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good-natured pity. But in other ccuntries it is 
a flower, and called the ‘American velvet 
plant.” 
“We confess to a homely enthusiasm for 
clover—not the white clover, beloved of honey 
bees—but the red clover. It holds up its 
round, ruddy face and honest head with such 
rustic innocence! Do you ever see it without 
thinking of a sound, sensible, country lass, 
sun-browned and fearless, as innocence always 
should be? We go through a field of red 
clover like Solomon in a garden of spices. 
There is the burdock too, with its prickly 
rosettes, that has little beauty or value, except 
(like some kind, brown, good-natured nurse) 
as an amusement to children, who manufacture 
baskets, houses and various marvelous uten- 
sils of its burrs. The thistle is a prince. Let 
any man that has an eye for beauty take a view 
of the whole plant, and where will he see more 
expressive grace and symmetry, and where is 
there a more kingly flower? To besure, there 
are sharp objections toitin a bouquet. Neither 
is it a safe neighbor to the farm, having a 
habit of scattering its seeds like a very heretic. 
But most gardeners feel toward a thistle as boys 
toward a snake, and farmers, with more rea- 
son, dread it like a plague. But it is just as 
beautiful as if it were a universal favorite. 
What shall we say of mayweed, irreverently 
called dog-fennel by some? Its acrid juice, its 
heavy, pungent odor, make it disagreeable; 
and being disagreeable, its enormous Malthu- 
sian propensities to increase render it hateful 
to damsels of white stockings, compelled to 
walk through it on dewy mornings. Arise, 
Oh! scythe, and devour it! 
The buttercup is a flower of our childhood, 
and very brilliant in our eyes. Its strong 
color, seen afar off, often provoked its fate, for 
through the mowing lot we went after it, re- 
gardless of orchard grass and herd grass, 
plucking down its long, slender stems, crowned 
with golden chalices, until the father, covetous 
of hay, shouted to us, ‘Out of that grass! out 
of that grass! you rogue!” 
The first thing that defies the frost in spring 
is the chickweed. It will open its florai eye 
and look the thermometer in the face at 32°; it 
leads out the snowdrop and crocus. Its blos- 
NATURE'S REALM. 
som is diminutive; and no wonder, for it be- 
gins so early:in the season that it has little 
time to make much of itself. But, as a har- 
binger and herald, let it not be forgotten. 
You cannot forget, if you would, those golden 
kisses all over the cheeks of the meadow, 
queerly called dandelions. There are many 
green-house blossoms less pleasing to us than 
these. And we have reached through many a 
fence, since we were incarcerated, like them, 
in a city, to pluck one of these yellow flower 
drops. Their passing away is more spiritual 
than their bloom. Nothing can be more airy 
and beautiful than the transparent seed-globe— 
a fairy dome of splendid architecuure. 
As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks and 
valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a 
garden without them, both for their own sake 
and for the sake of old-fashioned folks who 
used to love them. Morning glories—or, to 
call them by their city names, the convolvulus— 
need no praising. The vine, the leaf, the ex- 
quisite, vase-formed flower, the delicate and 
various colors, will secure it from neglect while 
taste remains. Grape blossoms and mignon- 
nette do not appeal to the eye; and, if they 
were selfish, no man would care for them. 
Yet because they pour their life out in fra- 
grance they are always loved, and, like homely 
people with noble hearts, they seem beautiful 
by association. Nothing that produces con- 
stant pleasure in us can fail to seem beautiful. 
We do not need to speak tor that universal fa- 
vorite—the rose. As a flower is the finest 
stroke of creation, so the rose is the happiest 
hit among flowers. Yet, in the feast of ever 
blooming roses, and of double roses, we are in 
danger of being perverted from a love of sim- 
plicity, as manifested in the wild, single rose. 
When a man can look upon the simple, wild 
rose, and feel no pleasure, his taste has been 
corrupted. 
But we must not neglect the blossoms o: 
fruit trees. Whata great heart an apple tree 
must have! What generous work it makes of 
blossoming! It is not content with a single 
bloom for each apple that is to be, but a pro- 
fusion, a prodigality of blossom there must be. 
The tree is but a huge bouquet. It gives you 
twenty times as much as there is need for, and 
