568 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 249. 



has iTung out its whitish drooping fruit in tempting array, but, 

 handsome as it is, it cannot be allowed admittance to our col- 

 lection. 

 Vincland, N.J. Mary Treat. 



Gardening in the Confederacy. 



T N the twist which war times gave to southern life no interest 

 -•■ or vocation entirely escaped. Domestic economy was revo- 

 lutionized. The blockade having cut off the supply of northern 

 and foreign goods, a home-made substitute had to be contrived 

 for every article of clothing, for articles for household and for 

 farm use, and for every article of food except the plainest and 

 coarsest. Wood took the place of sole-leather in shoes, and 

 coarse homespun the place of daintier fabrics. Corn-meal 

 supplanted wheat-flour, and sorghum-syrup became the na- 

 tional sweetening, finding its way into most of the products of 

 the Confederate kitchen, from counterfeit coffee to pound-cake 

 and ice-cream. 



Gardening, of course, underwent a change along with other 

 things. Northern-grown seed, which had now come into 

 almost universal use, being no longer obtainable, every house- 

 wife was driven back upon the old-fashioned method of saving 

 her own seed. There was a touch of irony in the fact that the 

 few seeds brought hi through the blockade were flower-seeds. 

 The demands of the new household economy worked consid- 

 erable change in the product of the garden. Okra then first 

 came into general use, but I never knew a pod of it to be eaten 

 until after the war, though some families doubtless used it 

 much earlier. We grew it as a substitute for coffee. The dry 

 seeds were collected, parched, ground and infused after the 

 manner of the true Arabian berry. At first okra-coffee had 

 numberless rivals — parched meal, dried sweet potatoes, wlieat, 

 rye, and even cotton-seed, persimmon-seed and dandelion- 

 seed — but it finally, I believe, supplanted them all except rye, 

 with which it maintained a strong and lasting rivalry. iSJot in- 

 frequently heated disputes would occur between advocates of 

 these rival substitutes. In fact, some hard- time connoisseurs be- 

 came so wedded to okra-coffee, sweetened with sorghum, that 

 they were loud in resolves to drink no other even though re- 

 turning peace should bring back the genuine coffee. And 

 when I add that some of these resolves outlived the war a 

 twelvemonth, it will be seen that there must have been a great 

 deal of earnestness and sincerity in them. 



The garden assumed in tliose scant times a tenfold im- 

 portance, and great efforts were made to have good ones. 

 The need was urgent that every possible source of food should 

 be turned to account. The tithes and donations to the Con- 

 federate Government made deep inroads into all staple prod- 

 ucts of the farm. Besides the heavy Confederate and state 

 taxes, a tenth of all non-perishable articles of food for man and 

 beast was taken for the armies. What was left, beyond barely 

 enough to feed the denizens of the farm, was liable to seizure 

 on emergency by Government officers. The capacity of the 

 farm was also seriously curtailed by the impressment of work- 

 animals for the cavalry and artillery service and of the negro- 

 men as laborers on the forts and fortifications, and, to com- 

 plete the disaster, the trained and trusted servants were gener- 

 ally the first to fly to the Federal lines. As a consequence, 

 materfamilias had to conduct gardening operations under 

 great disadvantages — sometimes with unskilled hands from the 

 " quarter," oftener still with pickaninnies, scarcely moreamena- 

 ble to discipline than so many wild creatures from the woods. 



The energy of the southern wonien triumphed here as it did 

 over so many other obstacles. Vegetables enough were raised 

 not only for home use, but to give to the numerous families 

 of refugees, which every neighborhood was sure to contain. 



Medicine was the scarcest of all scarce things, and, many of 

 the country physicians being absent as field and hospital sur- 

 geons, recourse was had largely to such medicinal herbs as 

 the garden could atford, and thyine, sage, horehound and 

 other garden-grown herbs were largely depended upon in 

 sickness. The general health of the people was never better 

 than during these times of scarcity, and this happy result was 

 doubtless largely due to the more general use of simple gar- 

 den products for food, and the disuse of drugs. 



Kitlrell, N. c. O- W. Blachiall. 



If the fine art of landscape-gardening is to obtain its most 

 certain and striking effects, it must devote itself to emphasizing 

 natural characteristics. A true park is a place where art has 

 enhanced natural effects, and it can be nothmg else. What- 

 ever contributes to better determine or to empliasize natural 

 character is a resource of the art of landscape ; whatever de- 

 stroys, enfeebles or confuses that character the art. forbids. — 

 HirsclifiehV s Theorie der Gartenktinst, lyjT. 



Plant Notes. 



Celastrus scandens. 



THIS plant, which is figured in our illustration on 

 page 569, is one of those inhabitants of the forests 

 of eastern North America which, for certain decorative 

 purposes, can hardly be praised too highly, although 

 American gardeners neglect it as they neglect many other 

 beautiful native plants, because it does not come to us 

 from European nurseries, and is not, therefore, expensive 

 and fashionable. The climbing Bitter Sweet, or Roxbury 

 Wax Work, as Celastrus scandens is usually called, is a 

 plant that everybody can have, and so it is rarely seen 

 in gardens, although there is no vine hardy in our cli- 

 mate which produces such beautiful and showy fruit or 

 grows more rapidly and with less care. 



In its native wilds Celastrus scandens climbs over rocks, 

 bushes and trees, delighting in moist shady situations, and 

 often sends its slender twining stems fifteen or twenty feet 

 from the roots. The leaves are abundant, of good size, 

 and of a lively green ; the flowers are small, greenish yel- 

 low, partly perfect and partly unisexual on the same indi- 

 vidual, so that every plant produces fruit. They are ar- 

 ranged in racemose clusters, which appear at the end of 

 the young branches. In this arrangement of the flowers 

 lies the chief advantage as an ornamental plant of the 

 American over the Japanese species, which was figured 

 some time ago in these columns (vol. iii., p. 550). In that 

 species the flov^'ers are arranged in sessile axillary umbels, 

 and the fruit is completely hidden by the leaves until they 

 fall, leaving the branches covered with the open capsules, 

 which are smaller than those of Celastrus scandens. But 

 in the case of the American plant, the inflorescence being 

 racemose and terminal, the fruit-clusters, which are often 

 from four to six inches long, stand up well over the leaves 

 and make a great show for several weeks before and after 

 the capsules open. In the late autumn the leaves turn 

 clear bright yellow ; and it is at this time that the climb- 

 ing Bitter Sweet is more beautiful than in any other part 

 of the year, as then the fruit displays its brightest colors 

 and delights the eyes of every lover of nature by the bril- 

 liancy and harmony of its contrasting colors. 



Celastrus scandens is an excellent plant for covering trel- 

 lises, to ramble among strong-growing shrubs, or to drape 

 walls and other rmsightly objects. It is free-growing with- 

 out being too rampant, and it is not at all particular about 

 the character of the soil in which it is planted or about the 

 exposure which is given to it. Seedlings are easy to raise, 

 and it may be readily and quickly multiplied by layers. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



The London Chrysanthemum Exhibition. 



ONE week of rain and another of yellow fog have 

 been the unfavorable heralds and accompaniment 

 of our great annual exhibition of Chr)rsanthemums. Still, 

 bad though the weather has been and' is, the flowers are, 

 as a rule, first-rate, and the plants are equal to the best of 

 previous years. Chrysanthemums are, after all, of the very 

 best-tempered garden-flov\'ers, and the conditions must be 

 very bad indeed to cause them to fail. Exhibitions are 

 now being held everyvi'here, even our smallest towns, and 

 not a few villages, boasting an annual show of Chrysanthe- 

 mums. The horticultural journals are consequently almost 

 wholly given up to reports of them, and will continue to be 

 so during nearly the whole of November. 



Of course, the greatest of all these shows is that arranged 

 by the National Chrysanthemum Society to take place at 

 the Royal Aquarium, Westminster, in November. Here the 

 prizes are valuable, and, as a consequence, the exhibits are 

 from all parts of the country and of the best quality. 



The cut flowers are this year, as before, the most sensa- 

 tional objects at this Chrysanthemum show, and, notwith- 

 standing various efforts to break away from the practice. 



