CHAPTER VI 



THE WILD GARDEN 



TO THE purist it may seem an impertinence to trans- 

 plant the flora of other lands to any of those parterres 

 of nature's garden we are pleased to call "ours" when 

 so many of our native wild flowers offer delightful possibilities as 

 yet little realised by American gardeners. But let him remember 

 that the commonest wild flowers we have, for example, the daisy 

 that now whitens the fields throughout the United States and 

 Canada, was unknown on this continent until it smuggled its 

 passage across the Atlantic in the hay used for packing the early 

 Colonists' china. Very many other so-called weeds the 

 exquisite Queen Anne's lace or wild carrot, the dusty white yarrow, 

 the buttercup that spangles our meadows, and "succory to match 

 the sky" - to name only a few among many are merely natural- 

 ised foreigners, not natives, that thrive far better here, however, 

 than they did at home, just as the Irish and Italian immigrants 

 do. When nature does not fix sectional limitations, why 

 should we ? 



Along the roadsides leading to old homesteads, we commonly 

 find the European tansy's shining yellow "bitter buttons" sug- 

 gestive of the time when tansy tea was supposed to cure most of 

 the ills that flesh is heir to. Bouncing Bet, another European, 

 ran away long ago from the New England women who used to 

 make a cleansing, healing lather from the leaves of this soapwort; 

 and now the white or pinkish blossoms swell the small list of "our" 

 fragrant wild flowers. Tawny orange lilies, that once had their 



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