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been given that balmy sweetness, which we must stoop to smell, 

 smacking of plowed land, a genuine soily odor, as strangely fit- 

 ting payment for its homely humility. 



The winged shaft, with its single or three or more branched 

 top, like a trinity of wax tapers, suggests a candelabrum. It is a 

 simple and noble form, unique and worthy of the attention of art ; 

 a thing fit to be chiseled in stone or raised in a base of silver on a 

 field of gold. Good nature — let us at least say when we behold it 

 afield, that it shall be our armorial emblem. 



Philip G. Hamerton in ''The Sylvan Year," and we quote 

 from so good a book with gladness, says : "Of all the plants that 

 grow the mullien in its decay comes nearest to that most terrible 

 form of human poverty, when the victim has still, to his misfor- 

 tune, vitality enough for mere existence, yet not enough to make 

 existence either decent or endurable. * * * Their misery is 

 like that awful destitution that stands clothed in the last shreds 

 and remnants of prosperity." 



To appreciate this you must see a band of old mulliens on a 

 December or January night clustered on a bare hill in a flying 

 storm, by lantern light or obscure moonlight. They take all "the 

 whips and scorns" of winter in an inflexible spirit of good nature, 

 seeming in that still upright, though lifeless form, to retain some 

 vitality. Nothing to relent or sorrow over if they could recall the 

 past. Hundreds of thousands of seeds perfected and being scat- 

 tered even now by every blast. They are grandly erect and un- 

 broken in all their ruin, like a noble character which no mischance 

 of time can overthrow. 



The Poke likewise delights the fancy in every way, though 

 antithetically. From the time its edible shoots push up into the 

 midst of the genial joys of spring all through its enchanted un- 

 foldings, till it gracefully hangs out its spreading sprays with 

 their fruitful "honors thick upon them," it is worth attention. 

 Tts fine, smooth red stems, handsome leaves and loose original 

 style of branching — which measure the successful feeding of its 

 loots — is like an inverted chandelier with all its candles set in 



