Title: American homes and gardens
Identifier: americanhomesgar00newy (find matches)
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Architecture, Domestic; Landscape gardening
Publisher: New York, Munn and Co
Contributing Library: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden
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400 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS June, 1906
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Wild Honeysuckle or Pink Azalea Mountain Laurel Closed Gentian red lily of July, for instance, growing at the roadside, is pulled by the hundreds by ruthless hands for the purpose of beautifying the church. Often the tiny bulb is dragged out of its sheltering crevice, and so is lost to all the summers to come. Picked thus, in great tight bunches, and crowded into vases for altars or communion tables, it can hardly glorify God nor be enjoyed by man." There are even now a few old-fashioned gardens still in New England and all of them show many wild flowers. In one of these noted gardens near Newburyport the wild asters stand tall in large bunches along the outer edge of wide borders, beautiful, from cultivation, in coloring and develop- ment of flower. Let the children know the country not for one but for many summers. It will always be a pleasure to recall the stony pasture where the columbine nodded its pretty head. The brook, where the cardinal flower showed bright and stately on its brink. The corner by the old stone wall, where the gentian grew. The meadow, white with blossoms of the wild strawberry. Teach the children to love flowers evenastheJapanese love them. It is said that no nation excels the Japanese in the ar- rangement of flowers, and the reticence they display in their use especially commends itself to every one. At Yokohama there is a school for floral arrangement at the head of which is a woman whose ancestors for three hundred years have devoted each one a lifetime to the plac- ing of flowers in the most artistic ways. This art enters into their social entertainment—flowers being given to any noted guest for arrangement. Teachers in their Nature study work can be most helpful to any community by showing the children how to love flow- ers in the right way. Not so very long ago the pupils of one of the primary grades in Chicago were taken thirty miles to see the flowers on the lowlands of the Des Plaines River. The teacher and children before starting on the trip agreed to bring back memory pictures and but few flowers. Before their return journey each little one gathered a blossom and seemed perfectly content to take no more. The day had been one of beautiful enjoyment. The moral tone had been up- lifted by coming close to Nature, directed by great delicacy and good taste. Such an experiment repeated all over our country would help to do away with the destruction of our native plants to a very large extent. At all events it is clear that active steps must be taken for the preservation of our native plants. Much time has been lost and much harm done by earlier indifference. «^ '•

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