BACK- YARD PROBLEMS 



Among the links between mans mind and nature n>e 

 mail place, as one of the most obvious, man's earliest at- 

 tempt to select and group from her scattered varieties of 

 form that winch — at once a poem and a picture — forms, 

 as it were, the decorated border-land between man's home 

 and nature's measureless domains, the garden. — Bulwer. 



T IS Samuel Parsons, Jr., who, in his clever 

 little book upon planning home grounds, dis- 

 tinguishes between the vines that contribute to 

 the natural and picturesque in the garden and 

 those vines which are civilized and conven- 

 tional in their habits and tend to dignify the surroundings. 

 Somehow we associate certain vines with certain conditions. 

 Rightly or not we consign the dense evergreen growth and 

 the somewhat indifferent character of the bloom of dolichos, 

 the Australian bean, to covering up the shabbiness of rear 

 yards, back-fences, shabby buildings and outhouses, while 

 the rampant nasturtiums with all their vividness of color, 

 their sweetness of perfume, and their faculty for giving a 

 crisp young look to the premises, are very apt to find them- 

 selves close neighbors to the cabbages, and cauliflowers, and 

 other kitchen-garden and "hidden corner" adjuncts of our 

 domains. 



[98] 



