MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



Wild-turnip, with its quaint green flower in 

 some dark nook, that is like its home in the 

 forest— the Maiden's-hair thriving in the 

 moist shadow of rocks ; and among these trans- 

 planted wild ones of the flower-fold, I like to 

 drop such modest citizens of the tame country 

 as a tuft of Violets, or a green phalanx of the 

 bristling Lilies of the Valley. 



Year by year, as we loiter among them, after 

 the flowering season is over, we change their 

 habitat, from a shade that has grown too dense, 

 to some summer bay of the coppices ; and with 

 the next year of bloom, the little ones come in 

 with marvellous reports of Lilies, where Lilies 

 were never seen before — or of fragrant Vio- 

 lets, all in flower, upon the farthest skirt of 

 the hill-side. It is very absurd, of course; but 

 I think I enjoy this more — and the rare intelli- 

 gence which the little ones bring in with their 

 flashing, eager eyes — than if the most gentle- 

 manly gardener from Thorburn's were to show 

 a Dahlia, with petals as regular as if they were 

 notched by the file of a sawyer. 



Flowers and children are of near kin, and 

 too much of restraint or too much of forcing, 

 or too much of display, ruins their chiefest 

 charms. I love to associate them, and to win 

 the children to a love of the flowers. Some 



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