GARDENS OF THE NORTH AND SOUTH 6 



hope that springs eternal in the human breast. 

 Seeds of the old, well-loved flowers that had 

 been gathered in sorrow and often wet with silent 

 tears were carefully saved and transported with 

 the household gods to the land of promise. 

 There they were sown under the quickening rays 

 of the dazzling sun, which like the pil ar of fire 

 of the children of Israel had led them out of 

 the wilderness into the flowery meads of free- 

 dom. 



The fittest of these flowers survived and have 

 come down to the garden makers of to-day, often 

 hybridized and enlarged and not always improved, 

 but still exhaling the perfumes of old that com- 

 forted the wanderers in a strange land, and brought 

 welcome heartsease in time of sorrow. With 

 them are linked memories of the clays of our fore- 

 fathers, around which such a halo of romance and 

 mystery has always hung. 



With the exception of a few rich merchants of 

 Plymouth, Portsmouth and Salem, and a small 

 number of prosperous planters in Rhode Island, 

 the inhabitants of the New England colonies were 

 not as well blessed with this world's goods as were 



