3 °° 
Old Time Gardens 
of the flower of the vine, “ a scent so delicate that 
it requires a sigh to inhale it.” 
The faintest flower scents are the best. You 
find yourself longing for just a little more, and 
you bury your face in the flowers and try to draw 
out a stronger breath of balm. Apple blossoms, 
certain Violets, and Pansies have this pale perfume. 
In the front yard of my childhood’s home grew 
a Larch, an exquisitely graceful tree, one now little 
planted in Northern climates. I recall with special 
delight the faint fragrance of its early shoots. The 
next tree was a splendid pink Hawthorn. What a 
day of mourning it was when it had to be cut down, 
for trees had been planted so closely that many 
must be sacrificed as years went on and all grew in 
stature. 
There are some smells that are strangely pleasing 
to the country lover which are neither from fragrant 
flower nor leaf ; one is the scent of the upturned 
earth, most heartily appreciated in early spring. The 
smell of a ploughed field is perhaps the best of all 
earthy scents, though what Bliss Carman calls “ the 
racy smell of the forest loam ” is always good. 
Another is the burning of weeds of garden rakings, 
“ The spicy smoke 
Of withered weeds that burn where gardens be.” 
A garden “ weed-smother ” always makes me 
think of my home garden, and my father, who 
used to stand by this burning weed-heap, raking in 
the withered leaves. Many such scents are pleasing 
chiefly through the power of association. 
