THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK 



Japanese anemones. During September the Japanese anemones fully as- 

 sert themselves; the Michaelmas daisies are in the heyday of their glory; 

 dahlias are at their best; as are the majority of annuals and tender bed- 

 ding plants. October gives us late sunflowers and asters, anemones, 

 Acoiiitum Wilsoni, pompon chrysanthemums, colchicums, buddleias, still 

 a mass of flowers, and a second crop of bloom on many deciduous shrubs. 

 When November's surly blasts come to make fields and forests bare, we 

 can still find roses, anemones, chysanthemums, in some years dahlias, 

 witch-hazels, and various annuals — last November we even had fuchsias, 

 geraniums, and salvias flowering at Thanksgiving. But you will say: 

 " How about December " ? On December 2 last, during a ramble, I found 

 ten varieties of native flowers still blooming. We had quantities of Viola 

 cornnta, also primroses, pansies, and some Dianthus in flower. I say, 

 therefore, that we have much to be thankful for in the fact that, even in 

 our cold latitudes, some flowers are possiljle in practically each month, 

 and that if we consider berry-bearing shrubs, which every garden should 

 contain, not only for beauty, but because they attract our best friends, 

 the birds, to our gardens, we have a continuous panorama of beauty the 

 year through. 



All space about the home should not be devoted to flower or vegetable 

 growing. A good lawn is an indispensable adjunct; but too often, alas! 

 all we see is lawn and no flowers. The great Lord Bacon, several centuries 

 ago wrote — he had thirty acres of pleasure grounds, and he selected four 

 acres of this for a lawn without any intervention of park or parterre — 

 " Nothing is so pleasing to the eye as green grass kept finely shorn, and 

 as for the making of knots or figures with divers colored earth, that they 

 may lie under the windows of the house, on that side on which the garden 

 stands, they be but toys ; you may see as good sights many times in tarts." 



The importance of a well-kept lawn can scarce be overestimated ; it is 

 no easy matter to keep such in condition when we consider the droughts 

 we have and the hordes of noxious weeds which infest our lawns. The 

 numbers of weeds would be materially decreased if owners would stop the 

 too common practice of spreading barnyard manure on their lawns in 

 winter or early spring. This habit is a disgusting one, it is unsanitary, 

 and fills the lawns full of noxious weeds. Use chemical fertilizers, wood 

 ashes, fine bone, or pulverized manures for this top dressing. 



A flower garden is, or ought to be, a place devoted to the cultivation of 

 trees, shrubs, and flowers of an ornamental nature, planted carefully, in 

 order to give pleasure over a long season. It should always be of con- 

 venient access ; in fact, the true home garden should be a part of the home 

 itself, which many elaborate American gardens of to-day certainly are not. 

 Suitable planting round the boundaries to afiford all possible seclusion 

 should be very carefully done. Plant with some definite object, and allow 

 certain plants to develop, using others merely as temporary fillers. 



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