pleasure and restfulness? On
the gold of the marsh marigolds edging the water? or on the silver-white
plumes of shad-bush that wave and beckon across the marshes, as they
stray from moist ground toward the light woods? Could any gay colour
whatsoever compete with the snow of May apple orchards?--the fact that
the snow is often rose tinged only serving to accentuate the contrasting
white.

In the landscape all light tints that at a distance have the value of
white are equally to the purpose, and can be used for hedges,
boundaries, or what may be called punctuation points. German or English
Iris and peonies are two very useful plants for this purpose, flowering
in May and June and for the rest of the season holding their
substantial, well-set-up foliage. These two plants, if they receive even
ordinary good treatment, may also be relied upon for masses of uniform
bloom held well above the leaves; and while pure white peonies are a
trifle monotonous and glaring unless blended with the blush, rose,
salmon, and cream tints, there are any number of white iris both tall
and dwarf with either self-toned flowers, or pencilled, feathered, or
bordered with a variety of delicate tints, and others equally valuable
of pale shades of lilac or yellow, the recurved falls being of a
different tint.

Thus does Nature paint her pictures and give us hints to follow, and yet
a certain art phase proclaims Nature's colour combinations crude and
rudimentary forsooth!

[Illustration: AN IRIS HEDGE.]

Nature is never crude except through an unsuccessful human attempt to
reproduce the uncopyable. Give one of these critics all the colour
combinations of the evening sky and let him manipulate them with wires
and what a scorched omelet he would make of the most simple and natural
sunset!

While Nature does not locate the different colours on the palette to
please the eye of man, but to carry out the various steps in the great
plan of perpetuation, yet on that score it is all done with a sense of
colour value, else why are the blossoms of deep woods, as well as the
night-blooming flowers that must lure the moth and insect seekers
through the gloom, white or light-coloured?

In speaking of white or pale flowers there is one low shrub with
evergreen leaves and bluish-white flowers that I saw blooming in masses
for the first time not far from Boston in early May. There was a slight
hollow where the sun lay, that was well protected from the wind.