August, 1909 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS XV 
the house low has improved its appearance, 
giving it a cosy homelike air which the stilted 
structures near by do not have, and it has 
saved much earth for important grading at 
the back of the house. 
The advantage of a side hill is that the 
cellar is light and can be made useful. In this 
house we have a good sunny laundry under 
the kitchen, a laundry which is but Ittle 
above the level of the drying-yard, so that 
there is no long flight of steps to carry clothes 
up and down. 
Under the living-room there is a billiard- 
room with a door opening to the little flower 
garden south of the house. ‘This garden is 
easily reached from the porch, and it is on the 
way to the bowling green. It is perfectly 
screened from the street by the flowering 
shrubs which are planted on the terrace banks 
and will therefore have much more of the 
garden spirit than a garden usually has on such 
a small lot. 
The bowling green is shaded by large trees 
and screened from the neighbors’ windows at 
the back by a thick mass of wich-hazel, 
viburnums and snow berries planted under the 
trees. 
A small place divided as this is into many 
small compartments on different levels seems 
much larger than the same place would on 
level ground, and it has much more variety 
and interest. 
It is an easy place to maintain because there 
are but four small grass plots, all nearly level, 
and no grass terrace banks which are hard to 
cut and are usually brown in summer. 
Under the garage there is a cellar or base- 
ment on a level with the walk at the back. It 
is an excellent place for tools and for the 
storage of all the truck which must be kept 
on the place. 
The shrubs are hardy things which once 
planted will need little care and will hold the 
steep banks successfully. 
Wild roses, such as the carolina, lucida, 
nitida, setigera, multiflora and wichuraiana, 
forsythias, barberries, and, toward the front of 
the place, lilacs, weigelas, syringa and spiraeas. 
In the garden there are only perennials and 
bulbs, mostly things which bloom either in 
spring or fall. 
This plan, of course, could not be reversed 
for use on a lot sloping up from the street. 
The case is then quite different, as the light 
side of the cellar would be in front and could 
not be used for the laundry nor would it be 
nice to have the parlor on that floor. 
We have arranged a lot sloping up from 
the street, and may describe it in a later issue 
if the letters from our readers indicate an in- 
terest in such a scheme. It is a much more 
dificult problem than the one which we have 
just described, but one which, with the cooper- 
ation of the architect, can be solved in quaint 
and convenient ways. 
WILD PARSNIPS 
A correspondent asks “if there is any truth 
in the popular idea that the garden parsnip in 
its wild state is poisonous and that the culti- 
vated vegetable becomes poisonous if permitted 
to come up the second year?” 
The common parsnip seems to be poisonous 
when it runs wild in wet meadows. It belongs 
to a family of poisonous plants and it may be, 
as you say, more poisonous the second year than 
the first. There is no distinction botanically 
between the wild parsnip and the garden 
parsnip. 
VINES FOR THE PERGOLA 
“What kind of a vine will entwine prettily 
around pergola beams, covering the beams but 
not growing thick enough to make a roof of 
Cottage 
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foliage that would shut off light in the 
court?” W. F. W. 
Akebia quinata seems to be the best vine for 
your purpose. Any vine will shut off the light, 
that’s what they are grown on pergolas for, 
but the akebia has rather small delicate foliage 
and will twine around the beams without 
growing in dense masses as the honeysuckle 
does. 
DYING NORWAY SPRUCES 
W. Y. There is no way of saving young 
Norway spruce trees which were planted this 
spring, as I suppose yours were. [hey are 
undoubtedly dying because they were dry 
when planted, or because they were poorly 
planted, and have dried out since. It would 
be well to look them over and see that all are 
firm in the earth, and the ground not too dry. 
It is possible also that they have been 
watered too much. A good soaking when they 
are planted, and another in July and August 
if there is a drought, should be enough for 
any tree. More would only be an injury. 
If an evergreen tree once shows signs of poor 
health, if it is brown and the needles begin 
to fall and there is no new growth, it might 
as well be taken up and burned, for nothing 
can save it. 
The Norway spruce commonly lasts only 
fifty or sixty years in this country. After that 
it dies or looks so thin and scraggly that we 
wish it would die, and are quite ready to cut 
it down and plant something less stiff and 
gloomy. The tree lacks picturesqueness and 
charm, and except when very young it does 
not compare in beauty with some of our 
native spruces or with the hemlock, which is 
an excellent tree of the same conical shape. 
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