ioo THE JOY OF GARDENS 



and its own sweet will, which to-day it will bend in gentle 

 compliance to serve your own, and to-night go wandering. 



We love it all the more because it is a bit willful, and 

 because it will not be led by the rules of bittersweet, of 

 honeysuckle, or of any other climber, taking the chances 

 of its own vagaries. Manlike, you may string your nets 

 and offer support, wooing "I love you, love me back" ; 

 but the vine, responding for the hour, reaches out long 

 sprays to tempt the winds the moment you look the other 

 way. 



Fortunately vines keep on climbing whatever the 

 weather, and it is a comfort to one in the toils of the day's 

 work to know that his climbers are still aspiring. Nor 

 need we go to India or Japan for beauty. In our own 

 vacant lot is the wild grape, and many a forest oak, long 

 dead, is draped with Virginia creeper, from which a start- 

 ing plant may be taken without heaping guilt on your 

 soul. The wild grape is a jewel among the vines; beauti- 

 ful in grace and color, its leaves unsurpassed in shape, 

 it blooms in early spring and in June sheds a delicious 

 fragrance. In July its foliage is luxuriant, hiding the 

 ripening grapes. 



Your formal garden neighbor may object to reckless 

 vine planting; but why ask him at all, for the probability 

 is that he does not plant anything*? The stone wall will 

 last a century, though vine fingers are feeling their way 

 into the mortar. If it is so poorly built that it cannot 



