64 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



of these flowery meads we shall soon perceive 

 they very carefully avoid the golden cups. When 

 made into hay these plants would appear to lose 

 all their acrid and noxious qualities. 



Maplet in his book " A Greene Forest,'* tells 

 us how in his time " the valiant Beggers, most 

 cunning in that their daylie craft doe make their 

 flesh seem rawe and rancored" by the use of 

 buttercup leaves, "to the intent men may pittie 

 them the more, and give them the sooner their 

 Almes ; whereas peradventure they be as whole 

 and as lustie as those that have pittie of them 

 in very deede. But here we may percieue there 

 is a counterfayting almost in euerie thing. They 

 therefore to beguile men thus vse it. With this 

 they chafe their legges, their armes, and other partes 

 also where they will, till it blister and breake the 

 skinne, and having so done it sheweth a right 

 meruelous ill looke." To tender skins even the 

 gathering of the plants may be irritant. 



"For many years," wrote Carlyle, "it has been 

 one of my constant regrets that no schoolmaster 

 of mine had a knowledge of natural history, so 

 far at least as to have taught me the grasses 

 that grow by the roadside," and he prophesied 

 that a time would come when such knowledge 

 should be strictly required from the teacher. In 

 many of our large Public Schools the Natural 

 History Society is a valuable feature, and affords 



