Tine Readers’ Suv ue r 
| nein mde oa DLE. | GAR IDsING SVAN Gase7mlaNaD June, 1908 
by INEXPENSIVE 
‘THOROUGHLY PRACTICAL CReaooe 
SPLENDIDLY made Sectional 
Iron Frame Greenhouse, 25 feet 
long and 10 feet wide, giving you 
250 square feet of indoor garden spot. 
It is specially designed for just such as 
you, who want a well built, attractive 
house in which to protect your plants, 
grow a few vegetables, have some cut 
flowers for the house all winter, and along 
in February start numerous plants, ready 
to set out with the ushering in of the first 
warm weather in the spring. 
Heretofore, such a house as you want, 
either to connect it direct to the dwelling 
(as in the illustration shown) or locating it 
only a stone’s throw from it, perhaps cost 
too much. 
But here is a house that although made 
with the same Sectional Iron Frame Con- 
struction as our larger houses, comes with- 
in the reach of those who fully appreciate 
that the greenhouse is a delightful invest- 
ment, and on such a basis are willing to 
spend enough to secure the right house, 
one that will be in every way practical, as 
well as an omamental addition to the 
grounds. 
One of the special advantages of this 
construction of ours, is that we can furnish 
all the materials for the superstructure, cut, 
fitted and given one coat of paint, all ready 
for immediate erection. With the aid of 
the plans and directions we will send you, 
the house can be easily put up on your 
grounds by a local mechanic. 
“To explain this house fully to you, we 
have printed an eight page folder that 
gives prices, takes up the question of 
benching and heating, and the numerous 
other things you want to know. 
There is no better time to build than 
during the early summer months,—so send 
el the circular and get matters under way 
LORD AND BURNHAM Co. 
Main Sales Office 
1133 Broadway, New York 
Boston 
819 Tremont Bldg. 
Philadelphia 
1215 Filbert Street 
A Greenhouse for Everybody 
Whether you wish a small house for 
your own personal pleasure or a larger 
one meeting the many variant growing 
requirements, we have just the house 
to suit your wants. 
Now is the time to build. Send 
for our greenhouse booklet. 
HITCHINGS & COMPANY 
1170 Broadway New York 
The Oldest Flowers in Cultivation — 
Ill. The Mandrake 
HE little American wild flower that 
we call the mandrake is not at all _ | 
the mandrake which stimulated so power- 
fully the fancy of the Middle Ages. The 
accompanying picture shows the mandrake — 
of history as it was pictured in 1613 in the — 
“Hortus Eystettensis.” 
The old fables abound in fanciful pictures 
of the mandrake, and one of them shows — 
the flower something like a tulip. These 
fanciful pictures usually showed the root 
growing in the form of a man. The plant 
really had a large, spindle-shaped root which 
was supposed sometimes to become forked 
The Mandrake of the Middle Ages (Wandragora 
Officinarum), which can be still procured from nur- 
serymen and is worth growing in an old-fashioned 
garden 
and further resemble the human form, and 
in this condition it was used as an aphro- 
disiac and consequently the plant was 
called a “‘love apple.” 
The plant here depicted was probably 
Mandragora officinarum, and a preparation 
of its root may still be had from drug stores. 
The mandrake mentioned in the thirtieth 
chapter of Genesis is perhaps M. autumnalis. 
Both of these plants are natives of the Medi- 
terranean region. 
The mandrake here pictured may still 
be obtained from specialists in hardy 
perennials. It has rather large flowers, 
which vary from whitish to purplish shades. 
