72 A WHITE-PAPER GARDEN 



over to it, and to whatever else the wind cared 

 to add to it by way of seedlings. The gentle 

 little silvery grass just spoken of should be 

 there ; the aristocratic blue grass the tall, 

 soldierly timothy, with its purple-fringed 

 banners ; the redtop in which one sees a fore- 

 cast of oak-woods in autumn ; the foxtails ; 

 the quaking grasses, and many another whose 

 names I do not know, but of whose beauties I 

 am sure. To be perfect, this garden would 

 slope downward to a marshy hollow, where 

 wild rice and many sedges would grow, and 

 should rise to a hill-crest down which winds 

 should race over billowing, golden wheat, or 

 grey-green oats. Maize would be planted in 

 a field so close at hand that all the summer 

 would be filled with the music of its leaves, 

 whisper, whisper, whispering ; and somewhere 

 about should be a patch of broom corn and of 

 sorghum to show how regal are the growths of 

 these largest grasses of the temperate zone. 

 Of grasses alone a most lovely garden could 

 be made, but among them what a succession of 

 other things would give themselves permission 

 to grow ! Dandelions would be almost the 

 first comers, unbuttoning their flat rosettes of 



