376 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 233. 



flowers attained along some of the higher mountain-rills. In 

 strili;ing contrast in color was Phlox reptans, a pretty species of 

 a clear rose-purple, with long trailing runners. The May- 

 apple, or Mandrake, as it is called in many places (Podophyl- 

 lum peltatimi), was seen in every field on the edge of and in 

 every wood all through the country. In the open it grew in 

 dense patches, sometimes of nearly an acre in extent, and 

 made its presence felt by its all-pervading perfume. The beau- 

 tiful pink-purple and white Orchis spectabilis was abundant in 

 damp woods, growing usually twoor three together in a clump. 



Polygonatum giganteum well deserved its name, for in 

 many shady places the great light-green-leaved plants towered 

 so high above us that we could look into its pretty bells. It 

 was often found over six feet high. With it were always the 

 Bellvvort, Uvularia perfoliata and Oakesia sessilifolia. At a 

 higher altitude above the creek on Pond Mountain, as else- 

 where, between three and four thousand feet above sea-level, 

 O. puberula was abundant, a brighter green-leaved and much 

 more slender species than its two relatives just mentioned. 

 With it on stony, dry and hot slopes the lovely Lily-of-the 

 valley (Convallaria majalis) was at home. Its habit in its 

 native haunts is certainly very different from that which it has 

 acquired in gardens. It stands up straight and stiff from 

 among loose stones singly, never in dense clumps. At the 

 same altitude, though it was also abundant in the valley, Dis- 

 porum launginosum, grew at its best. On one widely spread- 

 ing luxuriant plant we counted fifteen of the yellowish green 

 drooping flowers; 



Along the dry summit of Pond Mountain the Virginia Snake- 

 root (Aristolochia Serpentaria), with its strange, almost sub- 

 terranean flowers and aromatic root, was a novelty to most of 

 us. Leucothoe recurva was very abundant and very luxuriant 

 along the top of the ridge. It is a beautiful little bush, two to 

 four feet high, with rather straggling slender branches, and 

 long, one-sided recurved racemes of snowy-white bells — one 

 of the most striking of the mountain shrubs. 



Early in June the valley beyond Pond Mountain was filled 

 with Laurel (Kalmia latifolia), then jhst at its best. A large 

 swampy tract of land filled with it, the spreading white cymes 

 of Viburnum cassnioides and some delicate yellow Rhodo- 

 dendron calendulaceuni made groups that any gardener would 

 covet. The Rhododendron was very often met with, though 

 with one exception never in great masses. 



Five miles east of Marion, along a hollow filled with R. 

 maximum, we found the rare Carex Fraseri. It is a singularly 

 beautiful plant. The glossy, leathery leaves are from one to 

 two feet long and over an inch wide, growing together in 

 clumps and overhanging the banks of the creek, and the 

 white spikes of flowers have somewhat the aspect of a small 

 Blazing Star (Chamaslirium Carolinianum). The latter, with 

 splendid long fluffy white spikes, we found not far from where 

 the Carex grew, but in more open sunny ground. 



Rhododendron Catawbiense was at that time in full bloom. 

 It grew in small clumps, isolated mostly along rocky ridges 

 and in the lower valleys, never in great quantities. The large 

 clusters of rose-lilac bells were very handsome. In some 

 places the flowers were so light as to be almost white. 



Along the wildest and most impassable portion of the thicket 

 it was interesting to note some very fine tall Locust trees, 

 which looked almost out of place in a truly wild state. 



A few late specimens of the queer little Obolaria Virginica 

 were still blooming, and near them a small group of the rare 

 Putty-root (Aplectrum hiemale), a curious, though hardly 

 beautiful plant. Two Lady's-slippers, the little yellow and 

 brown Cypripedium parvitiorum and the larger pinkish C. 

 acaule, were invariably found growing together, and with the 

 pretty little Swayblade (Liparis liliifolia) completed the list of 

 Orchids growing along Nick's Creek. 



Conspicuous all over the dry hillsides, where it always made 

 a gay spot in the wood, was the brilliant Fire Pink (Silene Vir- 

 ginica). Asclepias quadrifolia, one of the most graceful of 

 the Milkweed tribe, was often seen with it, and was equally 

 pretty. 



New York. Anna Murray Vail. 



Italian Garden Tools. 



T N the course of a long residence in Italy, various things 

 ■'■ have struck me as novel and interesting in the horti- 

 culture of this ancient civilization, and it has seemed to me 

 that your readers might be entertained by the same points 

 which have attracted my attention ; and to begin with, some 

 of the implements used are so novel to American eyes, and 

 have a character of their own so decided, that, perhaps, I may 

 as well start with them. 



The farmer in central Italy has half a dozen distinct tools 

 which we Americans can only describe as spades ; and one or 

 two of these Tuscan varieties of the species migiit well find a 

 place in our tool-houses. The Italian is an old hand with a 

 spade. Since the days when Romulus made use of one to 

 kill Remus, these rustic weapons have been the stand-by of 

 the Roman farmer and his Italian successor. Plows, even 

 the improved English article, are considered rather coarse and 

 ineftectual substitutes for the spade. And, indeed, no plow 

 could cut those broad, shoulder-deep trenches which are dug 

 hereabout between the Vine-rows at least every other year. 

 This trenching, by no means the lightest of the husbandman's 

 labors, serves to prune the too luxuriant Vine-roots ; but its 

 chief end, in the farmer's eye, is the ventilation of the sub- 

 soil ; a process which he holds — as countless generations have 

 held before him — to be alisolutely necessary. Superstition, 

 doubtless, has its part in this theory ; still there is no question 

 that in Italy freshly turned earth is unwholesome, and its 

 neighborhood to be shunned, above all in the cities. 



Now, for this trenching a spade like our own is sometimes 

 used, or another with a slightly curving blade ; but the favorite 

 implement, and that whicli does the neatest work, has a flat 

 blade about as long as our own and of the same width at the 

 handle, but tapering thence to a sharp point. It can be seen 

 at a glance, or rather at a blow, that this tool is much more 

 easily handled than the one-edged spade, and Italians claim 

 that this more than counterbalances its inferiority in carrying 

 power. It is, at all events, especially adapted to the use of 

 the contadina on her lonely farm, who else must wait impa- 

 tiently till a man will spare the time to dig over her garden- 

 plot ; while on land caked by a July drought its pulverizing 

 power cannot be overestimated. For summer weeding, it is 

 in great favor with the Italians, who prefer to work the ground 

 more deeply than is possible with a hoe ; though here again 

 one is often tempted to question whether so much extra labor 

 is really necessary and profitable, or whether the reason why 

 the imported hoes hang rusting in the hardware shops be not 

 rather because the Roman of old made use of none such ; 

 albeit, of mattocks — the tool from which the hoe is evolved — 

 he possessed an infinite variety. The persistence of these 

 immemorial traditions, these elementary rules of the farming 

 of twenty centuries — and who knows how much more ? — ago, 

 is curious, and at times rather irritating. 



It puzzled me for years to understand why the Italian farmer 

 made such a laborious business of the laying out of his grain 

 and grass fields. Whether on stony hill-side or on fertile river- 

 bottom, high on the slopes of the Apennines or on the scorch- 

 ing plains of Campania — in fact, under whatever conditions of 

 soil or climate — I cannot now recall a single instance of grain 

 or grass sown broadcast over a plane surface. On the con- 

 trary, after the land is, according to our notions, ready for the 

 seed, it is divided into a series of gently rounded beds. Where 

 space will permit, this is accomplished by means of a plow 

 with double mold-boards, which draws a series of parallel fur- 

 rows up and down the length of the field. The ordinary width 

 of the beds so made is two or three feet, though in grass-land 

 I have seen them six feet broad, and yesterday I passed a plot 

 of Rye which was growing along prominent ridges about a foot 

 apart, and a very poor show it made. In nine cases out of ten 

 there is no need to assist the surface-drainage by this manoeu- 

 vre, and not only woultl the extra trouble of thus preparing the 

 ground seem worth consideration, but it is a fashion which 

 puts machine-labor in mowing or reaping completely out of 

 the question. I have repeatedly tried to get some clue to this 

 custom from the farmers themselves, but only once have I 

 elicited any other answer than a gently conclusive "Cosi si fa" 

 (it's the custom); and that was when an old man appended, in 

 evident allusion to the degeneracy of our time, that the furrows 

 used to be drawn nearer together. One day, however, I dis- 

 covered in an ancient manual of farming that the Roman hus- 

 bandman practiced the self-same fashion, the only difference 

 being that he did so for a reason. His object was to prepare 

 the ground for two crops instead of one. Beans being sown in 

 the furrow as soon as the grain was reaped, and the ridge 

 plowed over them, while the decaying stubble afforded all the 

 dressing that was required in the rich Campanian soil. 



The fact is, that the further afield one wanders in this 

 country the more certain he is to be confronted by the ubi- 

 quitous ghost of Rome. Halting the other day in an unfre- 

 quented little town of Umbria, I saw among the heap of newly 

 forged tools offered for sale by the village blacksmith a spade 

 of a weird, wild shape, much as though a neat crescent had 

 been cut from its blade, leaving two sharp, little horns at the 

 corners. Now, it is obvious that, etymologically, a bidente 

 may be anything with two teeth, from_a baby down, and why 



