WILD PLANTS WORTHY OF CULTURE. 



]U1ITISH AND IRISH WILD PLANTS WORTHY OF CULTURE 



AND IMPROVEMENT. 



By F. W. BuRBiDGE, M.A., V.M.H.* 



*' Believe me, nature is much prettier as looked at in the garden or 

 through a camera, than it is as seen along the barrel of a gun." > 



It seems peculiarly appropriate that we should consider the best, most 

 useful and beautiful of our wild or native plants on the day of days that 

 is sanctified by the very name St. George of England. The fact, however 

 well known, cannot be too much emphasised, that some at least of our 

 very best fruits, vegetables, and flowers are garden or cultivated develop- 

 ments of wild plants found in our woods and meadows or along the sea 

 -shore. It has been said that " charity begins at home," but the English 

 people have never been quite satisfied with that proverb, and whilst often 

 utilising to some extent the best of home productions, they have ever 

 had a strong weakness for acquiring the best productions of other 

 countries as well. The average Briton — " the man in the street " — is like 

 Mr. Harold Skimpole: he wants but little in this weary world — " the best 

 of everything " being good enough for him, and, moreover, he is not 

 happy till he gets it. 



Old Thomas Fuller told us that in 1600 we imported cherries, apples, 

 and other fruits from the Continent, and " hardly had a mess of rath-ripe 

 peas except from Holland, which," he drily adds, " were dainties for 

 ladies — they came so far and cost so dear." 



Even as late as 1776, when Adam Smith wrote his " Wealth of 

 Nations," he took some trouble to point out what then was true, viz. that 

 gardening was practised as an amusement by so many well-to-do people that 

 market gardeners could make but small profits, since the rich " supplied 

 themselves with all the most precious products of the garden." Nowadays we 

 have changed all arguments under these heads, and many — even if not most 

 — of our farm and garden products are brought to us "from afar," as Fuller 

 has it, and they cost us actually less in our markets than the products 

 grown at home. Adam Smith's argument has lost its force, since the 

 increase of population and of industrial and commercial prosperity has 

 created demands never even dreamed of a century or even half a century ago. 



Thanks to cold storage, quick transit, and cheap freights, fruit and 

 vegetables, and even flowers are welcomed and profitably brought to our 

 shores from abroad, often at times when our own supplies are consumed 

 or out of season, and still the finest produce of our own gardens also 

 realises good prices when at its best. 



I think it was Tennyson whose bugle note rang out sharp and clear 

 in the beautiful charge to artists and all other men who do anything : — 

 " Take the thing that lieth nearest, make of that thy work of art," 



and so let us for the moment take the wild plants of our rocks and fells, 



* This paper was to have been read on April 23, 1901 ; but, as a general emergency 

 meeting of the R.H.S. was obliged to be held on that day, it was agreed to defer it 

 until the publication of this number of the Society's Journal. — F. W. B. 



