THE GARDEN-ROOM 45 



I may remark that the Indian corn in the picture is 

 also grown by me. Green corn is a pleasant vegetable, 

 and I surprise Americans who come to see me by 

 giving them that familiar dish. Let them have but 

 that, and ice, and a squash pie, and they ask no more 

 but to be allowed to talk about themselves and their 

 noble country. This concession I freely and willingly 

 grant. The advantage is all on my side. Of course 

 the corn in my photograph is no longer green. Some 

 we annually permit to ripen for next year's crop. 



Upon a small garden-room gourds are rather clumsy, 

 and I only have light annual things that leap aloft 

 swiftly, and do not annoy the regular residents with 

 their tendrils and other attentions. Ipomcea is first 

 favourite, and grandiflora and other varieties of "Bona- 

 Nox " are beautiful. I like also versicolor a cheerful 

 thing, that frets the dying green of summer with its 

 scarlet and white blossoms, and only gives up with 

 the first frost. I hear that amphicarpa monoica should 

 be grown by everybody, and I know that thunbergia 

 alata should be. This last, however, does better as a 

 trailer indoors ; and when you see fifty pots of it 

 along the front of the conservatory stage, you will be 

 pleased. Such a grateful spectacle puts a man into 

 a good temper, when many better things may fail to 

 do so. Humulus japonicus, the variegated hop, I much 

 like and always grow ; dolichos lablab I scorn, and he 

 had hardly flowered with me before I banished him 

 for ever. Cobaea scandens will often survive a winter 

 here ; but I care not very much for him, because he 

 made trouble in my conservatory, and ramped there, 



