184 HOME AND GARDEN 



orange yellow, and creamy white; some with double- 

 flowered varieties; all good as sun-loving plants in 

 poor soils. These, as well as all kinds of Cistus, 

 are easily raised from cuttings. As old plants of the 

 dwarf Rock-roses are apt to get into straggling masses 

 of matted growths unless judiciouslj'^ cut-in every two 

 years, it is well (and indeed wise in any case) to make 

 a few cuttings from time to time. 



Best among all good plants for hot sandy soils are 

 the ever-blessed Lavender and Rosemary, two delicious 

 old garden bushes that one can hardly dissociate, so 

 delightfully do they agree in their homely beauty and 

 their beneficence of enduring fragrance, as well as in 

 their love of the sun and their power of resisting 

 drought. I plant Rosemary all over the garden, so 

 pleasant is it to know that at every few steps one 

 may draw the kindly branchlets through one's hand, 

 and have the enjoyment of their incomparable incense ; 

 and I grow it against walls, so that the sun may draw 

 out its inexhaustible sweetness to greet me as I pass ; 

 and early in March, before any other scented flower 

 of evergreen is out, it gladdens me with the thick 

 setting of pretty lavender-grey bloom crowding all 

 along the leafy spikes. 



In the island of Capri, as elsewhere around the 

 Mediterranean, Rosemary is a common plant; but 

 rambling over its rocky heights I found not unfre- 

 quently, besides the one of ordinary habit, a dwarf 

 form, quite prostrate, pressing its woody stems and 



