198 STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOEEST. 



company with the flowers, to disfigure their charms, or 

 to atTect the sight with displeasure. But August pre- 

 sents a motley spectacle of rank and inelegant weeds, 

 that overshadow the flowers, and the beauty of the 

 fields is often hidden by the withered vegetation of the 

 last month. This appearance, however, is obvious only 

 in those places which have been disturbed by the 

 ploughshare. Where the fields still remain in a wild 

 state, nature preserves, throughout the season, more or 

 less of that harmony, which is so remarkable in the 

 •early months. Wherever the hand of man has dis- 

 turbed the order of nature, there, until she has had 

 time to repair the mischief he has done, rank weeds 

 .spring up and disfigure the prospect, while in the native 

 wilds, all things succeed one another in a delightful and 

 harmonious progression. 



It is in the tilled lands only that we observe those 

 •dreary collections of luxuriant weeds and decayed herb- 

 age, intermingled with flowers that seem, on account of 

 their beauty, to deserve a better fate. In the wilds, 

 nature always preserves the harmony of her seasons. 

 Each herb and flower appears at proper time ; and 

 ■when one species has attained maturity, it gives place 

 to its rightful successor, without any confusion, all 

 rising and declining like the heavenly hosts of night, 

 and clothing the face of the landscape in perpetual 

 bloom and verdure. Seldom do wc behold a parterre 

 that equals in beauty those half wild spots, where after 

 a partial clearing of the forest, nature has been left to 

 herself a sufficient time to recover from the effects of 

 art, and to rear those plants which are best fitted to the 

 soil and the season. 



Let the lover of flowers and landscapes who would 

 learn how to gather round his dwelling all those rural 



