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THE CANADIAN H0ETICULTUEI8T, 



which is a very unusual color in Jflowers. 

 Its leaflets are very pretty also. It 

 grows upon the low bushes of the 

 Northern woods, and often lends a 

 beauty to a hazel bush, which is rarely 

 very fine itself. The Apios has a tuber, 

 or a number of them, to one plant, like 

 a potato, but smaller. They are nutri- 

 tious, and would be a good substitute 

 for some of the things we eat. This 

 can be grown in a window, and would 

 be a fine ornament if the tubers were 

 started late in summer so as to throw 

 its flowering season late in the fall, but 

 as a garden climber it would be fine 

 planted amongst tall-growing summer 

 roses, as it would do them no harm, but 

 lend a beauty to them after they had 

 done blooming. Most people make a 

 mistake in trying to grow climbing 

 plants. They put up the most unna- 

 tural things for them to twine or climb 

 up, and they have to be tying, nailing, 

 and otherwise fixing their climbers all 

 the time, when, if they paid some atten- 

 tion to these plants in a state of nature, 

 they would learn a lesson. A few 

 straight sticks, if placed upright in the 

 ground amongst twining plants, will 

 lead them up to other things, so thA,t 

 they can twine and go higher. A 

 barbed wire fence can be made pretty 

 if morning glories, or even the echino- 

 cystis (wild cucumber), is sown along 

 it, and a few sticks put so that the little 

 plants can reach the wires above them. 

 The best thing for making a fence of in 

 a garden, to be ornamental, and for 

 climbers or twiners to grow upon, is 

 wire netting, with about four-inch 

 meshes. This can be bought for about 

 fifty cents a yard, and yard wide. It 

 makes an elegant low fence if everlast- 

 ing or sweet peas are sown along it ; or 

 it is improved by mixing in the taller 

 kinds of nasturtiums or ipomea coccinea 

 (scarlet morning glory). Everlasting 

 or sweet peas do best when they are 

 sown in the fall. 



The Celastnis scandens (Rocksbery 

 wax work), or commonly known as the 

 bitflersweet, is one of our best twiners, 

 and to find a fuM-grown plant of it in 

 its glory of fruit, in the winter, in oiir 

 woods, is enough to make everybody 

 want to grow it who sees it. Occasion- 

 ally one can be seen in the woods north 

 of Evanston,that the woodman's axe has 

 spared. It has grown up some trees 

 twenty feet or so, and has spread as 

 wide. It will be loaded with its bright 

 red berries, which is simply a sight to 

 gratify all ' lovers of the beautiful, if 

 seen when snow is on the ground. The 

 bright, glossy leaves of the Celastrus are 

 another recommendation for growing it 

 as a choice out-door twiner. It grows 

 abundantly on the Illinois Central rail- 

 road from Thirty-fifth street, south of 

 Chicago, but is rarely seen in fruit until 

 we reach Indiana. Our old stand-by, 

 the Virginia creeper, or Ampelopsis, is 

 a valuable plant to put upon walls or 

 trellises, but it finds difi&culty in getting 

 up if it cannot find something like a 

 piece of wire or nails to take hold of. 

 The Rhus Toxicodendron, or poison ivy, 

 is often found as a climber, and were it 

 not for its poisonous nature it would be 

 a good thing to plant against painted or 

 brick walls, as it will cling like the 

 English ivy. Its poison is more feared 

 than is needful, for if it affects any part 

 of a person's skin it is instantly neutral- 

 ized if a little soil and spittle, or a drop 

 of water, with a little ammonia in it, is 

 rubbed on the parts affected. (The 

 writer has collected fifty pounds of 

 leaves at one time, and cut tl>em up 

 fine for medicine, but did not suffer, 

 though all was done with the hands 

 bare.) Hoping the reader will excuse 

 him, the writer wishes to say that most 

 vegetable poisons on the skin, the sting 

 of bees or wasps, can be instantly ren- 

 dered harmless, or the pain removed, 

 by rubbing the parts affected with any 

 kind of soft mud. 



