150 FLOWER-FIELDS OF ALPINE SWITZERLAND 



and red sorrel." But let me reassure these nervous 

 champions of what is " made in England." 1 will 

 be the last to slight or traduce the exquisite 

 restraint of our typical home-fields, or to despise 

 the spirit that can appreciate their charm and place 

 it higher than the charm of alien fields. The 

 inhabitants of a country are intimately affected 

 by the country's fields, and an Englishman is far 

 more a product of his meadows than even he 

 would suppose. His sturdy advocacy of a floral 

 sufficiency which stops at Dandelions and Butter- 

 cups is part proof of this. Reciprocity in Nature 

 is a very subtle and far-reaching law, and man owes 

 much of his temperament and habit of mind to the 

 landscape and its constituent parts. In this way, 

 undoubtedly, the Englishman is largely indebted 

 to the comparative taciturnity of his fields. Far 

 be from me, then, to under-rate their value and 

 their charm. 



And yet, may I not think that this value and 

 charm can perhaps be augmented ? We love and 

 revel in our native meadows as they are — their 

 Buttercups, their Dandelions, their Daisies, and 

 their Grasses : how much greater would not the 

 love and revel be if here and there a generous 

 measure of Swiss mountain-wealth were added ? 



