Yes, Mr. Editor, you shall have, at some future time, seeds of these my favorites; and hope you will admire them no less than I do, although you are surrounded by the cultivated flora of Eastern gardens and greenhouses, while J have, as yet, few other than these, the spontaneous growth of our prairies, in all their native wildness, and, of course, most fully appreciate their beauties.

[We shall be greatly delighted to have the promised seed; they shall have a choice place. - Ed].

Iowa Prairie Sketches #1

I have just returned from a short walk, and while walking have been, as the preacher says, "looking for my text." I have examined but a small por- tion of one page of Nature's voluminous book, but oh, what gems of thought do I find written there ! How shall I select any one of these, and describe its varied beauties? What hand, well skilled in art, can infitate, what pen- cil delineate these varied forms? What dyes can reproduce such rich hues as these? Or can Persian looms weave textures soft and curious as compose the petals and foliage of these plants? Nature, when thou dost work, all the race of man may look on and admire, and strive to imitate, but vain is the effort, impotent the skill, for thou, Nature, art but the pencil, the dye, the loom, the varied machinery by which mind Supreme paints, forms, creates for man, to lead his finite mind "through Nature up to Nature's God !"

Mr. Editor, could I but hold up before you and your many readers the promiscuous, hastily gathered, yet delicate and richly colored bouquet, which now lies before me, I might lay down my pen and say no more, for description is tame and dull, when the eye rests on the real object. But' this I can not do; therefore I must classify, specify, describe, and when I have done, many will no doubt lay down the page and say, " Why here is but a little more, after all, than the common Golden Rod, Sun-flower, and Aster !" Well, the remark is true; for although the prairie is now thickly studded with floral gems, yet our autumnal flowers nearly all belong to the great natural order Composite, and the Genera Solidago, Helianthus, and Aster are the principal families to which these individuals belong.

But let us examine our bouquet a little. Here are nine species of the Aster tribe; take one of each, and arrange them in almost any careless manner that you may, then hold them back and look. Is there nothing here to admire? What say you to the soft, silky, pubescent foliage of the Aster sericeus, with its dark, slender, wire-like stem, supporting such a weight of bloom? to the A. multiflorus, with its masses of delicate, pearly-white flow-rets, and its finely cut foliage? or to the A. Tradescanti, var. fragilis, with its graceful lilac-purple panicles? Is there no beauty in these? Compare with any one of them, the most cosily artificial of the shops, for which you exchange your gold, and say, is the imitation any thing like as perfect, in form, outline, or coloring, as this which has sprung from the earth, and been nourished by sunshine and shower 1 Nay, nothing like it, you on comparison admit. Ay, in the Aster family alone there are beauty and grace inimitable.

Let us look further. Of the Golden Rod, (Solidago.) I have four species, viz.: S. altissima, S. rigida, and S. Missouriensis, with their golden crests and nodding plumes, and the S. serotina, with fine, soft, dark colored leaves contrasting finely with its pale yellow umbel. Arrange them with several other species of the Solidago, according to their height, etc., in contrast with some dark foliaged evergreen in your grounds, and there, carefully nurtured, let them thrive and bloom, and in the autumn of a future year, tell me if you would willingly see them removed from your selected nook, to " bloom unseen" again on the broad wild prairie. Here is a Helianthus, with tall stalks and many branches full of bright yellow sun-flowers, which contributes its share of show and brightness to the autumn landscape.

Two of the Liatris family are also here, Liatris scariosa, most beautiful in the bud, and L. spicata, with its tall slender spike of bright violet purple flowers; and two of this family, L. pycnostachya, and the cylindrica, less stately than the former, but not less beautiful, have bloomed and perished with the summer days. The Liatris is, I believe, almost wholly western, but not unworthy a place in the cultivated grounds of eastern connoisseurs.

I have a thistle too, Cirsium Virginianum, the only species of thistle I have observed in Iowa, and from what I have seen of its habits, I do not suppose it is a very troublesome enemy to the agriculturist.

A few flowers not syngenesious are also here. The Lobelia siphylitica, "blue as an Italian sky," shaded and penciled with pearly white, with half-parted lips seems to say, Would you not like to have me live beside the little stream which flows from your fountain, and rippling through your grove, hides itself among the roots which drink its water? And there, by my side, I am sure my more showy sister, L. cardinalis, with her scarlet robe, would be a welcome guest, and oft attract your admiration.

Other beauties, Gentiana pneumonanthe, "deeply, darkly blue," and a variety of the same, rubricaulis, together with a pale cream-colored blossom of the labiates, (a stranger to which neither Eaton nor Wright, Wood nor Gray, has yet introduced me,) with a branch of seed pods of the Baptisia, completes the list of this wild garland.

How kind the hand which scatters so profusely all over this unbroken soil, such beautiful tokens of his loving, care, thereby cheering and enlivening the hearts of the lonely settler's family for long years, in which he labors to inclose his land, tills, and builds, and provides food and comfort for his loved ones, before he could dare indulge in the luxury of a well-cultivated flower garden, greenhouse, etc, and for which - did not these fairies of spontaneous growth come in to fill the vacancy - the more refined portion, and especially the little ones, would look back with yearning hearts to the eastern homes they have, from various causes, been led to leave, and long for them as did the wandering Israelites for the flesh pots of Egypt.