The weather is most extraordinary, throughout February, March and up to this time, April 10th, it has been just like spring. Many of the men have laid out flower gardens, and some have even planted seeds and beguile themselves into believing it possible they may remain to see them grow. The fields and adjacent woods are full of wild flowers and many of them have been transferred to the soldier’s plots, especially the bluet, a tiny, modest flower, which here covers with its beauty the banks and shady nooks of woods. The dainty anemone, which grows profusely in damp places, is also much in evidence; these garden patches look very pretty, and are much thought of.
Cicero considers that a garden is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without which, he says, “buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks,” which proves that men’s tastes are much to-day what they were nineteen centuries ago.
