August, 1922 



GLEANINGS IN B )<: li C U L T U R I'J 



rose bush, climbing up outside, festoons it 

 self over the top of the window and when 

 (lie casement is opened the blossoms peej) 

 in; beyond there is a vista througli a long, 

 green aisle of the orange grove with just a 

 glimpse of a pretty liome at the other end, 

 and in tlie distance on clear days a view of 

 the blue mountains. 



After showing you that view I would like 

 to have you turu and look at a brown bas- 

 ket of roses on my little brown sewing table 

 by another window. There are creamy buds 

 with hearts of gold, tawny buds deepening 

 to a reddish copper at the heart, blossoms of 

 a flaming salmon rose color, blood-red roses 

 and large single roses with petals of apricot 

 pink shading to.buif at the center and set 

 off by glossy foliage tipped with autumn 

 red. And the roses are as beautiful and 

 varied in shape as in color, with petals of 

 exquisite texture. It is remarkable that the 

 rose bushes, after their extravagance of 

 bloom all the spring, should have enough 

 vitality left to furnish these beauties in 

 July. 



THIS first California summer is teaching 

 us many things about irrigation. We are 

 learning that velvety green lawns, roses 

 and other flowers, fruit trees and even 

 palms must be irrigated regularly and thor- 

 oughly. We inherited a Japanese gardener 

 from the former owner of the place, who 

 explained that it would be much easier to 

 liang on to him than to coax him back if we 

 let him go, and being ignorant of conditions 

 liere we decided it might be clieaper in tlie 

 end to keep him for a montli or two. He 

 is supposed to take care of our place along 

 with a number of others and to work when 

 and how he pleases. We were quite puzzle 1 

 to discover that at times he looked like a 

 boy of twenty who came to his work on a 

 bicycle, and again he seemed to be a middle- 

 aged man who arrived in a Ford bringing 

 several fancy sorts of lawni mowers and 

 other tools. We figured it out that the 

 younger man sublet part of the work to 

 the older one, and about that time a third 

 appeared and we think a fourth has worked 

 here. We finally decided that an oriental 

 syndicate is taking care of our little place. 

 The lawn is watered by an automatic 

 sprinkler system. Our first Sunday morn- 

 ing T was awakened before five by a sou)id 

 as if a hose had started into sudden activity, 

 and by the time I had regained all my 

 senses my clothing on a chair near a window 

 was sprinkled plenty damp enough to iron, 

 my wliite shoes were slowly filling and water 

 was dripping from the windoAv sills and 

 running down the wall paper to the hard- 

 wood floors. When the man of the house 

 was persuaded to investigate, one of the 

 syndicate affably waved a greeting and re- 

 sumed his occupation of sitting on the brick 

 terrace and meditating while the automatic 

 sprinklers efficiently irrigated. Since theji, 

 some two or three times a week, when I 

 hear the sound of artificial rain about dav- 



light I leap out of bed and close our four 

 windows to the soutli and then go on and 

 close wimlows in the other bedrooms, for I 

 doubt if the rest of the family would waken 

 if tliey were half drowned. Fortunately the 

 porcli to the west shelters the four French 

 doors on that side of our bedroom, so we do 

 not have to finisli the niglit without air, but 

 the porch furniture received its share of ir- 

 rigation. Whether the Nippon gentlemen 

 love to rise at dawn or are taking advan- 

 tage of the time when the water pressure? 

 is strongest we do not know, nor are we 

 likely to ascertain from them, for apparent- 

 ly they do not understand Englisli. We 

 have been told they wilfully misunderstand 

 in order to have their own way. We Boy- 

 dens do not know anything about the Japa- 

 nese question. We only know that the re- 

 sults of the sj'^udicate 's work on our place 

 are good, but whether we can afford to con- 

 tinue such help we shall know better after 

 writing checks for the water bills. 



But it is a keeu joy to a garden lover to 

 see things grow in this irrigated, sunblessed 

 country. The former owner of our place 

 evidentl}^ did not care to grow vegetables, 

 for the nearest approach to a vegetable was 

 a tiny mint bed around a hydrant. One ot 

 my first acts was to set out a few tomato 

 plants, and how they have grown, althougli 

 T have had to irrigate them myself, for the 

 syndicate does not include them when it 

 digs nice little trenches around the roses 

 and other flowers and turns water into them. 

 A little parsley bed will be started next, and 

 then, if I can persuade the syndicate or an 

 American gentleman related to myself to 

 spade up a little piece of idle ground, there 

 Avill be Swiss chard and string beans. In 

 this delightful, mellow soil of the San Gab- 

 rial valley I believe I could use a spading 

 fork myself, but it miglit establish a bad 

 precedent. Next year we liope to start rhu- 

 barb and asparagus, and a strawberry bed 

 will displace some of the syndicate's chrys- 

 anthemums and cosmos. 



