Life on a JVisconsin Farm 



grow up in beauty out of gray lime mud, and 

 ride gloriously among the breezy sun-spangles. 

 On our way home we gathered grand bouquets 

 of them to be kept fresh all the week. No 

 flower was hailed with greater wonder and 

 admiration by the European settlers in general 

 — Scotch, English, and Irish — than this white 

 water-lily {Nymphcea odorata). It is a magni- 

 ficent plant, queen of the inland waters, pure 

 white, three or four inches in diameter, the 

 most beautiful, sumptuous, and deliciously 

 fragrant of all our Wisconsin flowers. No lily 

 garden in civilization we had ever seen could 

 compare with our lake garden. 



The next most admirable flower in the esti- 

 mation of settlers in this part of the new world 

 was the pasque-flower or wind-flower {Ane- 

 mone patens var. Nuttalliana). It is the very 

 first to appear in the spring, covering the cold 

 gray-black ground with cheery blossoms. Be- 

 fore the axe or plough had touched the "oak 

 openings" of Wisconsin, they were swept by 

 running fijres almost every autumn after the 

 [ 119 ] 



