MARCH 47 



turning the last frosts and the first rains to 

 account by their swelling and expanding scales 

 and fronds, that the Indians gave this month 

 the name of " The Green Moon." Bradford 

 Torrey happily says that "The North 

 American Indians had a genius for names 

 as the Greeks had for sculpture and for 

 poetry." For thoughts reaching into the 

 heart of things also, he might have added. 



The mosses are the true aristocrats of that 

 kingdom for which I devoutly wish we had a 

 better name than vegetable. Theirs is the 

 longest pedigree and the proudest conscious- 

 ness of a great work done to make the world 

 habitable. Forgotten in the great rush of 

 modern life, they cling to the rocks and hide 

 in the forests for the most part, but they love 

 to haunt neglected walls and old roofs, giving 

 the grace of their colour and texture to crumb- 

 ling decay, and welcoming remembering winds 

 and rains, quite careless of the poor creatures 

 called men, who are but for a day. 



The wall is to be broken here and there by 

 shallow buttresses. Against these ivies cling, 

 and the beautiful Japanese ampelopsis. There 

 is an evergreen, climbing euonymus, which is 



