FLORICULTURE 477 



"stick out a vine," and it can be done at any odd time and in any 

 sort of a way, and here is where the greatest number of failures 

 occur. If the same vine with the same care (or lack of it) had been 

 set in the field or along the fence, it would have been more apt to 

 grow. The side of a wall is the place of all others that is not already 

 prepared to receive a plant that is to climb, and this is emphatically 

 true with new walls where the material, instead of being earth, is 

 a mixture of mortar and brick, ashes, lath and plaster, in short, 

 the refuse of the building not yet subdued by time and enriched 

 by the overgrowth of grass. Remove all such rubbish by the bushel 

 and in its place supply a mixture of rich soil and good manure. 

 Into this favorable soil place the well-rooted vine as carefully as 

 one would set a young orchard or vineyard plant. The plant is 

 peculiarly exposed and needs a guard placed around it, or it will 

 get pulled up, trodden down or otherwise destroyed. Water is occa- 

 sionally needed, and the stems sometimes require aid in getting 

 hold of the wall, if an ivy, or the support that must be provided for 

 it while the vine is small, weak and tender. 



The nurserymen carry a full line of climbing plants, and there 

 is no excuse for any one being long deprived of any vine for which 

 he or slje has a peculiar fondness. Nearly all are grown with com- 

 parative ease, and some increase almost too rapidly after they 

 become established. The honeysuckle propagates abundantly and 

 the matrimony vine needs to be kept from spreading along the 

 ground. When once a vine is started, as a rule, the hoe, as well as 

 the pruning knife, are needed to control it, which leads naturally to 

 the consideration of the care of vining plants. It only need be said 

 that any vigorous plant, so situated that its climbing habit is 

 humored, easily gets beyond the bounds that the owner has pro- 

 vided for it. A Japanese ivy, or other quick grower, may weave a 

 live curtain to a spare bedroom window when inhospitality or other 

 cause has kept the guest chamber closed, or ply a lacework to a shut- 

 ter before the month at the seashore or mountains is past. But 

 these accidents, or rather incidents of growth, will not obtain with 

 those who give a weekly or almost daily glance at the progress the 

 climbers are making. They will get too thick in some places, and 

 if left untouched, a "bunchy" effect is produced, or possibly nature 

 will clear it all away when in some gale the unkempt vine is torn 

 from its moorings and cast toward the ground, when at last the knife, 

 too long withheld, is applied to remove the unsightliness while the 

 mother bird mournfully and noisily contends for her rights in the 

 debris where her household lies in ruin. He who plants a vine sets 

 for himself the task of watching its growth, which the true lover of 

 plants will naturally enjoy. A good rampant vine, and none other 

 serves its purpose as a screen and cover, will no more take care 

 of itself than the morals and manners of a wide-awake and well- 

 equipped boy. 



The ivies will need as a rule to be limited to the walls of brick 

 or stone. If covering a brick chimney, there will be some effort 

 made to keep them from the woodwork, where they would hold 



