78 ORNAMENTAL GARDENING 



In general they have been excavated down to the water level,, 

 or a little below it, and abandoned because of the difficulty of 

 getting out material under water. Land on which these aban- 

 doned pits are located is greatly depreciated in value as it is 

 almost impossible to fill them. But how easily any one having 

 such a pit on land at his home could make a thing of beauty of it! 

 If its outline is not sufficiently broken and irregular he could 

 easily make it so by blasting out here and there along the edge 

 of it. Small bays and nooks could be worked out and the whole 

 could soon be sheltered by planting rapid growing trees and 

 shrubs, and along the walls in such spots an infinite variety of 

 ferns and other plants requiring shade, shelter and moisture 

 would flourish. Rich soil could be put into the water in places 

 and aquatics planted. All the Thrinax palms will flourish in 

 such places in the lower end of the state and Agaves, Aloes, 

 Rhoeo and perhaps Saxifraga. Our native Ampelopsis or wood- 

 bine and Ficus repens, also many other vines and creepers 

 might be employed in screening, and they would soon turn 

 an eyesore into a thing of beauty. 



Many of the places where phosphate has been mined might 

 be skillfully treated in a somewhat similar way and the same 

 remark applies to natural sinks or any excavation in the rock. 



Any one who loves his home and enters heartily into the spirit 

 of cultivating plants and who has taste can devise almost in- 

 numerable schemes for adding to the beauty of his place and 

 doing away with what is unsightly in his surroundings. 



