Old Flower Favorites 181 



ment or injury of fragile things; so in a limited gar- 

 den space, grass room under our feet, with flowering 

 vines on the surrounding walls are better than many 

 crowded flower borders. A tiny space can quickly 

 be made delightful with climbing plants. The com- 

 mon Morning-glory, called in England the Bell-bind, 

 is frequently advertised by florists of more encourage- 

 ment than judgment, as suitable to plant freely in 

 order to cover fences and poor sandy patches of 

 ground with speedy and abundant leafage and bloom. 

 There is no doubt that the Morning-glory will do 

 all this and far more than is promised. It will also 

 spread above and below ground from the poor strip 

 of earth to every other corner of garden and farm. 

 This it has done till, in our Eastern states, it is now 

 classed as a wild flower. It will never look wild, 

 however, meet it where you will. It is as domestic 

 and tame as a barnyard fowl, which, wandering in 

 the wildest woodland, could never be mistaken as 

 game. The garden at Claymont, the Virginia home 

 of Mr. Frank R. Stockton, afforded a striking ex- 

 ample of the spreading and strangling properties of 

 the Morning-glory, not under encouragement, but 

 simply under toleration. Mr. Stockton tells me that 

 the entire expanse of his yards and garden, when he 

 first saw them, was a solid mass of Morning-glory 

 blooms. Every stick, every stem, every stalk, every 

 shrub and blade of grass, every vegetable growth, 

 whether dead or alive, had its encircling and over- 

 whelming Morning-glory companion, set full of 

 tiny undersized blossoms of varied tints. It was a 

 beautiful sight at break of day, a vast expanse 



