WILD GARDENS 



Improvement easily becomes an aiFedtation, from 

 which all healthy natures suffer periodic readtions 

 that take them to the mountains and the forest, to 

 those primeval estates loved of wild bees, of the 

 phcebe and the wren. One feels a sympathy with 

 those renegade plants known as garden escapes — 

 star of Bethlehem, bouncing-bet, and the rest — 

 which have run away from the garden for the 

 freedom of the woods and highways. The con- 

 ventionalities of spade and hoe are odious to them. 

 They wander far from the assemblage of the ele<3: ; 

 they will live wild and free, these Philistines, fol- 

 lowing the open road wherever it may lead, with 

 a sort of tramp instindt. Even the staid and do- 

 mestic apple will break away from the fold to 

 seek the unregenerate society of the pastures. 



The hemlock woods, the meadow and the bog 

 are wild gardens which require no cultivating 

 themselves, but only a certain cultivation and ap- 

 preciation in us, which they repay with gentle 



56 



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