IN THE CAMBRIDGE SWAMP 27 



knowledge ; as the most commonplace of 

 mortals becomes interesting to average hu- 

 manity if it is whispered about that he is 

 fourth cousin to the king. The world is 

 not yet so democratic that anything, even a 

 plant, can be rated altogether by itself. 



The gravelly banks of the railroad, on 

 which I go dry-shod through the swamp, are 

 covered with a forest of chicory ; a thrifty 

 immigrant, tall, coarse, scraggy, awkward, 

 homely, anything you will, but a great 

 brightener of our American waysides on 

 sunny midsummer forenoons. It attracts 

 much notice, and presumably gives much 

 pleasure, to judge by the number of persons 

 who ask me its name. May the town fa- 

 thers spare it! The bees and the gold- 

 finches will thank them, if nobody else. 

 Here I am interested to see that a goodly 

 number of the plants but not more than 

 one in fifty, perhaps bear full crops of 

 pure white flowers ; a rarity to me, though 

 I am well used to pink ones. Gray's Man- 

 ual, by the by, a Cambridge book, makes no 

 mention of white flowers, while Britton and 

 Brown's Illustrated Flora says nothing about 



