The Strange Story of the Flowers 



guide the bush aforesaid. Mr. Rossiter W. Ray- 

 mond, the eminent mining engineer of New York, 

 has given some attention to this matter of "in- 

 dicative plants." He is of the opinion that its 

 unwritten lore among practical miners, pros- 

 pectors, hunters, and Indians is well worth sift- 

 ing. Their observations, often faulty, may 

 occasionally be sound and valuable enough richly 

 to repay the trouble of separating truth from 

 error. When we see how important as signs of 

 water many plants can be, why may we not 

 find other plants denoting the minerals which 

 they especially relish as food or condiment ? 



Of more account than gold or silver are the 

 harvests of wheat and corn that ripen in our 

 fields. There the special appetites of plants have 

 much more than merely curious interest for the 

 farmer. He knows full well that his land is but 

 a larder which serves him best when not part but 

 all its stores are in demand. Hence his crop 

 "rotation," his succession of wheat to clover, of 

 grass to both. Were he to grow barley every 

 year he would soon find his soil bared of all the 

 food that barley asks, while fare for peas or clover 

 stood scarcely broached. If he insists on plant- 

 ing barley always, then he must perforce restore 

 to the land the food for barley constantly with- 

 drawn. 



A plant may diligently find food and 



drink, pour forth delicious nectar, array itself 



with flowers as gayly as it can, and still behold 



its work unfinished. Its seed may be produced 



157 



