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JULT 4, 1907. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



Petenon's Plantation of Peony Delicatiuima. 



<lells and began its cultivation, seems to 

 he a most forbidding and hopeless one. 

 It seems as if it would be necessary to 

 invoke a good fairy to pass her magic 

 wand over these barren places before 

 anything of beauty or value could be 

 brought forth; and yet, it has been the 

 experience of the writer to observe at 

 least a few such spots that have been 

 made productive without rubbing a lamp 

 or resorting to any other Aladdin-like 

 processes. 



It also is strange that Nature herself 

 has covered just such spots with suit- 

 able flowering plants and left a great 

 many uncovered to be completed by man, 

 but such is really the case. The flower- 

 ing plants, however, that Nature has 

 placed there have no particular value as 

 a cut flower; their mission, it seems, has 

 been to simply suggest to man what 

 should be planted there either for profit 

 or beauty, as will be shown later on. 



Beginning of Redemption. 



The next thought will be. How is this 

 work of redemption to begin? We can 

 say in a general way that if we dig 

 or blast pockets into these barren or 

 rocky places, wide and deep enough to 

 hold a sufficient quantity of good rich 

 soil, and the surface is not so precipi- 

 tous as to be washed away by heavy 

 rains, we can succeed in covering them 

 with shrubbery or low evergreens. This 

 has been successfully done. But when 

 the sides of your hogback descend very 

 abruptly, so that a foothold can scarcely 

 be maintained and the foregoing method 

 fails us, what can be done? 



And this brings us to the considera- 



tion of two specific hogbacks which have 

 been under our observation for a number 

 of years. 



A Specific Case. 



A gentleman has a beautiful estate 

 south of Reading, Pa.; its surface is very 

 undulating, with some steep hills. Near 

 the top of one of these is the mansion, 

 commanding an extensive view of the 

 surrounding country, the Schuylkill river 

 and the city of Eeading visible in the 

 distance, the Blue mountains in succes- 

 sive ridges fading away on the hazy hori- 

 zon. Overhead the banks of clouds 

 speeding across the valley cast their 

 shadows on the surface of the earth as 

 if racing along. It is a charming pic- 

 ture and to mar it all, in the center of 

 this beautiful estate there arises a bar- 

 ren red and yellow hogback in all its 

 dreary nakedness, which has defied all 

 efforts to be clothed. 



Here, Nature appears to have some- 

 what reversed the order of things. This 

 hogback is in the midst of cultivated 

 fields and a beautiful spring which sup- 

 plies the reservoir on the premises is near 

 the top of a hill, with an old Indian 

 trail leading to it, when you would nat- 

 urally expect to find the spring near the 

 bottom of the hill. 



This barren spot looked particularly 

 repulsive when you walked along the In- 

 dian trail in the direction of the spring 

 and as this was a favorite walk of the 

 owner it was decreed that the hogback or 

 barren must disappear and if possible 

 have a green covering during the entire 

 year. 



Unsucceufttl Efforts. 



Pine and cedar trees had been tried 

 without success. Pockets were dug and 

 evergreen honeysuckles planted, but at 

 that elevation so high and so dry the 

 struggle for existence became each suc- 

 ceeding year more precarious. 



Finally the owner sent for the writer 

 to help solve the problem. I went, I 

 saw, but I did not conquer immediately. 

 I approached it with great caution and 

 some trepidation, as you would something 

 uncanny or hoodooed, looked it over rath- 

 er sadly, covered as it was here and there 

 with the melancholy debris of former 

 failures. The remains of the nursery- 

 man 's stock were still there, stiff and 

 stark in death, like dead men's skulls 

 and the bleaching skeletons of a desert 

 caravan strewn about as a warning to 

 -newcomers. Of course, with so much 

 mortality covering the hogback you could 

 hardly expect me to promise anything 

 except to wander homeward and think it 

 over profoundly and seriously. 



I tried to think of every flowering 

 plant that grows on the barren summits 

 of the South Mount. At last, I 

 thought of Tephrosia Virginiana, hoary 

 pea or catgut, and what a refreshing 

 symposium of color and beauty it was 

 on the dry and barren crests of the 

 mountain! It has a root so long and 

 tough and penetrating it takes all your 

 strength to uproot it. 



Ah! I thought, if we could stretch 

 some catgut on this man 's hogback, then, 

 there would be some music when the fid- 

 dler comes along. 



Commercially, you can procure catgut 



