388 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 182. 



arrangements. It can be utilitarian and lucrative, it can be 

 merely aesthetic and ornamental, or all four, just as the fancy 

 takes you. In fact, it may be briefly characterized as Happi- 

 ness for the million with no patent on it. 



Added to all these charms is its wholesomeness, its absorb- 

 ing character, and, best of all, a certain humanness about the 

 occupation that brings one into pleasant relations with all sorts 

 of people, and affords one a topic of conversation and a meet- 

 ing-ground, even where he is limited to the most unpromis- 

 ing companions. The village crone forgets her gossip when 

 you talk to her about her Rose-bushes or her last new Ge- 

 ranium slip ; the rustic waxes eloquent over the merits of a 

 new potato or a way of protecting melons, and you find your- 

 self always interested and instructed, instead of bored, since 

 almost any one you meet in the country can tell you something 

 you are glad to know, or else he is eager to learn what you are 

 doing yourself, which is a sure way to afford you entertain- 

 ment, since every man is happy when allowed to ride his own 

 hobby. All of which has a connection with rain, however 

 little obvious it may be, since the moral of my discourse is, 

 that when one becomes, not only resigned to rain but glad of 

 it, he has taken a step toward true philosophy. 



A garden after a shower has always an especial charm ; 

 everything is sweeter and fresher, even in its often bedraggled 

 condition. I have a passion for dabbling in water-coloring of 

 this description, and cannot keep my hands from the weeds 

 and flowers when I venture forth to see how my favorites 

 have borne the storm. It is a delight to put one's arms about 

 a bouncing paeony, with its red cheeks all cold and dripping, 

 and tie a string around it to keep its bright faces clean. The 

 forward flowers kiss you as you struggle to encircle them ; the 

 wet leaves box your ears as if you were taking a liberty. It is 

 some time before you can accomplish your purpose, and you 

 arise from the encounter quite breathless and dripping, with 

 the pink and white faces, huddled up together, all laughing at 

 your condition. 



It is June, and the last of the Fleur-de-lis are quite broken 

 down, their pearly petals draggled in mud and defaced by 

 water. This delicate French beauty will put up with no ple- 

 beian contact, but withers and dies if brought in contact with 

 the earth. The Roses stand up, after their bath, quite fresh 

 and -shining, but the buds, which are so blighted by a heavy 

 rain that they do not open afterward, remind me of the Aus- 

 trian violinist who greatly admired an English beauty, but 

 confided to a friend his reason for not offering to marry her : 



"She vould vash me, and I should die." 



Many things are broken down and require tying up. If the 

 rain has continued for several days the chickweeds are ram- 

 pant and overrun everything. New plants that have been on 

 the anxious seat during the dry weather have decided to stay, 

 and are putting forth satisfactory leaves. 



The joyful Pear-trees shake their drops, down upon you, the 

 cat-bird sits on the grape trellis and inquires what you are 

 doing there. It is a way he has. He lives in the box arbor 

 and thinks he owns the earth, and that our strawberries are 

 his. He scolds the cat and defies the robin, and has such a 

 trig-, gentlemanly air about him, with his well-brushed dark 

 coat, that one might christen him Sir Charles Grandison. He 

 makes me a bow and says civil things (or uncivil) in his own 

 tougue, which, unfortunately, I do not understand. 



" I thought you told me this parrot could talk ? " 



" So he can — ze parrot lankwich — you don't expect all ze 

 lankwiches for ten tollar, do you ? " 



Thus our cat-bird, which costs us nothing but strawberries, 

 discourses in a jargon which we would fain comprehend, so 

 as to answer him according to his deserts ; and sometimes of 

 a Sunday morning he sings us a glorious tune. 



When the rain comes, Apollo, the parrot, climbs to the top 

 of the tree in which he is perched and spreads all his bright 

 feathers to catch the shower. Elongating his wings, he makes 

 them meet over his brow in the very altitude of the cheru- 

 bim, and there, turning a somersault, he hangs head down- 

 ward, that the water may thoroughly drench his plumage. 

 With all his gold and red and green glittering with rain-drops, 

 he resembles some superb blossom quivering on a stem, and 

 makes a beautiful spectacle of himself. When his bath is done 

 he chatters and laughs with glee, and sings his merriest song, 

 with some disregard of rhythm and tune, but none of harmony, 

 till all the smaller birds begin to pipe in company. 



The dusty foliage emerges brilliantly shining and fresh. 

 Every shower seems to bring a new spring, and the world 

 never fails to be surprised at the renovation which succeeds 

 the rain. There seem, indeed, to be new heavens and a new 

 earth. The drooping evergreens lift up their tasseled heads 

 and take courage ; to them it means life and new hope. The 



vines throw out their tendrils, and the Honeysuckle emits a 

 keener perfume. The white Lilies that come to rejoice us 

 just as the Roses are going, gleam in the twilight, tall and fair. 

 Who is it that says that it is a figure of the poets to mingle 

 Roses and Lilies, since they do not blossom at the same time ? 

 With us the Irises and the white Flower de Luce linger till 

 after the Roses are in bloom, and then, before the Queen 

 is wholly out of sight, come these stately princesses, her 

 followers, like train-bearers of high degree, all clad in white 

 and gold, nearest the throne, if not rivals for the highest place 

 of all. Is it the thorns that make the Rose the royal flower by 

 rendering her difficult of access and surrounding her with a 

 body guard of lances ? Who shall say ? There are moods in 

 which her sumptuous beauty and heavy fragrance seem less 

 regal than the haughty, willowy grace of her rival flower, and 

 we hesitate to choose. 



And not the flowers alone rejoice in the life-giving drops, 

 but the "sweet smale grass," refreshed and strengthened, lifts 

 its green blades like the spear-heads of a rising army. The 

 dusty mantle that has veiled its gentle beauty falls from it, and 

 the wonderful variation of its tints again delights the eye. 

 Those artists who set our teeth on edge with verdigris and 

 arsenic floods, to represent this dearest and homeliest gar- 

 ment of our mother earth, seem to me never to have entered 

 into and possessed its secret, the secret of myriad shadows, of 

 myriad lights, each catching a reflection from its neighbor 

 blade, the brown earth below, the azure sky above. No green- 

 est green of foliage or meadow ever shocks the most sensi- 

 tive vision, for Nature, truest of painters, never fails to break 

 her colors with such subtle mixtures that only the utmost 

 training of eye and hand enables the artist to hint her secret 

 upon canvas; and he who, with a palette of crude pigments of 

 raw primary colors, seeks to render the shifting emerald of 

 spring, the topaz of the new-mown field, or the golden har- 

 vest, is as one who would catch the flash of the diamond or 

 the burning heart of the ruby on the brush's point and think to 

 imprison it forever. 



There are some lines of Matthew Arnold that a wet garden 

 always brings to mind, in which the poet has truly caught the 

 spirit of the fragrant scene. None but a frequenter and true 

 lover of gardens could in a few words have thus pictured the 

 mingled dismay and hope with which one views his garden- 

 plot after a rain has both distressed and refreshed it : 



So, some tempestuous morn in early June, 

 When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er, 



Before the roses and the longest day — 

 When garden-walks, and all the grassy floor 



With blossoms, red and white, of fallen May, 

 And Chestnut-flowers are strewn — 

 So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry, 



From the wet field through the vext garden trees 



Come, with the volleying rain and tossing breeze ; 

 The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I ! 



Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go ? 

 Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on, 



Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, 

 Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, 



Sweet-william with his homely cottage smell, 

 And stocks in fragrant blow ; 

 Roses that down the alleys shine afar, 



And open, jasmine-muffled lattices, 



And groups under the dreaming garden trees, 

 And the full moon, and the white evening star. 



Hingham, Mass. M. C. RobbitlS. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



New Orchids. 



Ada Lehmanni, Rolfe. — A new species of Ada, originally 

 introduced from New Granada by Mr. F. C. Lehmann, Ger- 

 man Consul to the Republic of Columbia, after whom it is 

 named. It has been in cultivation for some time. It is readily 

 distinguishable from the well-known A. aurantiaca by its 

 more rigid habit, shorter, broader and darker green leaves, 

 which are mottled with gray, and by its white lip. It usually 

 flowers during the summer, while the old species is well 

 known as a winter-flowering plant. — Gardeners' Chronicle, 

 July nth, p. 34. 



Catasetum atratum, Lindl., $ and §.— The female only of 

 this species can claim to be a new garden Orchid, as the male 

 has been known for many years. A very interesting case of 

 the production of flowers of both sexes on the same raceme 

 has occurred in the nursery of Mr. W. Brooks, of Weston- 

 super-Mare. The two sexes are less dissimilar than usual, 

 except in the column and ovary, which present the usual dif- 



