CHAPTER II. 



WHERE TO GROW AQUATICS. 



THE CULTIVATION of aquatics in our public parks, and the annual 

 exhibitions before horticultural societies and the Society of American 

 Florists, have been educators of the public. The cultivation has extended 

 throughout our land, and now in many private gardens, of small or large 

 proportions, aquatic gardening is to be seen. These ever-fascinating and 

 attractive gems of nature have attracted the attention and admiration of 

 multitudes, who, beholding them, desire to possess them. Yet many hesitate 

 through fear of a possible failure, or their lack of the knowledge of culti- 

 vating such chaste and apparently delicate exotics. But this is assumption, 

 for no plants grown in a hothouse or flower garden, are of more easy 

 cultivation. Our common bedding plants require much coddling during the 

 greater part of the year; cuttings are taken in August and cared for through 

 several stages until the following May or June, when the plants are placed 

 in their summer quarters, and the same course has to be again repeated eacii 

 year ; compared with aquatics the tender bedding plants are very costly. 

 Where a natural piece of water exists, and such is to be met with at 

 almost every turn (ponds of stagnant water, sluggish streams, swamps, bogs, 

 lakes), the possession of a water garden is simply a matter of planting, and 

 when judiciously done the result is a perpetual delight, a growing interest, 

 verily, a joy forever. See the tropical Lotus, its majestic foliage standing 

 above the surface of the water, and its mammoth flower buds as they burst 

 in all their oriental splendor; it is perfectly hardy, and when planted in a 

 natural pond soon takes possession of the same to the exclusion of any other 

 plant. All the European Nymphaeas, including the many new hybrids of deli- 

 cate and exquisite shades of color, are perfectly hardy. These, and the many 

 attractive hardy herbaceous plants, including the ornamental Grasses, Reeds, 



