WILD GARDENING 57 



remark that he had been waiting thirty years for an artist who 

 could do the sort of thing pictured on plate 88. 



These two effects daffodils and bluebells we can repro- 

 duce literally. There is no question about their hardiness or 

 about their looking like wild flowers, provided they are not set out 

 in lines or patterns. The third great flower show in the English 

 woods, before the trees leaf out, is made by primroses, but we 

 cannot have primroses bythe million. However, we have an 

 equally lovely yellow flower in the fawn lily or dog's tooth violet 

 (Erythronium Americanum), which carpets our own woods in 

 April. If you will keep cows and sheep out of your wood lot and 

 spend twenty dollars for one thousand bulbs of this yellow adder's 

 tongue, you will eventually carpet the forest floor with flowers and 

 produce a distinctly American effect of which you may be justly 

 proud. These bulbs ought to be collected in August. 



American woods ought to be even more beautiful than the 

 English in spring, for we have trilliums, bloodroot, and hepaticas. 

 (The hepatica is also native to Europe, but not as plentiful as here.) 

 The trillium is by far the largest white flower that will grow in the 

 woods and that blooms in the spring, and you can get one thousand 

 second-sized bulbs at two cents each. The hepatica is the earliest 

 flower we can have, and you can buy the pink, blue, or white, single 

 or double, from the regular nurserymen, or get the mixed sorts 

 collected from the wild for twenty-five dollars a thousand. Blood- 

 root can be collected for eighteen dollars a thousand, or nursery- 

 grown plants will cost about sixty dollars. It is a mistake to dig 

 these three kinds of flowers in the spring. The best plan is to 

 order them in summer for early autumn delivery. 



After the trees leaf out the shade is too dense for continuous 

 sheets of bloom either in England or America, but it is entirely 



