DAISY GROWING 83 



daisy, primrose, harebell, cowslip, and hyacinth are, 

 for old association's sake, welcomed in the gardens 

 of many a New Zealand home. 



It may appear to our readers that to cultivate a 

 daisy is driving a hobby rather hard, but happily 

 the point has never arisen in our experience, for 

 the simple reason that the fair wildling comes 

 unbidden, but is none the less welcome. The 

 " wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower " may seem 

 a blemish to the martinet gardener, as it gems 

 his verdant turf, 1 but we do not grow that sort of 

 gardener, and those who come into our domain 

 must accept us, hobbies and all. 



The daisy is pre-eminently the flower of the 

 poets. Burns sings of the " Sheets o' daisies 

 white," and over and over again dwells on their 

 charm. Wordsworth compares the daisy to " a 

 silver shield with boss of gold," to "a queen in 

 crown of rubies drest," to "a little Cyclop with one 

 eye," to "a nun demure of lowly port," while both 

 Milton and Shakespeare write of the " daisies 

 pied." 2 Pied in the old writers is a word used 

 to express a sharp contrast of colour, as in the 



1 "Daisies, ye flowers of lowly birth, 

 Embroid'rers of the carpet earth, 

 That stud the velvet sod/' 



CLARE. 



' Thus Shakespeare in the " Tempest " uses the epithet 

 " pied-ninny/' as being equivalent to jester or fool, from the 

 gay parti-coloured clothes of the professed fool. 



