274 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



I spoke about the twenty farm houses I passed in one afternoon 

 where there was not a sing-le vine over the porches, yet frequently 

 along the roadside I passed a vine of the coniirion ainpelopsis quin- 

 quefolia, or Virginia creeper, growing over the fence, making a beau- 

 tiful picture all during the svinimer season, and yet those people 

 living right within sight of it never utilized it. And, again, the same 

 is true of some of our most cominon shrubs. When the park system 

 was first inaugurated in Minneapolis, the first luoney that was 

 expended was sent to Eastern nurseries for shrubs to plant in the 

 park; nearly all of them are foreign shrubs. They are nice, verj^ 

 nice, but they will not compare with some of the shrvxbs along Lake 

 Calhoun and along the Minnehaha Boulevard. Right along the 

 Minnehaha Boulevard there are some native shrubs and vines grow- 

 ing, where they grew naturally, that will discount any foreign 

 varieties, that are pleasing to the eye, agreeable to the look, and in 

 the spring, in the summer and in the autumn they are ahead of 

 anything in the parks of the city that are ornamented with foreign 

 shrubs and vines. The plea I want to make is this: We have within 

 our reach these little things, cominon if you will, cheap, of course, 

 so that everybody can afford them, and why do we not use them? I 

 think our horticultural society when it publishes that primer that 

 we talked about last winter, ought to emphasize the fact that our 

 people can go out into the woods, along the streams in their own 

 neighborhoods and find enough native shrubs and vines to make 

 their homes perfect bowers of beauty. 



Let us go just a little into details: I was talking with a gentleman 

 of this city, a man who has traveled in Europe, a man who has made 

 a study of parks and park systems, and he agreed with me in this, 

 that for a tree that would color beautifully and hold its foliage for a 

 long time, he did not know of any tree in existence equal to our 

 large leaved poplar, that grows wild in Minnesota. We all know 

 what the hard maple is in that respect, and when we get down to the 

 shrubs, there is no shrub that can be planted in the dooryard that 

 will color more beautifully under the effects of the frost than the 

 cominon sumac. How many dooryards have sumac growing" in 

 them? You see young ladies and gentlemen going out on a Sunday 

 afternoon and when tliey come back they are loaded with sumac 

 leaves, and yet how many farmers have sumac growing about their 

 dooryards? Here in the city, people cover their porches and sheds 

 with these climbing vines. How many farm houses have been 

 made attractive in that manner? Take the celastrus scaudens, or 

 bittersweet; how many farmers' porches have the bittersweet grow- 

 ing over them? And 3'et there is no vine growing that during the 

 entire summer season exhibits as great beauty as does the bitter- 

 sweet with its thick dark leaves and yellow flowers and beautiful 

 in the winter with its bright golden berries. The ampelopsis is so 

 common that I need not give a description of it. I presume it is not 

 unreasonable to say that there is not one person out of ten that 

 knows or realizes that that vine is growing wild around them. I 

 have many times heard peoi>le wonder where they could get vines of 

 the kind that grew on the church up here. They do not know what 

 tlu'y are. Somebod}' comes along with a picture of the vine and 



