WILD GREENHOUSES 17 



and beech, and are threatened into early rising by 

 the boughs overhead, whose leaves will allow no 

 flowers to blossom when they are fully come. But 

 the army of primroses which star these banks in 

 April will be in good time enough to get all the sky 

 they want. There can be no benefit to reward the 

 primrose that comes in early March before the bees 

 and butterflies are awake or even the little beetles that 

 swarm after primrose pollen have hatched from the 

 cold earth. These pale blossoms peeping rarely 

 through the old leaves are surely destined of all their 

 race to leave no progeny. Yet year after year they 

 are forced in Nature's greenhouses to speak of spring 

 long before spring is a reality. So it is with many 

 other enthusiasts. The early white dead-nettle, the 

 out-of-season daisy, the winter red campion, are cer- 

 tain to die childless if not to lose the stock also as 

 penalty of their wakefulness, yet always there are 

 a few individuals to wave their flags months out of 

 time. 



We have greenhouses within greenhouses. A 

 breaking up of the floor bids us lift up a wad of the 

 felt under which all is green with the tender clover- 

 like leaves of the wood-sorrel. The gardener cannot 

 construct a better forcing-cover than these millions of 

 leaves laid carefully one over the other, yielding to 

 the gentle push of young growth and always good 

 to keep out the few degrees of frost that filter into 

 the wood. The bluebells have thrust their spears 

 through in every direction, and the curious man who 

 takes off a square yard of the cover will find the white 

 shoots of many a summer flower. Wood-pigeons and 

 badgers, to mention only two of a great army, know 

 2 



