SEMITROPICAL GARDENING. HI 



semitropical situations. Historically, the greatest gardens of the world 

 have been made in semitropical regions. 



Naturally, the grandest results in acclimation and the widest diver- 

 sity of beautiful forms of plant, flower, and fruit are to be found in that 

 favored belt of the earth's surface to which both the temperate and 

 tropical zones have given many of their best plant treasures, and where 

 these refugees from killing frosts or burning heat assume, in some 

 respects at least, a perfection of form and fruitage which they do not 

 attain in the regions of extremes whence they came. It would appear, 

 then, that when man or nature, or both together, would achieve the 

 highest results of gardening art, they have chosen a location "having 

 characteristics intermediate between, or common to, both the temperate 

 and tropical zones/' which are the words the Standard Dictionary gives 

 as a definition of subtropical or semitropical; for these two terms 

 seem to be practically interchangeable. 



Again, the semitropical garden can claim eminence for the gifts it 

 has made to gardening in the temperate zone. The migrations of the 

 Aryan nations from western Asia towards Europe, which began about 

 2500 B. c., carried into the more northerly regions of the temperate 

 zone the plants, fruits, and grains which had been gathered in the east 

 Mediterranean countries from all other semitropical regions of Asia, by 

 tribal conquest or interchange, during more remote times. From as far 

 east as China and as far south as India the choicest plants had been 

 collected to enrich the gardens of Phoenicia and Egypt. These passed 

 on the arms of conquest into barbaric Europe, and upon these fruits 

 and grains was established European civilization. What we have come 

 to look upon now as the natural products of the upper regions of the 

 north temperate zone originally came from the south, and were the 

 achievements of ages of prehistoric semitropical gardening. Very 

 creditable is it to the enterprise of the more northerly latitudes that 

 they have done so well with these legacies from an extinct Asiatic civ- 

 ilization, for they have ennobled them by centuries of selection, and 

 have added to them the grand developments made from their own 

 indigenous plants. They have accomplished wonders, also, in devices 

 for protecting these semitropical wanderers from the inclemency of 

 northern .climates. They have erected walls to ward off Arctic blasts, 

 and to concentrate upon them the heat and light from the southern 

 sun. They have spread over them thousands of acres of glass, and have 

 caused them to grow in an artificial summer heat born of stoves and 

 furnaces. 



Thus, the indulgent northmen have cherished their tender visitants 

 from semitropical lands ; thus have they learned their nature and their 

 needs, and their reward has been rich and ample. In their hearts they 



