CULTURE OF OUR NATIVE PLANTS, 46 



any one as yet been able to give the details of a well conducted and suc- 

 cessful experiment of cultivating the Girardia flava, glauca, or pedicularia, 

 or the Trillium pictum ? Has a collection of our native asters ever been 

 made, or, if made, has it received merited attention ?* 



Again, many of our native plants are quite uncommon; so rarely met 

 with, indeed, that only the botanist can give you their names, tell their 

 habits, or claim their acquaintance. Others, though less uncommon, are 

 only met with in particular localities, though in those places very plentiful. 

 Others, again, are widely diffused, but little known, for want of careful 

 observation ; and others, so common as to be familiar to all, are little appre- 

 ciated, for the very reason that they are so well known. 



Now, what a vast field for study, pleasure, and improvement at once pre- 

 sents itself. We have the materials close at hand ; nature, ever lavish in 

 her gifts, presses them upon us, and all she asks is for us to use them. The 

 subject divides itself at once into many branches, a few of which are: — 

 1. The cultivation of our more common native plants, with a view to their 

 future improvement by high cultivation and rich manuring. 2. Hybridiza- 

 tion of garden and wild species; the production of seedlings, which, re- 

 taining all the hardiness of their wild parent, may partake, in a measure, 

 of more brilliant qualities in the more tender garden plant. 3. The pro- 

 duction of double flowers, by high cultivation or from seed. 4. The culti- 

 vation of the rarer varieties of our wild plants, the adaptation of soils and 

 exposure, with a view to their increase and more general dissemination, 

 and, as a natural consequence from this, — 5. The diffusion of knowledge 

 of the habits and beauty of all our native plants, and thus the introduction 

 of them into general cultivation as border flowers. 



To treat these different branches of our subject in order, to do full justice 

 to each, and give a detailed account of experiments which have been or 

 might be tried, would far exceed the limits of an ordinary report; therefore, 

 dwelling for a few moments on the most important, and giving but a cursory 

 glince at others, we will endeavor, in a few words, to hint at what has 

 been and what might be done, and give a short list of the flowers most 

 easily experimented upon, and of others which, from the difficulty of their 

 culture, have as yet set at defiance the attempts made to bring them into 

 cultivation. 



Our first head is one which is open to experiment for all ; no particular 

 skill is required to transplant a native flower, and by high cultivation im- 

 prove it in size, color, or growth. We have many native plants which in 

 this way have been improved. But little has been done, comparatively. 

 The field is one of great extent, and will well repay a course of well con- 

 ducted and careful experiments. Much of the effort has been desultory — 

 little noted and still less achieved, because generally estimated of little 



* Since writing the above, we have learned that F. Burr of Hingham (a botanist of 

 much experience) has a fine collection of our native Asters in cultivation, and we look 

 for the fu.ure of the experiment with great interest. Thus far it has succeeded, tb« 

 plants improving greatly. 



