| HEN, AS NOW, men needed to take time to smell 
the flowers and hear the birds, withdrawing, at 
such times, to that island of quietness within. 
To cure the frenzie, common to the 16th century, 
men were told to go to the country in the spring- 
time, walk among the primroses and listen to 
the nightingale who sang more sweetly, they said, where 
the primroses grew. Who has not felt the welling up of 
tranquil happiness when the earth, warmed again by the 
sun, becomes a natural sanctuary. No, the needs of men 
do not change from one century to the next. 
Today spring comes to us with primroses in her hands in 
much the same way aS when we were thirteen colonies, 
primroses exceedingly more beautiful but loved as much as 
then. Now, in every state, primroses and gardeners have 
adopted one another. Many of these gardeners have told us 
of their feeling for primroses, fragments of which are re- 
told here. In Virginia, “Waiting for your primroses to 
bloom is the happiest thing about spring for me’’; and Con- 
necticut, “My primroses were a magnificent sight this 
spring”; and Michigan, “The primroses were a sight to be- 
hold—each one trying to outdo the previous one!” From 
New York, “How beautiful they were this year, blues, tans, 
apricots, pinks, lavenders, gorgeous yellow and deep reds’; 
and again New York, “Once more my beautiful colored 
jewels are blooming and a dozen times a day I walk out to 
see if another has opened.” Missouri, “The blues from you 
are like pictures in a catalog, positively lovely’; and Indi- 
ana, “So many find it hard to believe their hardiness here 
and when they see them flaunting their colors on my wind- 
swept hill it really does seem magical.” Massachusetts, 
“When the primroses came I had no place ready for them 
in the garden so set them in the cold frame for the winter. 
When the frame was uncovered in the spring a breath- 
taking sight greeted us for they had already started to 
bloom. This spring, again, they are just as lovely’; and 
Pennsylvania, “Now I have primroses blooming April, May 
and June’; and New Hampshire, ‘How I wanted them 
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