CHAPTER I 



CLIMBING PLANTS IN GARDENS AND 

 IN NATURE 



PLANTS of climbing habit occupy an important position 

 among those cultivated by man, either for use or for orna- 

 ment. It may be said of one of them, the grape vine, that 

 it is God's most generous gift to mankind. The records of 

 its cultivation and of the making of wine in Egypt go back 

 five or six thousand years. And the vine is as beautiful as 

 it is useful, for although it has failed to find a great deal of 

 favour in this country as an ornamental shrub, this is due 

 to our practice of valuing a plant either for its economic 

 properties or for its decorative character. It can be useful 

 or ornamental, not both. For this reason when considering 

 climbing plants for the purposes of this volume we exclude 

 those that are not used decoratively. The Cucumber, 

 Tomato, Melon, Sweet Potato, Pepper, Pea, Vegetable 

 Marrow, and Pumpkin will not for this reason come 

 under notice here, although they are all climbers of great 

 importance to man as food plants. 



Our gardens owe much of their charm to plants of 

 climbing habit. If we fail to make the best use of some 

 of them it is either because we have not discovered their 

 good qualities or we do not treat them in a way that 

 enables them to display their habit to the best advantage. 

 The curse of many climbers is the gardeners' method of 

 '* training" them. Examples of the worst kind are the 



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