344 THE GARDEN AND FIELD. January' 19U 



been raised until these distinctions 

 have been more or less completely 

 obliterated. In many ol the mo- 

 dern varieties, therefore, there is 

 no difference between them. Some 

 of the varieties, however, especial- 

 W_ those that were in cultivation 

 ten or twelve years ajjo, still re- 

 tain many characters of the Viola. 

 What vou have got to look for 

 chiefly now is a distinctlv perennial 

 habit, and the capability of throw- 

 ing up suckers or young shoots 

 from the base of the plants. This 

 is the desideratum and the true 

 defining line of a Viola at the pre- 

 sent day. On the other hand, Tan- 

 sies mav produce more robust 

 stem's, but fewer of them. All good 

 strains of Pansies should have cir- 

 cular flowers, but, of course, a 

 very, large number of so-called 

 Violas have now circular 'flowers. — 

 Exchange. 



The Beauty of Wall 

 Gardening. 



Many are the unsightly and fea- 

 tureless places that might be made 

 beautiful by wall gardening, and 

 more quickly than m any other 

 way ; for the waU plants having 

 their roots always cool seem to 

 grow away quickly at onoe, and 

 vet to be longer lived than their 

 own brother plants in the more 

 level garden. Indeed, wall garden- 

 ing is not only extremely interest- 

 ing and soon rewarding, but it 

 seems to quicken the inventive 

 faculty ; for if one has once tasted 

 its pleasures and mastered some 

 of the simpler ways of adapting it 

 for use, others are sura to present 

 themselves, and a whole new re- 

 gion of discursive delights oSers 

 itself for the mental exporation of 

 the horticulturally inventive. One 

 after another, pleasant schemes 

 come to mind, soon to be fashion- 

 ed, with careful design and such 

 manual skill as may have been 

 acquired, into such simple things 

 of l>eauty and delight as this first 

 flower-walled and then Vine-shaded 

 pleasant ])athway. Ik-sides the 

 wall gardening that may be de- 

 signed and reared, there is also 

 that which is waiting to be done 

 in walls that are already in being. 

 Sometimes there is an old wall 

 from who.se joints the surface mor- 

 tar has crumbled and fallen. 



But so good a chance is not for 

 every garden, for often the wall 

 that one would wish to make the 



hom.e ol many a lovely plant is of 

 the plainest brick ot stone, and 

 the mortar joints are fairly soimd. 

 Still the ardent \vall gardener is 

 not to be daunted, for, armed with 

 a hammer and a bricklayer's cold 

 chisel, he knocks out joints and 

 corners of bricks (when a builder 

 is not looking on) exactly where 

 he wishes to have his ranges of 

 plants. A well-built wall, season- 

 ed and solidified bv some years' 

 standing, will bear a good deal of 

 such knocking about. In chisel- 

 ling out the holes the only thing 

 that had better be avoided is 

 making much of a cavity just un- 

 der an upright joint nor is it ever 

 needful, for even if one wishes to 

 have a longish range of any one 

 plant the plants wiU close up, 

 though planted in the first place a 

 little way apart, while there is| no- 

 thing against widening any upright^ 

 joint or making it gape funnelwise 

 either upward or down. 



Just after the seieds ripen they 

 are put in mixed with a little 

 loamy earth, and if the cleft or 

 opening is an upright one, unwill- 

 ing to retain the mixture, a little 

 stone is wedged in at the bottom 

 or even cemented in. For a plant 

 of rather large growth, a whole 

 coping brick can be knocked off the 

 top, and proTiably quite a nice 

 rooting place be made with the 

 downward digging chisel, to be 

 filled up with suitable soil. 



By some such means, and always 

 thinking and trying and combining 

 ideas, the plainest wall can in a 

 couple of years be so pleasantly 

 transformed that it is turned into 

 a thing of flowery beauty. There 

 iis no wall with exposure so hot 

 or so cold that has not a plant 

 waiting for just the conditions thati 

 it has to offer, and there will be 

 no well-directed attempt to con- 

 vert mural ugliness into beauty 

 whose result will not be an encoiir- 

 agement to go and do still better. 



The Virtues of Digging. 



One of the chief items in the gar- 

 den routine is digsrino-. I ha\e heard 

 it stated that digging brings into 

 play more muscles than any other 

 form of e.xercise. I haven.t at- 

 tempted to count the number my- 

 seK, but if any untried amateur, 

 wants to cultivate a choice back 

 ache, arm ache, leg ache, and vari- 

 ous other aches, let him have a 

 spell at digging a piece of hard 

 ground. Mind you, the man who 

 is dismayed because of sundry 

 aches will never make a good gar- 

 dener. The trials of digging, how- 

 ever, are not by any means seri- 

 ous, and the digger will certainly 

 feel benefited by taking on his own 

 digging instead of paying a jobber 

 to do it. 



Plain digging is not a slow nor 

 elaborate process. For all hold- 

 ing soils the fork is much th^ best 

 tool, especially if the ground is 

 moist. There are many types of 

 forks, but I myself prefer the three- 

 pronged implement. Great un- 

 wieldy tools are not the best, as 

 they lend themselves to skimping. 

 To dig properly, onte must have a 

 stra ght-pronged tool or nearly so, 

 and the prongs should be long and 

 capable of tickling the soil I2 

 inches below the surface. Open out 

 a trench before dieiiin"-, and keep 

 to it as the job proceeds. 



One must have room to move. 

 I strongly advise diggers to change 

 hands at intervals. Some men can 

 only work with their right hand on 

 the handle, and pressing with their 

 lelt foot, hut a great deal more 

 comfort is obtained if the hands 

 and feet are changed. I generally 

 work to the right with m.y right 

 hand and left foot, and return with 

 the left hand and right foot. Such 

 a system relieves the tedium of 

 digging to a very large extent. I 

 have done a great deal of digeing 

 in m.y time, and am prone to think 

 that many people do not know 

 what really good digging is. 



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