Summer Meeting. 77 



cultivation and a rich soil. The blooms will be from six to eight inclies 

 across and show striking red in the garden. 



A plant to grow on a bank or terrace is Artemesia, the small variety, 

 which grows two or three inches high. If you plant two dozen of them 

 eighteen inches apart they will spread and in six months cover the ground. 

 It does not get to be a nuisance as some others, and holds the soil well; 

 Of the tender perennials for bedding, the old varieties are not as popular, 

 but the rare ones appeal now to our fancy. The Geranium has some 

 popular new forms which are better than the old. The best is S. A. 

 Nutt, which is hardy and showy. Lantana is one of the best bedding 

 plants and once established, blooms through the summer and is not in- 

 fluenced by the hot dry months. 



Hardy Annuals. — These grow from seed sown, then after blossoming 

 they seed themselves and come up again the next season. Portulaca may 

 be used with pretty effect around rose plants, white by white roses. 

 Portulaca are out of bloom part of every day and stands all conditions 

 of weather. The California and Mexican Poppies are also prolific and 

 attractive bloomers. Tender annuals must be seeded each year. Annual 

 Phlox is one of the best, although it may not live through the summer, 

 sc it is well to plant a second crop when the first one lags. Chinese pinks 

 are not showy in beds but are satisfactory for vases. Zinnias too are 

 satisfactory though they drop off in the summer as phlox does. 



THE PASSING OF THE BIRDS. 



(Otto Widmaan, St. Louis, Mo.) 



The question is often asked : Why is it that we have so few birds now 

 •n places where they were plentiful formerly? Many are inclined to be- 

 lieve that the gun alone is to be blamed for this rapid diminution of bird 

 life in all well settled parts of the country. Fortunately we here in the 

 Mississippi Valley cannot yet complain as much as those in the older 

 paits of the United States, especially New England. When we take up 

 a late list of the Birds of Massachusetts w^e find repeatedly the gloomy 

 annotation "once common, now rare," and among them are such well 

 known, beautiful species as the Red Headed Woodpecker, and the lovely, 

 much admired Purple Martin. 



In Europe conditions are still worse ; much so in the United King- 

 dom of Great Britian and Ireland, from where nearly all the larger birds 

 have disappeared, and on the continent conditions are not much better 



