Thoughts from my Garden Seat. 87 



and vehemently uproot and destroy everything that nature inclines to 

 place there, and insist on the growth of something which apparently she 

 cares very little about ? Who does not see that miginonette, larkspurs 

 and cypress vines are not nature's pets ? She expresses herself with a far 

 more hearty energy in burdock, pigweed and smartweed. These are 

 her thrifty children ; our so-called flowers are her step-sons, penuriously 

 and grudgingly brought up. What makes one thing a weed and another 

 a flower ? We have seen growing, in trodden paths by the sand and 

 dust of the wayside, weeds fairer than some green-house nurslings. The 

 weed of one country is the cherished exotic of another. Our mullein 

 flourishes in English gardens under the cognomen of the American vel- 

 vet plant, and the wild heath of her moors is our green-house nursling. 



We have thought sometimes that flowers, could they speak, would com- 

 plain of this capriciou.s standard of valuation. But the same thing runs 

 through the living world. There is one Mrs. A. who is broad and fat, a 

 coarse talker, a loud laugher, a heavy feeder, and there is another Mrs. 

 A. who is just the same, — but the world calls one of them a flower and 

 the other a weed. One is the rich Mrs. A. and the other is the poor 

 Mrs. A., and that makes all the difierence. One is designated as era 

 hon point — the other as broad and fat. One is insufferably vulgar — the 

 other is " so peculiar and original ;" in short, one is the garden plant 

 and the other the roadside weed. 



We confess to certain remorseful yearnings in favor of weeds, when we 

 observe the persistent assiduity with which nature endeavors to give them 

 a foothold in the world. How is a believer in universal toleration and 

 freedom of development to reconcile it to his conscience to give pigweed 

 and purslane no chance ? Pigweed has his jcsthetic merits ; his leaf is 

 elegant ; in good soil he becometh soon a shapely shrub. Whoso will ex- 

 amine the pink leaves of a very young pigweed through a microscope, will 

 find them frosted with a glittering incrustation of the most brilliant beau- 

 ty. A few sparkles of dew lying cradled in tho.so pink leaves have often 

 etayed our hand in full process of weeding, and raised the query, Why 

 should this be only a weed ? About smartweed, now, the question is easily 

 answered. He has no graces, no fine points; his leaves of a dingy hue 

 with dull spots — his flower of a dirty pink — his odor coarse and rank : al 

 declare him to be a weed by nature as well as position. 



One of our own ideas of a garden is a certain wild ahandona-i freedom 

 of growth, similar to what one sees in woods and hedges. Trim gardens, 

 where every plant is propped and tied, and divided with cxactesfc care, 



