246 . ANNUAL REPORT 



root. I speak of this because it is so easy a thing for anyone to 

 have in the flower garden for a retreat and resting place where 

 one, or two, or the family, or a social group of visitors, can re- 

 pose in refreshing shade, and enjoy the odors of flowers, the 

 beauty of form and color all around, the music and motion of the 

 flitting birds, the hum of insects, and all the associations that 

 make flowers agreeable. This arbor I call my private office. I 

 fancy there is no plant for an arbor equal to the wild grape. 

 The air beneath its shade seems fresher, to more "nimbly and 

 sweetly recommend itself" through the grape foliage than 

 through other vines; like that where the " temple-haunting mart- 

 let at Macbeth' s castle decorated each jutting freize and buttress 

 with his loved mansionry because the air smelled wooingly at 

 Inverness." 



"We have been much interested during the past dry summer in 

 noting the differences among the flowering plants and shrubs in 

 their apparent capacity to resist the drought. Some seem to care 

 nothing about it. Others wince a little but stand it. Still 

 others give up. Among the shrubs the strongest are the Tarta- 

 rian honeysuckles and the lilacs. Next are the Hydrangea grandi- 

 floris, the syringas, the wisterias, the clematis vitalba (virgin's 

 bower). The weakest are the spireas. We let our. snowballs 

 bloom too heavy the first season of their budding, and they are 

 weak in consequence. Others leave them in good growth. The 

 wild shrubs and small trees, as the grape, the bittersweet, the 

 ampelopsis, the scarlet thorn, the shepherdie, the wahoo, 

 the Juneberry, the sand cherry, etc., are independent of 

 drought. The boursoult climber, the blush and the Prin- 

 cess Adelaide moss are the strongest of the roses in a dry 

 season; next are the glory of mosses, the Countess de Muri- 

 nois, the black rose, and the damask; the weakest are the Scotch. 

 Of the annuals, the portulacca is queen of the desert. We often 

 wonder why this flower is so little appreciated. We fringe the 

 front slope of our garden with a long bed of it. Keep it clean 

 of any weeds by hand picking, and it seeds itself from year to 

 year and covers the slope with brilliant many colored bloom all 

 summer, and the dryer the weather is the better. It likes heavy 

 fertilizing, yet is thrifty under neglect. In thinning out the 

 volunteer plants, the colors of the bloom can be distinguished 

 by the shade of the plant itself, so that a mixing of colors can 

 be regulated to suit one's fancy. 



Next in drou'ght resisting powers are the petunias, the phlox 



