Masterpieces of Science 



All respond kindly to care, and were there more 

 of this hospitality, were the wild roses which 

 the botanist calls blanda and hicida, were the 

 cardinal flowers, the May flowers, and many more 

 of the treasures of glen and meadow, made wel- 

 come with thoughtful study of their wants and 

 habits, much would be done to extend the wealth 

 of our gardens. Let a hepatica be plucked from 

 its home in a rocky crevice where one marvels 

 how it ever contrived to root itself and find sub- 

 sistence. Transplant it to good soil, give it a 

 little care — it asks none — and it will thrive as it 

 never throve before; proving once again that 

 plants do not grow where they like, but where 

 they can. The Russian columbine rewards its 

 cultivator with a wealth of blossoms that plainly 

 say how much it rejoices in his nurture of it, in 

 its escape from the frost and tempest that have 

 assailed it for so many generations. 



But here we must be content to take a leaf 

 out of nature's book, and look for small results 

 unless our experiments are broadly planned. 

 It is in great nurseries and gardens, not in little 

 door-yards that "sports" are likely to arise, 

 and to meet the skill which can confirm them as 

 new varieties. 



Japan has much to teach us with regard to 

 flowers: nowhere else on earth are they so sedu- 

 lously cultivated, or so faithfully studied in all 

 their changeful beauty. Perhaps the most 

 striking revelation of the Japanese gardener is 

 his treatment of flowering shrubs and flowering 

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