23 The Wild Garden. 



nearly every country place ; generally, they never 

 display a particle of plant-beauty, and are merely 

 places to be roughly mown now and then. But if 

 planted here and there with the Snowdrop, the blue 

 Anemone, the Crocus, Squills, and Winter Aco- 

 nite, they would in spring surpass in attractiveness 

 to the tasteful eye the primmest and gayest of 

 spring gardens. Cushioned among the grass, these 

 would have a more congenial medium in which to 

 unfold than is offered by the beaten sticky earth of 

 a border : in the budding emerald grass of spring, 

 their natural bed, they would look far better than 

 ever they do when arranged on the brown earth of 

 a garden. Once carefully planted, they — ^while an 

 annual source of the greatest interest — occasion no 

 trouble whatever. Their leaves die down so early 

 in spring that they would scarcely interfere with 

 the mowing of the grass, if that were desired, but 

 I should not attempt to mow the grass in such 

 places till the season of vernal beauty had quite 

 passed by. 



Surely it is enough to have the lawn as smooth as 

 a carpet at all times, without sending the mower 

 to shave the "long and pleasant grass" of the 

 remoter f)arts of the grounds. It would indeed be 

 well worth while to leave many parts of the grass 



