Country Life
By IAN NIALL
Them arc a number of lovely wild blooms that are rarely if ever brought into the house, among them, blackthorn, crab apple, gorse, and hawthorn, which is said to be an unlucky thing to have indoors in any case. One might think that this is largely because houseproud women have for generations banned these things, and perhaps this is true, for they all shed petals quickly and none of them. lasts. The primrose, on the other hand, is gathered from the hedgeside, and from the sheltered meadow and the open wood the delicate cow- slip is often snatched as soon as it appears. I met a man the other day who had a basketful of cowslips which, he explaiued, were going to be made into wine, and it struck me that to
make wine from the flower is perhaps better than arranging it in vases, for, away from the soft light of the wood and the shelter of the meadow grasses, it is a sad flower, protesting its violation by wilting. Cowslip wine is potent stuff, as I know well, having sampled most of the brews that can be made from wild flowers. The wine gives more pleasure than the sight of a wilting flower, but nothing can equal the beauty of a cowslip in its natural setting, the wild apple blossom in the hedge, or the black- thorn flowering in the thicket.
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