24 Minnesota Academy of Science 



his was witb polypody. Dr. Hay has succeeded in establishing in 

 his garden specimens of all the trees, all the shrubs, and the most 

 notable of the herbs of his province. Northern Minnesota and New 

 Brunswick have many plants in common as the mountain cranberry, 

 \';k ( -milium Vitis-Idaea, and the Huron wild tansy, Tanacetum huron- 

 ense; but I was surprised when he pointed out as a rarity a lonely 

 specimen of a box-elder tree, and again that the hackberry was 

 wanting. His ferns were of great interest, there being splendid 

 examples of massing of the ostrich, royal and lady ferns. Rare and 

 tiny rock ferns peeped out from artfully constructed rockeries, which 

 I supposed were natural, until informed to the contrary. There I 

 saw the shield fern, named for the botanist, Goldie, which Goldie 

 himself never saw growing, but which Dr. Hay had the great pleas- 

 ure of showing to Goldie's son, when he visited the garden. Hy 

 attention was also directed to a small specimen of the much be- 

 written bake-apple, Rubrs Chamaemorus, on which a solitary, salmon- 

 colored berry was maturing. During the growing season, many 

 visitors from far and near present themselves in this trained wilder- 

 ness for instruction and inspiration. 



A wild garden is beautiful at all seasons. After the heavy 

 frosts and before the kindly snow covers up in the cultivated gardens 

 the unsightly, bare earth — suggestive of newly-made graves, — and 

 the dead bodies of nerbs, and the tender exotics, stiffly swathed in 

 winding sheets of burlap or of straw, awaiting the spring resurrec- 

 tion, I turn with pride and relief to the wild garden, whose frozen 

 ruins are graciously hidden by the shrubs, which then enliven the 

 landscape with their glowing stems and fruits. And how lovely 

 are the waving plumes of the grasses, how endless the varieties of 

 seed-pods, how marvellcus the modes of seed-dispersion! The eye, 

 no longer distracted by the brilliant flower-mosaics, sees the less 

 Haunting beauty and rediscovers "the commonplace of miracle." 



I am not an enemy of formal or cultivated gardens; although I 

 love wild gardens more and think our native plants superior, for the 

 most part, to foreign ones in beauty and appropriateness. For 

 plants from abroad, torn from their natural setting, often make a 

 false note in the landscape. Cultivated gardens have their place, 

 are seen at every hand, and need no advocacy. In fact, the founders 

 of the wild garden are desirous to establish an artificial, botanic 

 garden in connection with the wild one, wherein may be reared all 

 the leading plants of the world that can grow in this climate; thus 

 gratifying all tastes and affording at the same time inestimable 

 advantages to students. 



Why may not a large portion of the extensive Glenwood park be 

 used for this purpose? Why can we not duplicate in Minneapolis the 

 Shaw Gardens of St. Louis, the Bronx Gardens of New York city, 

 or the world-famous Arnold Arboretum of Boston? Barring the 

 primeval hemlock grove, Glenwood park has more natural advan- 

 tages, as water supply, fertility and variety of soil, than the Arnold 

 Arboretum. Such a garden would add greatly to the fame and 

 attractiveness of Minneapolis, and would be second only to the 

 public library in its educative and refining influences. 



