anging seasons by
their growth, blossom, and decay, nothing can seem more artificial than
the modern show-beds of full-grown plants which are removed by assiduous
gardeners as soon as they have flowered, to be replaced by others, only
in turn to bloom and disappear. These seem to form a real garden no more
than does a child's posy-bed stuck with short-stemmed flowers to wither
in a morning.

And the tiresome, tasteless ribbon-beds of our day were preceded in
earlier centuries by figured beds of diverse-colored earths--and of both
we can say with Bacon, "they be but toys, you may see as good sights
many times in tarts."

The promise to Noah, "while the earth remaineth seed-time and harvest
shall not cease," when heeded in the garden, brings various interests.
The seed-time, the springing-up of familiar favorites, and the
cherishing of these favorites through their in-gathering of seeds or
bulbs or roots for another year, bring pleasure as much as does their
inflorescence.

Another pathetic trait of many of the old-time flowers should not be
overlooked--their persistent clinging to life after they had been exiled
from the trim garden borders where they first saw the chill sun of a New
England spring. You see them growing and blooming outside the garden
fence, against old stone walls, where their up-torn roots have been
thrown to make places for new and more popular favorites. You find them
cheerfully spreading, pushing along the foot-paths, turning into
vagrants, becoming flaunting weeds. You see them climbing here and
there, trying to hide the deserted chimneys of their early homes, or
wandering over and hiding the untrodden foot-paths of other days. A
vivid imagination can shape many a story of their life in the interval
between their first careful planting in colonial gardens and their
neglected exile to highways and byways, where the poor bits of
depauperated earth can grow no more lucrative harvest.

The sites of colonial houses which are now destroyed, the trend, almost
the exact line of old roads, can be traced by the cheerful faces of
these garden-strays. The situation of old Fort Nassau, in Pennsylvania,
so long a matter of uncertainty, is said to have been definitely
determined by the familiar garden flowers found growing on one of these
disputed sites. It is a tender thought that this indelible mark is left
upon the face of our native land through the affection of our forbears
for their gardens.

The bot