206 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap. 



evident enough; for, while the English think no- 

 thing of the Hawthorn^ the Americans think no- 

 thing of the Arbutus, the Rhododendron, the Kal-- 

 mia, and hundreds of other shrubs, which are 

 amongst the choicest in England. The little dwarf 

 brush stuff, that infects the plains in Long Island 

 under the name of Kill-Calf, is, under a fine La- 

 tin name, a choice green-house plant in England, 

 selling for a dollar when not bigger than a handful 

 of thyme. Nay, that accursed stinking thing, with 

 Si yellow {lower, called the ^' Plain-Weed,^^ which 

 is the torment of the neighbouring farmer, has been, 

 above all the plants in this world, chosen as the 

 most conspicuous ornament of the front of the 

 King of England's grandest palace, that of Hamp- 

 ton-Court, where, growing in a rich soil to the 

 height of five or six feet, it, under the name of 

 " Golden Rod,^^ nods over the whole length of the 

 edge of a walk, three quarters of a mile long and, 

 perhaps thirty feet wide, the most magnificent per- 

 haps, in Europe. But, be not too hasty, Ame- 

 rican, in laughing at John Bull's king ; for, I see, 

 as a choice flower in your gardens, that still more 

 pernicious European weed, which the French call 

 the Coquelicot, and the English, the Corn-Poppy, 

 which stifles the barley, the wheat, and especially 

 the peas, and frequently m^akes the fields the colour 

 of blood. 



331. This is quite suflicient to show the power 

 of rarity in aflixing value on shrubs and flowers. 

 The finest flowering trees and shrubs in England 

 have been got from America. The Wild Cherry, 

 which they call the bird-cherry, which here grows 

 sometimes to the height of a hundred feet and one 

 of which I can now see from my windpw more 

 than seventy feet high ; the Locust, most beautiful 



