COUNTRY LIFE
EASTER and the end of Lent (which means spring) coincided or perhaps just preceded the most exciting of dates, in short the sweet o' the year. The wild cherry, of which Housman was the laureate, opened its flowers with the plum and the pear, the chestnuts expanded the fan of their leaves and all the hedges were green. It has been as good as proved (as aforesaid) that plucking bluebells even ruthlessly does little or no harm ; but this verdict does not apply to other flowers of the moment. Primroses, which are in gorgeous bloom—some on suburban railway banks, as in Devon groves—and wood anemones both. though they are perennials tend to diminish where the greedy tripper is too frequent. One of the worst sufferers from so called flower-lovers, as was proved almost dramatically at Whipsnade, when first taken over, is the fox- glove. It is by way of. being a biennial—if any plant is quite strictly biennial—and depends wholly on seed and may be quite annihilated in too popular districts. The oxlip has been made rare by both picking and uprooting, and I have noticed bow much the cowslip multiplies under protection. It is a rapidly diminishing flower chiefly for the reason that the ley is succeeding to permanent pasture. The moon daisy is in very much the same case. The buttercup unfortunately—member of a poisonous race—seems much harder to kill.
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