226 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[August, 



through all the year. But we blindly ignore our 

 own advantages, and persist in following Eng- 

 lish styles of bedding. We cannot put out a 

 flower till May. We have to water and water to 

 make them grow. By August, when it is too 

 hot to enjoy them, those which have fought 

 their way through the summer heats are toler- 

 able; and then the first September frost takes 

 them off. We have their blackened leaves till 

 Christmas, and bare ground the rest of the 

 time. 



We are quite sure that much more satisfactory' 

 gardening than this can be made out of nice green 

 grass and comfortable shade trees — clusters of 

 clematises and other flowering vines that defy 

 our heats, and masses and designs of shrubs 

 and dwarf, colored-leaved plants, Avith hardy 

 herbaceous plants mixed. And tlien there is the 

 great American idea underlying all this — most 

 beautiful grounds maintained at little cost. 



It is a very good time to think of these things. 

 Autumn will soon be here, when they can be 

 put into shape for the next season. 



under one foreman, go right ahead with the 

 work. I speak knowingly, for, having studied 

 carefully ere I offered my services to the public, 

 I can prove that I have had 80 men at work 

 grading a lawn for a public ground, per day, and 

 two hours time given by me, with one man to 

 drive stakes, another to carry them, secured the 

 day's work, so that it had not to be done over. 



Let us trust and hope that the time will come 

 when those who made their money (vide Hal- 

 leck) "in the cotton and sugar line," will learn 

 that a man must be taught to form a beautiful 

 landscape place in conformity to the surround- 

 ing lay of the country, the style of architecture, 

 whether it be Gothic, Italian, Grecian, Roman, 

 Doric, &c., and know just what trees and grades 

 to place and make in it. If he cannot do that, 

 he should be discarded from the list. 



C0M3IUNICA TIONS. 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



BY E. 



The remarks of B. S. Olmstead I read with 

 pleasure, for we want no more of jobbing gar- 

 deners, who work physically, and claim to be 

 landscapists ; nor do we want engineers, who 

 perhaps are capable of running a strai^t line, 

 but know no more of a graceful curve than the 

 mule Nebuchadnezzar recently poetically de- 

 scribed and published in over forty papers in the 

 States. I have never yet met an engineer that 

 could drive his stakes to a rolling line of grade, 

 but every time it would be like the quarter or 

 half pitch roof of a house ; and the generality of 

 jobbing gardeners know no more of a gentle, 

 "irregular rolling surface upon a long line than 

 the common laborer. Again, please, in making 

 of croquet grounds, I have beaten an engineer, 

 by my eye, three inches in his grade, and made 

 him confess it. A landscape gardener must be 

 capable of going upon a place, and after care- 

 fully studying the architecture of the house — of 

 which he must or should know — then he should 

 have an eye to give, first, the lines of paths and 

 roads ; second, by eye to stick grade stakes 

 every six feet, so that 20, 40, or 80 men could. 



DESTRUCTION OF THE ROSE SLUG. 



BY W. T. BELL, FRANKLIN, PA. 



Under the head of "Seasonable Hints," in 

 •June number, speaking of rose slugs, you say: 

 " The best thing of all is to set a boy to crush 

 them by finger and thumb." 



Hand picking for rose slugs is 'now out of date, 

 as you must admit after trying the following: 

 Dissolve one tablespoonful of powdered white 

 hellebore in two gallons of boiling water. When 

 cool enough to use, apply to the roses with a 

 whisk broom, bending the tops of the plants 

 over, so as to reach the under as well as the 

 ujiper side of the leaves, dashing the liquid upon 

 the plant in a fine spray. 



One application is usually sufficient for a sea- 

 son ; it is thoroughly effective, cheap, and quickly 

 applied. It is also sure death to the currant 

 slug. 



I was much pleased with your very readable 

 article on the Horticultural Department of the 

 Exhibition, and hope you will furnish us more 

 in the same vein. 



A HAPPY HOME. 



BY E. P. POWELL, CHICAGO, ILLS. 



I have had one hour of real pleasure with old 

 Mr. White, of Ellis Park. Fresh as a lark, and 

 full of enthusiasm, he was turning out his 

 greenhouses into the park, and his own lawns. 

 It is such a pleasure to find a plant-lover and a 

 horticultural scholar, that I feel five years 



