256 
NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
Gran 
fields. 
House- 
JSlowers_ 
wheat, the reddish hue of the ripened corn, the 
waving greens of the barley, oats, and wheat 
upon the hill-sides, are mere patches of local 
color, but they add greatly to the landscape ; 
and where the bright yellow of ripe wheat is seen 
in vast masses, it is very impressive. The 
wheat-fields of Dakota and Minnesota, where 
once forty and fifty thousand acres of grain 
stood in unbroken reach from horizon to hori- 
zon, were almost as sublime as the ocean, and 
grander far in light and color than the tall grass 
of the prairies. Yet one can never escape the 
feeling that this is nature under the lash— 
nature more for man’s sake than for her own 
sake. Her efforts are cramped to utility. The 
product is not what would be grown, but what 
must be grown. One cannot help feeling in the 
same way about the cultivated shrubs upon the 
lawn, and the flowers that grow in the Persian- 
carpet beds, the ugly little road-borders, and 
the glass houses. Beautiful they are, but their 
flush is hectic and they smell of the perfumery 
shop. They are nature’s frailer children, and 
have not the vitality nor the wild, untamed 
beauty of the flowers growing on the meadows 
and the prairie. 
And lastly, the smallest and the humblest of 
