278 COME INTO THE GARDEN 



class of material, or else take only a specimen 

 here and there, and then with due regard to 

 doing the ones left no injury. For although the 

 wild flowers that will naturalize in the garden 

 are sturdy and sometimes rampant growers, it is 

 true that the choicest are elusive and highly 

 susceptible to injury and that, through the care- 

 lessness of collectors who injure perhaps an en- 

 tire stand in taking a specimen, many are 

 rapidly becoming extinct. 



It is possible and of course highly desirable 

 to carry bloom throughout the spring, summer, 

 and autumn with just wild flowers, although we 

 do commonly associate them with the vernal 

 season especially. This is perhaps because the 

 first comers find us more eager for signs of awak- 

 ening vegetation, while later on so much engages 

 attention there is no time for all. Of the plants 

 given, the season of bloom is given also, together 

 with the preference for sun or shade — where 

 such preference exists — but I have made no 

 special distinctions as to soil, since all except 

 the heaths will accommodate themselves usually 

 to ordinary conditions below ground. 



Of these it is understood that leaf mold such 

 as they dwell in when growing wild, formed by 

 the annual deposit on the ground of the leaves 

 of the forest — which also serve as a general 



