of flower absolute; inside and outside all flower. No sparing of color anywhere, no outside coarsenesses, no interior secrecies, open as the sunshine that creates it; fine finished on both sides, down to the extremest point of insertion on its narrow stalk, and robed in the purple of the Cæsars.

John Ruskin.

Here the poppy hosts assemble:
How they startle, how they tremble!
All their royal hoods unpinned
Blow out lightly in the wind.

Here is gold to labor for;
Here is pillage worth a war.
Men that in the cities grind,

Come! before the heart is blind.

Edwin Markham.

Concerning Seed

A seed we say is a simple thing,
The germ of a flower or weed,-
But all Earth's workmen, laboring
With all the help that wealth could bring,
Never could make a seed.

Julian S. Cutler.

Of all the wonderful things in the wonderful universe of God, nothing seems to me more surprising than the planting of a seed in the blank earth and the result thereof. Take a poppy seed, for instance: it lies in your palm, the merest atom of matter, hardly visible, a speck, a pin's point in bulk, but within it is imprisoned a spirit of beauty ineffable, which will break its bonds and emerge from the dark ground and blossom in a splendor so dazzling as to baffle all powers of description.

The Genie in the Arabian tale is not half so astonishing. In this tiny casket lie folded roots, stalks, leaves, buds, flowers, seed-vessels,-surprising color and beautiful form, all that goes to make up a plant which is as gigantic in proportion to the bounds that confine it as the Oak is to the acorn.

Little brown brother, oh! little brown brother,

Are you awake in the dark?

Here we lie cosily, close to each other:

Hark to the song of the lark

"Waken!" the lark says, "waken and dress you;
Put on your green coats and gay,

Blue sky will shine on you, sunshine caress you-
Waken! 'tis morning-'tis May!"

Weeds

A weed is a plant out of place.

Edith Nesbit Bland.

Margaret Scott Gatty.

With the first faint green lines that are visible among the flower beds come the weeds, yea, and even before them; a wild vigorous straggling army, full of health, of strength, and a most marvelous power

NAMA

of growth. These must be dealt with at once and without mercy; they must be pulled up root and branch, without a moment's delay.

Celia Thaxter.

I scarcely dare trust myself to speak of the weeds. They grow as if the devil was in them. I know a lady, a member of the church, and a very good sort of woman, considering the subject condition of that class, who says that the weeds work on her to that extent that, in going through her garden, she has the greatest difficulty in keeping the ten commandments in anything like an unfractured condition. I asked her which one, but she said, all of them: one felt like breaking the whole lot. Charles Dudley Warner.

You cannot forget if you would those golden kisses all over the cheeks of the meadow, queerly called dandelions. Henry Ward Beecher.

The Young Dandelion

I am a bold fellow

As ever was seen,

With my shield of yellow,

In the grass green.

You may unroot me

From field and from lane,

Trample me, cull me

I spring up again.

I never flinch, sir,
Wherever I dwell;

Give me an inch, sir,
I'll soon take an ell.

Drive me from garden
In anger and pride,
I'll thrive and harden
By the road-side.

Dinah Mulock Craik.

The Grass

The grass so little has to do,-
A sphere of simple green,
With only butterflies to brood,
And bees to entertain,

And stir all day to pretty tunes

The breezes fetch along,

And hold the sunshine in its lap

And bow to everything;

And thread the dew all night, like pearls,

And make itself so fine,

A duchess were too common

For such a noticing.

And even when it dies, to pass

In odors so divine,

As lowly spices gone to sleep,

Or amulet of pine.

And the people said when they saw them there,
The fairy umbrellas out in the rain:

"O Spring has come, so sweet and so fair,

For there are those odd little toadstools again."

G. Packard Du Bois.

There's a thing that grows by the fainting flower,
And springs in the shade of the lady's bower;
The lily shrinks and the rose turns pale,
When they feel its breath in the summer gale,
And the tulip curls its leaves in pride,
And the blue-eyed violet starts aside;

But the lily may flaunt, and the tulip stare,
For what does the honest toadstool care?

She does not glow in a painted vest,

And she never blooms on the maiden's breast;
But she comes, as the saintly sisters do,
In a modest suit of a Quaker hue.
And, when the stars in the evening skies
Are weeping dew from their gentle eyes,
The toad comes out from his hermit cell,
The tale of his faithful love to tell.

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Five little white-heads peeped out of the mold, When the dew was damp and the night was cold, And they crowded their way through the soil with pride: "Hurrah! we are going to be mushrooms!" they cried.

But the sun came up, and the sun came down,

And the little white-heads were withered and
brown:

Long were their faces, their pride had a fall-
They were nothing but toadstools, after all.

Art in Gardens

Walter Learned.

Nothing is more completely the child of Art than

a Garden.

Sir Walter Scott.

It is said that a garden should always be considered simply and wholly as a work of art, and should not be made to look like Nature. That is true enough. Nothing, indeed, can be in worse taste than the landscape-gardener's imitations of Nature. But there is another plan. If your garden be large enough you can let Nature have her own way in certain parts of it. This takes time, but the result is eminently delightful. George Milner.