HERE IS A brief interlude between the departure 
of winter and the reality of spring during which 
our senses are Sharpened by a rising awareness. 
It is a time when a keener perception of the 
sights, sounds, smells and feels—which collective- 
ly symbolize approaching spring — renews the 
vital forces within us. We feel a promise of soft- 
ness in the air, sense a hint of gentleness in the 
winds, smell the aromatic pungence of rising sap 
and dank earth, listen more attentively, watch with gather- 
ing excitement as the first Primroses expand and bloom — 
and suddenly it is spring. 

Spring and Primroses have been so closely associated for 
so long that in some old-country villages spring was not 
spoken of as spring but as primrose-time. This aura of re- 
generation which surrounds Primroses has been translated 
by the French as meaning Tender and Sincere Affection, by 
the English as Early Youth, or Eternal Youth. In our coun- 
try we have no Primrose woods to search out as Izaak Wal- 
ton did who thought them too beautiful to be looked upon 
“excepting on holidays’; or gather the first sunny bunches 
trimmed with purple violets, and, later, the richly fragrant 
Cowslip heads. But Primroses, as we know them, have come 
to have the same meaning. They have become the gauge 
by which we measure the progress of our spring, and though 
we do not have them massed in our woods and pastures, we 
do have them in a glorious new beauty and diversity in our 
gardens and we know the same youthful joy as the genera- 
tions who gathered and pushed their bright bunches into-the 
handleless cups and broken pitchers which serve the very 
young. 
To those who have yet to reckon their springs by their 
Primroses, it comes as a surprise to learn how scattered and 
large the family is. Primroses are commuters from the moun- 
tainous regions of Asia, the Middle Hast and from every 
country of Europe. As garden residents of this country they 
retain their natural inclination toward semi-shady situations, 
a soil kept moist by watering during the warm, dry months 
and by the addition of humus such as compost, leaf mold or 
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