NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



at every possible point, a vicious, persistent 

 weed. When he had begun his market gar- 

 dening and seed-raising, he frequently went to 

 the hills for wild flower seeds, planting them 

 in his garden and observing with curious inter- 

 est how the plants sometimes varied from the 

 parent plants. A certain chivalry, it may have 

 been, a desire to reclaim the daisy from the 

 company of the outcast weeds, caused him 

 to include it also in his experiments. He 

 found the daisy no less striking in its varia- 

 tions than the other plants. 



There came a day in after years when he 

 was to demonstrate again his interest in this 

 little waif, to become its champion in a still 

 larger way. For he had laid out in his mind a 

 scheme for the ennoblement of this flower ; — 

 he would lift it from its low estate among the 

 serfs and make it a ^ueen. 



In England there grew a daisy larger than 

 his little wild friend and coarser in stem and 

 flower. In Japan grew another daisy, not 

 large, but of exquisite purity of color and 

 almost dazzling whiteness. On the Massachu- 

 setts hills grew the American daisy, small, 

 tenacious of life, hardy of constitution, not so 



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