210 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 
midsummer, and disappear utterly above ground until 
spring comes around again; such are adder’s tongue and 
Dutchman’s breeches, and 
others that grow in the deep- 
est shades of the woods. But, 
on the other hand, the foliage 
of hepaticas and moss-pink 
is evergreen. 
Fine as are these wild 
flowers, they are rapidly being 
exterminated. Their value is 
esthetic, not commercial. The 
land they occupy is all being 
taken from them for fields 
and stock-pens. Long since, Fic. 81. Hepatica. 
they were driven from our 
doors. Of late, with the pressure of men for room, with the 
extension of fields, and especially with the pasturing of every 
bit of woodland, they are being exterminated in their last 
retreats. The time is coming when, if we would save them . 
for our posterity, we must get them back ahout our doors 
again, where we can propagate them and protect them from 
utter annihilation. They will grow there as well as in the 
woods, if planted in suitable places. Of coursc, they will not 
grow on a smoothly mown lawn; but possibly the present 
zeal for leveling everything and, having only mown lawns 
about one’s place may yet develop into something better. 
Far more beautiful than grass as a ground-cover for the 
moist bank or for the shady place where there is no trampling, 
is a growth of common blue violets or of bloodroot or of 
wild ginger. Finer than any grass, for covering a dry sunny 
bank, is a close gray-green carpet of moss-pink. Why should 
one drain the low wet spot on his grounds, when he may, by 
properly planting it, have there, through the scason, a 
