6 MY GROWING GARDEN 



Jose scale, save only two trees. The tremendous 

 old lilacs have been mutilated for their flowering 

 branches every spring of untenancy by the law- 

 less, and are as well thickly coated with another 

 no less hateful parasite, the oyster-shell scale; but 

 they are alive! There are gnarled quinces that 

 look as if fruit could not come, and the nearly 

 as much gnarled grape-vines that make up the 

 most of the planted growth are said to be rich in 

 root-knot, and to be worthless. Where I dug into 

 the soil before frost sealed it, I found little depth 

 of ground fit for a garden above the heavy shale 

 that characterizes this neighborhood. 



Here and there a pipe, or a stump, or a heap of 

 stones denotes some long-gone feature of the 

 mansion-house surroundings. Several great locusts 

 tower near the foundation remains of the burned 

 barn. There must have been some sort of a foun- 

 tain here in front of the house, and there remain 

 several forlorn old terra-cotta vases on wobbly 

 foundations. Of the seven horse-chestnuts that 

 too closely environ the house, six are more or less 

 decayed as a consequence of splitting. The two 

 branches into which each main stem was permitted 

 to separate thirty-five years ago have not had 

 strength to hold against the snow-loads, and a 

 little crack in the crotch has widened until it 



