HOME SURROUNDINGS. 161 



die. At the present time, although several times it was 

 killed back almost to the ground, that wonderful jessamine 

 forms a dense, fan-shaped shade all over the end of the pi- 

 azza a foot or more in thickness, and reaching several feet 

 above the piazza roof. Almost all the year it is in bloom, 

 and as darkness settles down upon the earth its little star- ' 

 like flowers, gathered in clusters, peep out to see what the 

 stars look like, and toss their fragrant greeting abroad in 

 the air. Then, if never before, we understand what is 

 meant by the '' air being heavy with perfume." Sometimes 

 it is almost too powerful, and then we indulge a wish that 

 our much-valued jessamine was a little further away ; but 

 usually we are not disposed to quarrel with it. 



Of course the various plants and vines are the better for 

 suitable food. We don't expect people or horses to work 

 on day after day without nutriment, yet some people do 

 expect their vegetable servants, which are living things as 

 well, to exist and grow without food. Their requirements 

 are modest: on hammock land they will ask no help 

 for a few years, but on pine land they will need more at 

 first than later on. There, you see, is the difference between 

 hammock and pine land, as those who are ahead of their 

 times are beginning to discover; one, better at the start, 

 deteriorates; the other, poor at the start, constantly im- 

 proves. If some muck, rotten leaves, cow-chips, or stable- 

 manure, can be spaded into the flower-beds, before setting 

 out the plants, so much the better; but if the plants are 

 ready first, this can be done later on, although of course 

 more care must then be exercised not to disturb the newly 

 anchored roots. 



A wonderful tonic and invigorator of the growth of 

 plants, not only in Florida, but every where, is a weekly 

 or semi-weekly dose of liquid manure, made thus : two 

 buckets, or twenty pounds, of stable-manure to one barrel 



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