GARDENING THE WILD.
Some people have suggested that we should " paint the lily to throw a perfume on the violet " by sowing the seeds of garden plants broadcast. The idea does not altogether please the countryman ; and it is astonishing, when it is done, how soon the plant disappears in the struggle for life. Ad experi- ment with the wheat plant suggested that it would totally. disappear within three or four years, though every crop was allowed to seed. However, a certain number of vagroms from the garden are numbered among our wild flowers—or so it seems likely. The poppy that we call the greater celandine is one. . The dusky geranium—beloved of bees—may be another. The double daffodil is, perhaps, a third. It is a wonder that the gay and irrepressible garden marigold is not as pievalent as the alien mimulus, which is all-conquering wherever water flows. If we intend to spread the garden, let us do it rather by planting fruit trees in hedges and by roadsides than by confusing the botanist.
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