1817.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



67 



sketch his profile, for we are not yet bold enough 

 to attempt full faces. Little pegs we want to 

 stake it out. Then we plant the dark kinds for 

 the hair; the less dark for the skin ; the lightest 

 for the spots where we want the light to strike. 

 Now we let them grow, thickly too. And now, 

 in the charming month of May we come, carry- 

 ing the shears like unto the pencil, and begin to 

 cut the sketch. There ! the worthy face gradually 

 appears from under the biting shears, as the por- 

 trait does under the artist's brush. Our nice eye 

 (or two of them) calculates growth and waits a 

 week, and lo ! and behold — it has grown into tlie 

 very similitude of His Excellency, the head of 

 our Government, and will please republicans 

 and democrats alike, if it were done at the time 

 I write. 



Here, the inferior specimens of readers 

 would think, ends our art, whilst the better ones 

 know at once that here it but commences, for 

 it is compai-atively easy to make any figure out 

 of vegetable material, but difficult to prevent 

 growth to obliterate it. Hence the daily process 

 of shaving, in this instance the President, every 

 other morning and keeping up the likeness. If 

 the portrait is that of the proprietor, the intelli- 

 gent gardener has an easier task because he has 

 the original and can pinch and shave to a nicety, 

 — I mean not the original, but the counterfeit 

 presentment in ivy — on daily comparisons. 



For shirt collars we suggest Centaurea candi- 

 dissima ; for stiff whiskers, Pinus pumilio ; for 

 curly hair, Maidenhair ferns, or perhaps curled 

 Parsley ; for ladies' diamond broach, a head of 

 dwarf Chicory salad ; for why, as we go it, ex- 

 clude from our vegetable workshops the salads, 

 the cabbages and the vegetables, one and all, 

 some of them more picturesque in their forms 

 and shadings than their more aristocratic 

 brethren in the shrub and flower line. 



The reader will from these materials justly 

 conclude that we work on a large scale; larger 

 than life, say twice as large, and consequently 

 twice as natural. The larger the scale, in fact, 

 the easier the work. It may take a century be- 

 fore a gardening Mei.ssonnier may appear. 



But we must not stumble on this work of art, 

 or perchance tread, though with unwilling foot, 

 on the cherished face. How to avoid it ? Why, 

 let it be at the bottom of a hill, so that we can 

 look down on it, and fenced in by a frame of 

 Mosaics. Or, if your^lace is flat and offers no 

 elevated point whatever, sink this picture a 

 couple of feet or more, and look down upon it in 



that way. The larger it is, in the same ratio 

 must it be sunk deeper, so that you stand higher 

 above it, high enough to take it in. 



And now let us from the unsteady waves of 

 nonsense step once more on the firm shore of 

 sense. The mosaics came to us from the land of 

 Mr. Nardy, whose artists, in every branch of art, 

 excel by their talent to invention and novelties, 

 and consequently, also excel by running into ex- 

 tremes. The grotesque, the sensational, the in- 

 decent in French literature and art are but 

 weeds in their fair garden of general good taste. 

 So with floriculture. They have along with their 

 fine inventions in the gardening line, invented 

 mosaics. Now good taste abhors massing, ab- 

 hors violent contrasts. No lady wants to dress 

 loudly; to be loud is to be brassy, impudent, 

 vulgar. Our mosaic gardens will reflect the 

 souls of their conceited owners, male or female. 



So let fashion progress, give her a lift as she 

 passes, that she pass all the quicker, that the fol- 

 ly may fly faster and that we may all the sooner 

 return to gardens of — American ladies and gen- 

 tlemen. 



NOTES ON RHODODENDRONS AND SOME 

 EVERGREENS. 



BY REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER, BROOKLYN, N. Y. 

 RHODODENDRONS. 



It would be good news if we could confirm Mr. 

 Parsons' statements, that the Rhododendron can 

 be cultivated successfully in any good loamy 

 soil. My experience has not confirmed his state- 

 ments. For ten years past I have bought of the 

 Messrs. Parsons fine plants of rhododendrons and 

 planted them out at Peekskill. For a year or 

 two they did well, then languished and died oflF- 

 Several years ago I brought out from England 

 several hundred, and set them in nursery rows 

 without peat. They bloomed for two summers, 

 but were fast failing. Two years ago, I prepared 

 ground for them with abundant peat. They 

 soon revived, and this summer they stood forth 

 in perfect health and luxuriance. I now treat 

 all my azaleas, rhododendrons, andromedas, 

 &c., to a full soil of peat. Mr. Waterer last sum- 

 mer, on inspecting them, declared that nothing 

 better could be done in England. I am satisfied 

 that a full peat .soil and mulching, both in Winter 

 and Summer, but especially in Summer, is the 

 true plan for satisfactory results in rearing rho- 

 dodendrons. It is better to have a few fine and 



