 
put my town-bred dahlias to the blush, 
though the individual flowers may not be so 
large; but often they beat me at all points. 
I stopped at a farm in the Pine Hills the 
other day, whose collection of plants was 
very characteristic of the country gardens 
of Maryland. A long path led from the 
gate to the house, bordered on one side with 
plants, not in beds but growing apparently 
out of the untilled earth, just as the grass 
and weeds do. Chrysanthemum bushes, 
covered with buds, stood as high as my elbow, 
and were too large for me to span with my 
