SB405 J6 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-one, by HENRY T. WILLIAMS, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. VAN BENTHUYSEN PRINTING HOUSE, Stereotypers and Printers, Albany, N. Y. CONTENTS. PAGE. Construction of. Beds-Beds in Lawn-Ribbon Gardening-Rockeries-Directions for ...... Annuals-Their Culture and Varieties-A List of the Most Desirable for Amateur Gar- Geraniums-Pelargoniums-The Difference between the two Plants-Their Culture Immortelles, or Everlasting Flowers and Ornamental Grasses-Acroliniums-Globe Amaranths-Helicrysums-Helipterium Sanfordii-Rodanthes-Xeranthemums- СНАРТER L THE FLOWER-GARDEN-ITS ROMANCE AND REALITY. A beautiful garden, tastefully laid out, and well kept, is a certain evidence of taste, refinement and culture. It makes a lowly cottage attractive, and lends a charm to the stateliest palace. An English writer, lately visiting our country, writes: 66 "I can conceive of nothing more dreary than to live in the country and have no garden. To have no garden is to take the poetry, and nearly all the charms away from country life. To have a garden, is to have many friends continually near. "What a difference between what Mr. Carlyle calls an umbrageous man's rest, in which a king might wish to sit and smoke, and call it his,' with its roses, and honeysuckles, and fuchsias clambering in through the very windows in crowds, and the dreary, arid prospect around thousands of American houses!" This hardly seems a fair criticism upon our homes. Having been an enthusiastic lover of flowers from childhood, and having cultivated them ever since the use of the hands was learned, I cannot recognize its truth;-have never known of many such houses, as he describes. Yet many American writers will declare that slender porticos, fanciful verandas, sculptured gables, and deep bay windows are often seen in this country, without a vestige of a flower or climbing vine about them; while in England, the poorest laborer's cot is a bower of greenery; and his little plat of flowers, often vies with that of his employer. It is not always wealth or art that gives to English homes their beauty and picturesqueness, but it is the attention of their inmates, to the cultivation of the "Green things of the earth.” It is not the latticed casement nor the high gable that attracts the notice of the traveler, but the brilliant flowers and the trailing vines that drape and embower them. American women live in-doors too much, and thus sacrifice their health and spirits. They cultivate neuralgia, dyspepsia, and all their attendant ills—rather than the beautiful and glorious flowers which God has scattered so abundantly all over the world. This little pamphlet is written for the purpose of coaxing them to come out into the sunshine, and begging them to "List to Nature's teachings." A little garden, all one's own, is a real Eden! Earth possesses no greater charm; and there is no cosmetic equal to the fresh, sweet morning air, and the cheerful sunshine. You can make no investment which will give you such interest; health, happiness, and pure enjoyment will be the coin in which it is paid; and the returns are not made semi-annually, but daily. With what intense delight one watches the first tiny leaves of the seeds one has planted; and what pleasure one takes in the unfolding of the first flower! A grand garden cared for by a gardener, can never give its possessor as much delight as one in which nearly all the work is done by one's own hands. To be sure, Pat O'Shovelem's aid is needful to prepare the ground, lay out the beds, and harden the walks; but, gentler, smaller hands can plant the seeds and roots, can keep down the weeds, tie up, stake, train, water and prune. |