20 THE ROOT HOUSE. 



rose, the late honeysuckle, or the everlasting pea 

 round its stem, that every inch of ground may be- 

 come available. The tall, naked stem of the young 

 ash looks well, festooned with roses and honey- 

 suckles. Wherever creeping flowering plants can 

 live, let them adorn every nook and corner, stem, 

 wall, and post : they are elegant in appearance, 

 and many of them, particularly clematis, are deli- 

 cious in fragrant scent. 



If flowers are planted in round or square plots, 

 the same rule applies in arranging them. The tall- 

 est must be placed in the centre, but I reccomend a 

 lady to banish sunflowers and hollyhocks from her 

 plots, and consign them to broad borders against a 

 wall, or in clumps of three and three, as a screen 

 against the north, or against any unsightly object. 

 Their large roots draw so much nourishment from 

 the ground, that the lesser plants suffer, and the 

 soil becomes quickly exhausted. Like gluttons, 

 they should feed alone, or their companions will 

 languish in starvation, and become impoverished. 

 The wren cannot feed with the vulture. 



The south end or corner of a moderate flower 

 garden should be fixed upon for the erection of a 

 root house, which is not an expensive undertaking, 

 and which forms a picturesque as well as a most 

 useful appendage to a lady's parterre. Thinnings 

 of plantations, which are every where procured at 

 a very moderate charge, rudely shaped and nailed 

 into any fancied form, may supply all that is need- 

 ful to the little inclosure ; and a thatch of straw, 

 rushes, or heather, will prove a sure defense to the 

 roof and back. There a lady may display her 

 taste by the beauty of the flowers which she may 

 train through the rural frame-work. There, the 

 moss-rose, the jessamine, the honeysuckle, the con- 



