THE WILD SPRING FLOWERS OF THE FARM 



211 



succession of such beautiful flowers as the marsh-marigolds, 

 lady's-slippers. cardinal-flowers, and hibiscus, maintained 

 with a minimum of care. Why reduce everything to this 

 dead level of artificial mediocrity? 



One should not *'rob the woods," where wild flowers 

 remain, and selfishly deprive others of the pleasure of seeing 

 them there. It is better to raise them from seeds, or to buy 

 from a dealer who raises them from seeds (and not from one 

 who is making a business of robbing the woods). But often 

 when a wood is being cleared for plowing, or a new road is 

 building, the wild flowers about to be destroyed may be 

 taken up and given a place of refuge in private grounds. 



Success wdth growing wild flowers depends on one's 

 ability to take a hint from nature. Every plant has its 

 requirements of light and moisture, and one may Icam what 

 these are by observing under what conditions it thrives 

 best when wild. It is a waste of time and labor, and an 

 advertisement of stupidity, to set out wild plants where they 

 cannot possibly live. They are far better suited to informal 

 plantings than are expensive exotics, and once established 

 in suitable places they are practically self-sustaining. 



Fortimately the wood-crop and the wild flowers grow 

 well together, and flourish on rough land not suitable for 

 tillage. Fortunately for the wild flowers, also, farmers are 

 learning that the woodlot is more productive when not 

 closely pastured. Often it has seemed to be the policy of 

 the farmer to include every bit of rough woodland, however 

 little forage it might afford, inside his pasture fence, on the 

 general theory that every green thing his cattle might eat 

 was clear gain to him. But of how much value in the diet 

 of an ox is a handful of lilies ? Yet if they be eaten or tramjv 

 led out of existence, how much beauty is lost! On many 

 farms a better spirit of enlightenment prevails. The woodlot 

 is outside the pasture fence; and, protected from grazing 



