MAY 109 



with the gadding brambles, lighted by their 

 pretty roselings. There is no finer shrub than 

 the blackberry. From the time its strong, 

 purple canes throw their shadows on the snow, 

 through its days of foamy blossoming, its 

 greening, reddening, purpling fruitage, until 

 the last copper-crimson leaf is blown from the 

 stem, it is distinctly decorative and refined. 

 Poor it may be, and hard pressed to find the 

 wherewithal to fashion its raiment or to spread 

 its table, but ungraceful, or inhospitable, or 

 apologetic it never is, and always it is worthy 

 of Whitman's praise : 



" The running blackberry would adorn the parlours of Heaven." 



May is the month of azalea bloom, a plant 

 which certainly will share with the arbutus the 

 fate of being killed by its friends that is, if 

 friends are ever those who are ruthless flower 

 gatherers ! It is only with regard to our native 

 plants that I am a high protectionist, and here, 

 alas ! my championship of the cause avails it 

 nothing ! Men are too busy with steel rails 

 and ship subsidies, and the things electricity 

 will do, and stocks and bonds, and other un- 

 satisfying things, to think of the beautiful wild 



