WAY-SIDE HINTS 



upon it; but what our horticultural friend at 

 a railway station may do (if done well) is 

 of vastly more profit. It is in the way of being 

 seen; it is in the way of being seen of those 

 who are not immediately engrossed with other 

 care than the easy care of travel; it gives sug- 

 gestions to them in their most accessible moods. 

 To this day I think I have fixed in my mind 

 many a little gracefully arranged parterre of 

 bloom, only petunias and pansies and four 

 o'clocks, may be, which I saw only a few mo- 

 ments on some day, now far gone, in other 

 latitudes, and of which the scant memorial is 

 but some jotting down upon a foreign note- 

 book, followed by a scant pencilling of the ac- 

 tual adjustment, so far as the brief stay al- 

 lowed of transcript. 



The chemists tell us that the air of cities and 

 their neighborhood is richer in available nitro- 

 gen (in shape of ammonia or nitric acid) than 

 the air of the country, by reason of the out- 

 pourings from so many chimney-tops, and the 

 attendant processes of combustion. May not 

 the cinders and the fine ash and the gases 

 evolved from a great highway of engines al- 

 ways puffing and smoking in the lower strata 

 of the atmosphere contribute somewhat, and 

 that not inconsiderably, to the pl?.nts found 



167 



