HOUSE AND GARDEN 
June, 1911 
423 
Three plants of the yellow lady’s-slipper were brought in from the mountainside many years ago and they 
have taken up their new abode in a corner of the house with every indication of contentment 
beating a little faster. 
The next pulse-moving 
experience occurred in 
June. On a bright day, the 
seventh of the month, 
I went hunting pitcher 
plants in a peat bog on the 
mountainside. The water is 
clear and blue in the center 
of the pond. They say 
there is good fishing there, 
but there are no boats. 
Planks are laid across the 
roots of trees so one can 
get to the water's edge. 
Once there, I saw to the 
right of the plank on which 
I was standing, a large 
pitcher plant in full bloom, 
and beyond pitcher plants 
stretching away and away. 
Now I wanted to take a 
pitcher plant home because 
I had a water garden in 
which to let it grow while 
I watched its maneuvers 
with insects, so, armed with 
a trowel, I walked out on 
the oozy ground. It swayed 
and 1 was up to my knees 
in mire at every step. When 
it came to digging I could not drown, for I was in the bog up to 
my knees and elbows and balanced perfectly. Even Teddy, the 
dog, laughed at me from the plank from which he was too wise to 
venture, but I brought the pitcher plant home and it is growing 
lustily now in the water garden. I have raised seed enough from 
it to plant an acre. 
Just here let me say that a botanist should have a garden of his 
own to put things in from time to time for further acquaintance. 
Many haughty re¬ 
marks are made 
about what are 
called “Botanist’s 
Gardens’’ because 
they contain little 
patches of this and 
that with no gen¬ 
eral effects that 
can properly be 
called gardening. 
This need not be 
so, for what is call¬ 
ed “wild garden¬ 
ing" can be botani- 
cally valuable and 
artistically effec¬ 
tive. My garden is 
a notebook in 
which I read every 
summer the life 
history of succeed¬ 
ing generations 
coming from wild 
stock. 
The latter part 
of this same month 
gave me another 
addition to the water garden. Here let me say that I do not be¬ 
lieve in digging wild plants, because soon the beauty of our woods 
would be destroyed, but I always believe in saving wild plants. 
In this way several treasures have come to me from the plough 
of a farmer turning over a new field, or the axe of a woodman 
clearing a woodlot. It was in the last furrow of a newly ploughed 
field that 1 discovered a fine root of purple-fringed orchid. Why 
they wanted to plough the field I never could guess. It was too 
boggy to plant 
successfully w i t h 
m u c h besides or¬ 
chids and cat-tails. 
This new specimen 
found its way to 
the water garden 
with plenty of its 
own earth to fill a 
pot, and there it 
grew, among the 
water-lilies. 
The other orchids 
that gave lustre to 
the season were 
the yellow lady’s- 
slipper that grows 
in the garden in a 
thrifty patch, three 
plants having been 
transplanted many 
years ago from the 
mountainside and 
colonized; the 
showy pink-purple 
lady’s-slipper that 
(Continued on 
page 456) 
In the last furrow of a newly plowed boggy 
field was found and rescued a fine root 
of the purple-fringed orchid 
And in the garden itself there are such 
interesting things as the hollyhock’s 
pollen-covered pistil and crinkled petals 
