November 17, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



455 



Last spring I sent an order to Holland for one hundred 

 Naegelias in five kinds, but the nurseryman through some 

 mistake sent me fifty kinds, and I have had great pleasure in 

 watching their growth and blooming. The first one began to 

 blossom in August and has sent up spike after spike, and is 

 now, after two months, at the end of October, covered with 

 flowers. These plants are ornamental in foliage as well as 

 in flower. The leaves are nearly heart-shaped, toothed on 

 the edges and of an almost fleshy substance, but their beauty 

 consists in their plush-like service. Some are bright green, 

 some have a green ground with broad black, brown or red 

 veins ; some have broad patches of crimson on a yellow 

 ground, some are olive with edges of green and crimson, 

 with black veins ; but it is impossible to describe the variously 

 colored leaves so as to give a clear idea of them, as no two 

 varieties are exactly alike. These colors are mostly due to a 

 covering of short hairs distributed over nearly all of the upper 

 surface. 



The flowers are as varied as the foliage. Nearly all have 

 throats of white or yellow or both thickly or sparsely dotted 

 with brown, crimson or pink. In some cases there is a broad 

 margin of rose or pink or crimson ; in some cases the color of 

 the throat, yellow or white, shades insensibly into these other 

 colors ; sometimes the flowers are of a pure, unspotted yellow, 

 blush or white. They are also of elegant shape and are 

 thrown well above the foliage in pyramidal spikes. 



The Naegelias are not inclined to dry off of themselves, and 

 I usually cut them off at the ground at the end of November, 

 however fresh they may seem at the time ; for, while the 

 rhizomes may, perhaps, not need rest, they are not hurt by 

 being compelled to take it, nor could they well be divided if 

 kept growing; moreover, if the pots containing them can be 

 put away under the bench for three months we gain room 

 for other things at a time when space is scanty under glass. 

 The cultivation of Nasgelias is very simple ; the rhizomes are 

 much like those of Achimenes ; that is, they consist of fleshy 

 scales set along on all sides of a central fibre. They are more 

 loosely strung than those of Achimenes, being intermediate 

 between these and Tydseas; they are also very much larger, 

 attaining sometimes the size of a man's thumb. They should 

 be planted in March in rich and reasonably light soil in five- 

 inch pots. One in a pot is enough, and I prefer to lay them 

 on their sides with the tip, the growing point, in the centre. 

 Of course, very little moisture is needed until they begin to 

 prow. 



Canton, Mass. W. E. Elldicott. 



Honor Bright Tomato. 



THIS seems to me one of the most distinct varieties of 

 Tomato yet introduced. The vine, though strong-growing 

 and vigorous, with large leaves, is a peculiar yellowish green 

 color, quite noticeable even in the cotyledons. It is very pro- 

 ductive, bearing its fruit in large clusters. It comes into blos- 

 som and develops full-sized fruit as early as any of the forty 

 sorts with which I have compared it, but it was the latest of all 

 to ripen its fruit. All tomatoes turn a lighter green as they 

 begin to ripen, but the fruits of this variety become so light as 

 to justify one in calling them white. They then gradually turn 

 yellow, which color, though in a lighter shade, covers the fruit 

 as completely as it does on the fruit of Golden Queen, though 

 at this stage there are darker spots about the stems. A faint 

 blush then appears, which deepens and spreads until the whole 

 fruit, when fully ripe, is a rich but rather light red. This ripen- 

 ing process and change of color takes place very slowly, much 

 more so than in any other variety, as I have already suggested. 

 Early in the season I thought this sort would compete with the 

 Atlantic Prize in earliness, yet it was the last of all varieties to 

 furnish ripe fruit, and perfected only the smallest portion of its 

 crop before frost. The fruit is a little above medium size, 

 nearly round, with no distinct sutures, and very uniform and 

 symmetrical in shape. The flesh is very solid even when fully 

 ripe, quite dry, and there is comparatively little pulp about the 

 fairly abundant seeds. The skin, though thin, is very hard and 

 firm. The flavor is fair, and would be specially pleasing to 

 some because it is so mild, but it lacks, even in fruit ripened 

 on the vine, the sprightly vinous flavor which is to me the 

 great charm of tomatoes. That which distinguishes this sort 

 from all others is its slow-ripening habit. This quality, united 

 with its solidity, may make this variety one of the greatest 

 value. It is said that fruit can be picked when yellow, packed 

 in barrels and sent long distances, as to Europe, and will be in 

 ripened and good condition on arrival at its destination. I can 

 readily believe this possible, for I placed some yellow fruit in 

 the cellar and some on the shelves of a greenhouse, and 



found them of beautiful color and fair quality twenty-one to 

 twenty-eight days afterward. I wish the quality of the fruit was 

 more to my personal taste, but in Honor Bright we certainly 

 have an entirely new type of tomato, and one which, if it does 

 not itself prove to be of practical value, is certain to lead toihe 

 introduction of sorts that will. 



Detroit, Mich. Will. IV. T}-(lcy. 



Correspondence. 



Contrasts in an Old Garden. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — A garden developed through the care of a hundred 

 summers and prized for the tender associations of a long life- 

 time, comes to wear a marked individuality of its own, and it is 

 not strange if it enforces with somewhat commanding power i(s 

 special object lesson in the art of gardening. In one of these 

 old gardens lately seen the value of effective contrast was 

 strikingly displayed. Age has almost closed the ears of the 

 owner to outer dissonances. Her bees and her flowers live 

 together in harmony and peace, and among them her hours 

 run on happily while she delights in showing her favorites and 

 telling their little histories. " I always put my Salvias here 

 between the white flowers," she commented, when I exclaimed 

 at the sight of a great blaze of scarlet between huge segregated 

 clumps of Day Lilies and a thick row of the tall white peren- 

 nial Phlox. There were trees behind, sun and shade mingled, 

 and the simple, dazzling contrast of the pure color with 

 the lilies, and the great soft heads of white phlox, both set off 

 by abundant green, was charming. The garden proper lay 

 beyond, enclosed within wire netting. It is the garden of a 

 farmer's wife, and "father," a white-haired, silent man, stiff 

 with labor, loves "mother's" flowers almost as well as she 

 does herself, and is sure that she has a genius for growing 

 them. The season through it is plain that an eye for color 

 has guided the whole arrangement of the place. It was shown 

 in spring when the great Dogwood flowered, and its high, 

 alluring masses of picturesque bloom were set against the dark 

 old Cedar-tree behind it ; when the Trumpet Creeper above 

 and the Tiger Lilies below flared and mellowed along the gray 

 wall of the "back sheds"; when the Wistaria and the Balti- 

 more Belle were both rioting in their glory. At all times a 

 refined contrast served to emphasize in a surprising degree 

 this plain old homestead, with its large, rambling buildings, 

 its variety and amplitude of leafy shade and coolness, and the 

 compact and crowded flower-garden which has overflowed to 

 form borders and colonies in every available corner of the big 

 "dooryard." There is nothing formal, nothing ambitious, 

 yet here is a place where many a professional gardener might 

 take lessons in combining with true skill the elements of 

 his art. 



The importance of contrast in a garden compares with what 

 the artists call "values" in a picture. The wonderful varia- 

 tions of color and form caused by light and shade are not 

 generally recognized by the untrained eye, yet as the art stu- 

 dent is bidden again and again to discern this quality he finds 

 by a gradual dawn of perception that this is indeed a kind of 

 mystery where the invisible becomes visible through concen- 

 trated attention. In painting, all good coloring to be harmo- 

 nious and beautiful must first be true, and rest upon this basis 

 of a faithful adjustment to the comparative force of light. The 

 common light of day, prosaic as we find it through custom, 

 and, indeed, unnoticed, is still an ever-present marvel of infini- 

 tude and perfection. " Of course, snow is almost never white," 

 a landscape-painter once said to me, "it is usually yellow in 

 the sun and blue in the shade, sometimes quite a deep pur- 

 ple." This will sound like nonsense to many, yet observation 

 shows that it is true. 



If juxtaposition does not actually change colors, as the magic 

 of'strong sunlight seems able to do, it has a vast effect upon 

 the whole impression. It is not enough to avoid the contrast 

 of colors that " kill " one another. A constant gain by means 

 of reciprocal effect is the thing to be sought, and it will bear 

 long study. With my friend in beautifying her old garden, it 

 has been, apparently, instinctive. An unconscious impulse 

 surely gathered together all the soft rosy shades of the Sweet- 

 Pea hedge, for which the wire netting is utilized, and the big 

 bed of Sweet Williams close by, with wave-like fringes and 

 billows of white Petunias extending to tiie more pronounced 

 tints of the summer Carnations. On the other side the back- 

 ground is of Zinnias; then, solidly massed, Coreopsis and 

 many Marigolds in gold and lemon colors. Nasturtiums in all 

 their warmth of lavish reds and yellows make a great tent-like 

 screen around a rustic seat. A line bed of perennial Lark- 



