282 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[September, 



England and Bracken of Scotland, is indigenous 

 here also, and grows to' an enormous height — in 

 some cases completely hiding the cattle from ob- 

 servation. Along the Yosemite I saw horses and 

 cows feeding on this fern apparently with relish, 

 but here they carefully picked out what they could 

 get among the fern, and left these untouched. I 

 made a note of this as another of those curious 

 cases where two people might take opposite sides 

 in an argument, and yet both be right. The popu- 

 lation of the town is said to be eight thousand, 

 but a large proportion is made up of Chinese and 

 Indians. Statistics give 30,000 as the number of 

 all the Indians in British Columbia ; but I fancy 

 from what I have seen that there must be much 

 more than this. A Victoria gentleman told me 

 that he believed there were 20,000 within easy 

 reach of the settlements. They have in most part 

 adopted the habits and methods of Europeans, 

 live together, work together, and to a great extent 

 intermarry. The better class of Indians are very 

 neat and tidy in their clothing and habits, and 

 those who work for hire make excellent laborers. 

 Chinamen, also, are in good demand. I was sur- 

 prised to find how high labor was. A nursery- 

 man, whose grounds I visited, paid $2.50 for day 

 laborers — $35 and board per month for white 

 labor, and ^30 per month and board to Chinese. 

 Everything, however, one buys is proportionably 

 high. A newspaper for which we should pay two 

 cents costs ten. Those who want to live as other 

 people do, get along about as well as people do 

 in other parts of the world ; but if a person is de- 

 termined to save and not to spend, he can very 

 soon get a small capital to start into some business 

 enterprise. But I started to speak of the marvel- 

 ous floral beauties of the spot. Though the moun- 

 tain tops some fifty miles away are perpetually 

 white with snow, except when the morning and 

 evening sun lights them up in purple and gold, the 

 air in the town is warm, though without sultriness, 

 owing to the long day's sun (sixteen hours now) 

 warming the sheltered spots where the high moun- 

 tain ridges keep off the Arctic winds. The people 

 are fond of flowers, and almost every cottage was 

 embowered in vines, and seemed ready to break 

 down with their load of blossoms. In my early 

 life in England I have memories of whole build- 

 ings completely covered from roof to the ground 

 with sweet roses and gratefully scented honey- 

 suckles, but I have often found that early memo- 

 ries become magnified. The distance of time 

 lends an enchantment to the early view. I had 

 come to suspect that the roses may not have been 



c|uite so strong, nor the honeysuckles quite so sweet, 

 as these early memories recorded them. But here 

 they were even excelling these impressions and 

 giving a new echo to the voices of youth. The 

 tale was true. The wild English honeysuckle, 

 running up by the cottage door, rambling' under 

 the eaves to almost gable end, dropping in fes- 

 toons between the windows, and only by the aid 

 of art permitting a glimpse of the within, and 

 giving out thousands — yes, thousands of bunches 

 of their deliciously scented purple and white and 

 yellow flowers. And the roses, and the Pyra- 

 cantha, and the evergreen ivy, and the scores of 

 other things which even we in Philadelphia can- 

 not grow without much trouble — here may they 

 be seen climbing in wonderful luxuriance, or mak- 

 ing bushes, in some cases, nearly as large as the 

 habitations they adorned. Roses, yes ! How they 

 would have charmed the heart of an EUwanger 

 or a Parsons! How the enormous "Jacks," by 

 the thousand, would have made the purses trem- 

 ble of those florists who with us only get them to 

 perfection by the lavish expenditure of cash and 

 by the sweat of their brows ! The roses ! It is 

 wonderful how they do here. Even the standard 

 or tree rose is grown to an enormous extent, and 

 make the same beautiful ornaments in yards that 

 they make in the Old World. And the indige- 

 nous rose — Rosa cinnamonea or Cinnamon rose — 

 grows in a state which I may almost call grandeur. 

 I have it growing in my Germantown garden, but 

 about three feet is all the hight it cares to grow 

 for me. Here you may see bushes — nay, masses 

 — scores of feet in diameter, ten feet or more high, 

 and bearing thousands of their remarkably sweet, 

 rosy flowers, giving a fragrance to the air for long 

 distances away. In many instances the Sweet 

 Briar and Eglantine of the Old World had become 

 naturalized' and had got into the fraternal em- 

 braces of their native brother ; but these also were 

 growing with equal luxuriance, showing that it is 

 the climate which does it all. 



When the time shall come that the whole coun- 

 try shall be brought under improved speed in 

 travelling connections, and the United States shall 

 i be but a few days' reach from this now distant 

 i land, this ought to be the great rose center of the 

 I American Continent. JMot only the rose, but 

 [ numberless plants of the Old World have escaped 

 I from cultivation, and are making their way 

 through the world, on their own account, most 

 gloriously. The English daisy, the "go wan 

 fine," which Burns tells us of in "Auld Lang 

 Syne," is getting out everywhere among the grass, 



