380 
The Garden Magazine, August, 1923 
My mother’s flowers were not the giant super Narcissus, 
which the Holland hybridizers are giving us now. They were 
just the early white Polyanthus, the Campernelle Jonquils, the 
Trumpet Majors, Butter-and-eggs, and the little round-petaled, 
yellow, deliciously scented Jonquil, whose breath could sweeten 
even the hand of a Lady Macbeth. They were, and their de¬ 
scendants are lovely, though they can not compare with the 
insolent spectacular beauty of the newcomers from Holland. 
I hese run almost four inches in diameter and are so large that 
you hardly believe your eyes and say to yourself even when 
looking at them that no Daffodil was ever that big outside of 
dreams or a catalogue. 
In May, 1863, a battle was fought in and around that garden 
—horses charged over its beds and borders, cannon crushed down 
its soil: acrid airs blasted its blooms. Amid the riot of its bloom 
on that far May day soldiers gave up their lives in order that 
others might carry the flag to victory. They mingled their 
blood with the flame of the flowers. Some of them were buried 
there, and above their dust the Roses glowed like broken hearts. 
In the deserted garden they slept until the Government removed 
them to the National Cemetery at Vicksburg. 
Five years after the war was over my father brought his 
family back to the plantation. The dwelling house had been 
“STARS” IN MRS. WILDER’S 
ROCK GARDEN 
Narcissus runs like a line of light 
along the path in Louise Beebe 
Wilder’s new garden at “Little 
Balderbrae,” Bronxville, N. Y., 
lending pleasant height and con¬ 
trast to the low-growing rock plants 
which fill the chinks with color 
burned. There was not even 
a heap of ashes to mark its 
site. It was as though it had 
never been. Nature had in¬ 
solently reasserted her sway 
over the garden. Docks had 
invaded its beds and Black¬ 
berries found there a home. 
In the wild tangle of weeds 
and briers a few Roses tena¬ 
ciously clung to life. Their 
blooms were small, their per¬ 
fumes faint, like sighs from 
lips longing for “days that 
are no more.” As it was 
summer when we returned, 
there was no trace of the 
Narcissus. But when the 
spring returned they flashed 
among the weeds a thousand 
blooms. It was as though 
the Milky Way had fallen, 
set not with its tiny twink- 
lers of pale pearl but ablaze 
with the large glad stars of 
the mad naked summer night 
of which Whitman so raptur¬ 
ously sang. 
We transplanted all of 
them to our new garden. 
There they came back to 
their pre-war loveliness. We 
have some of the stock yet. 
To-day in my garden the 
little sweet Jonquil is greet¬ 
ing the mocking-bird with 
the same odors its ancestors 
sent up to the skylark in 
English airs. 
If you are convinced and are going to have masses of Nar¬ 
cissus, get busy and buy them now. If you do not, you may 
not be able to get them in the future. For the Federal Horti¬ 
cultural Board still lives and the quarantine is abroad in the 
land. In thirty-four months an embargo on Narcissus goes into 
effect. When I tell you that we import annually from abroad 
more than sixty million Narcissus and that all the novelties and 
finer varieties originate in and are only to be had from Holland 
and England, you can have some idea of what this embargo will 
mean! It is nothing more or less than an assault and battery, 
with intent to kill and murder, upon beauty. For fifteen years 
I have bought Narcissus and from houses all over the United 
States and never a disease in a bulb. 
Crowned Heads in Stately Procession 
T O GET this six or eight weeks of bloom of which 1 speak, 
you must plant different varieties. No one kind of Nar¬ 
cissus blooms more than a week or two. There are early and 
late varieties. Some catalogues list more than two hundred. 
If one is just like another except for a slightly more crinkled 
trumpet or a cup with the thirtv-third of an inch more of scarlet, 
then it gets a different name and sells at a much higher price.. 
