MIDWINTER GARDENS 



darkened room, saying falteringly to the kind 

 son who has brought in some flowers which she 

 caresses with her soft touch, "I was wishing 

 to-day — We used to have them in the yard 

 — before the lawn-mower — " and saying no 

 more. I know it for a fact, that in a certain 

 cemetery the "Sons of the American Revolu- 

 tion" have for years been prevented from 

 setting up their modest marks of commemora- 

 tion upon the graves of Revolutionary heroes, 

 because they would be in the way of the sexton's 

 lawn-mower. 



Now in New Orleans the case is so different 

 that really the amateur gardener elsewhere has 

 not all his rights until he knows why it is so 

 different. Let us, therefore, look into it. In 

 that city one day the present writer accosted 

 an Irishman who stood, pruning-shears in hand, 

 at the foot of Clay's statue, Lafayette Square. 

 It was the first week of January, but beside 

 him bloomed abundantly that lovely drooping 

 jasmine called in the books jasminum multi- 

 florum. 



"Can you tell me what shrub this is?" 

 171 



