THE HEATHER IN AMERICA. 



a sweet-faced old lady, now verging on the allotted 

 span, resides at Ballardvale, Mass. Here is her story 

 as she told it : "My attention was attracted to the 

 Heather by its pretty little purple bells. I pulled a 

 sprig and brought it to my father, who, being a Scotch- 

 man (he is a native of Auchinblae, Kincardineshire), 

 said: 'Why, that looks like Scotch Heather!' But 

 to make sure of the matter he took it to a Scotch friend 

 of his, Alexander Skene, a gardener, then at Ando- 

 ver, Mass. A few days later we all went down to 

 the field together, and as soon as Mr. Skene saw the 

 plant he said: 'Of course, that's the real Scotch 

 Heather.' I gave a few sprigs to a girl friend of 

 mine, who Jack Dawson, then a young fellow, was 

 comin' round to see; and when he noticed the sprigs 

 of Heather on her table he wanted to know where 

 she got them. She told him, and the first thing we 

 knew the public was makin' a big time over it, and 

 the committee came down to see it. After that the 

 man who owned the land, who told father that for 

 twenty years he had been plowing the Heather up 

 to keep it from spreading over the cow pasture, think- 

 ing he could make something out of it, forbade us 

 girls to go near that spot. It's now many years since 

 I've seen the Heather. I wonder if it's as pretty as 

 It was then !" 



Under the title of "Heather and Weather," Van- 

 ity Fair, in its issue of February 22, 1862, caricatures 

 the committee of the Massachusetts Horticultural So- 

 ciety, searching for the Heather, as shown in the ac- 

 companying cartoon illustration, and comments as fol- 

 lows: 



49 * 



