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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



September, 1907 



brownish-yellow drop is secreted — a drop of manure. The 

 flock of fungus, pressed into the garden again with the feet, 

 absorbs the appended drop. With her own excretions, then, 

 the ant manures the young culture. At the same time, how- 

 ever, this mother-ant lays daily about fifty eggs. How can 

 she, without taking nourishment, thus constantly produce 

 manure-drops and eggs? How is the conservation of sub- 

 stance and of energy here fulfilled? Of the fungus the little 

 animal does not eat, even when it already ripens globules. 

 The riddle's solution lies in the fact that the mother-ant 

 consumes a part of her own eggs, and later, when little 

 female workers begin to hatch out, perhaps receives from 

 these nourishing juice offered in the open mouth. Of some 

 two thousand eggs that the creature lays within forty days 

 merely the tenth part produce; a great, or rather by far 

 the greater, part is fed to the larvze. At first, the mother 

 herself stuffs the egg into the jaws of the larvae; later the 

 female workers attend to it. When the larvae are still small 

 then an egg suffices for the feeding of several; the indusium, 

 emptied of its contents, is consumed by the mother. One of 

 our pictures illustrates how the larvae suck up their as yet 

 egg-shaped little sisters. 



At the earliest after fourteen days (reckoning from the 

 beginning of the breeding-time) the fu'st female workers 

 appear, little creatures a twelfth of an inch long, soon fol- 

 lowed by others twice as large. The little female workers 

 feed on the globules of the fungus-garden, and are zealously 

 intent upon taking good care of their territory and suffering 

 the loss of no fertilizing drop of excrement. The mother-ant 

 also still manures the fungus-garden in the customary way, 

 but confines herself more and more to egg-laying, as soon as 

 through an exit dug by themselves the female workers have 



once reached the outside world and have there begun the 

 leaf-cutting. Now vegetable fertilizing material is dragged 

 in, chambers are built, the fungus-garden expands. The 

 mother-ant, who at first had her hands full, taking care 

 of the brood and of the garden, is now relieved by the 

 numerous results of her labors. She is served, and fed 

 abundantly; the eggs are taken away from her at once on 

 appearance, and buried in the cavities of the fungus-garden. 

 The larvae are fed by the female workers with eggs or 

 globules. A bustling activity reigns in the covered structure, 

 now consisting of several chambers. 



Though the planting of a colony may succeed in the way 

 just described, yet it is still possible that the mother-ant is 

 received into another nest, and in consequence is not obliged 

 to stay many days alone, nourishing herself from herself, 

 in a subterranean chamber. But when one considers with 

 what skill and prudence these leaf-cutter ants plant and culti- 

 vate their fungus-gardens; how they tear off and expose 

 upon the chopped, kneaded leaf material fungus mycelium; 

 how they build ways, streets, tunnels, vaults, bridges, walls 

 and ceilings, and keep road-improvement columns — then, in- 

 deed, one must acknowledge the possibility that a conscious- 

 ness, too, of this their action is present in the little creatures. 

 If this is so the more reprehensible will then be found 

 the experiments of an English-writing lady, who tried to 

 show by means of drowning, suffocating, starving and letting 

 thirst, as well as poisoning of ants, how tenacious of life the 

 little animals are. The result of her heartless tortures was 

 ludicrously small. Our ants hibernate; and the little Atta 

 female described above lives many weeks working, laying 

 eggs and manuring, without taking other nourishment than 

 her own eggs. Truly the ants must be hardy creatures. 



The Wild Garden — A Plea for Our Native Plants 



(^Concluded froDi Page J4j) 



Not knowing just what plants we will have, as the collec- 

 tion grows, of course we can have no definite plan, at the 

 beginning, to work to. Consequently there will be a certain 

 unavoidable lack of system in the arrangement of the wild 

 garden. But this may possibly become one of its chief 

 charms, after a little. A garden made on this plan — which 

 is really without any plan — seems to have evolved itself, and 

 the utter absence of all formality will make it a more cunning 

 imitation of Nature's garden. In arranging the shrubs and 

 plants put the larger ones in the background, as far as pos- 

 sible, and keep them there. By arranging the plants in such a 

 manner that they are graduated in height as they come 

 toward the foreground, you secure an effect of breadth which 

 adds vastly to the attraction of the garden. It gives you a 

 sense of distance which large plants near the path, and in 

 the immediate foreground, effectually destroys. 



Never set your plants in rows. Nature never does that, 

 and she is the only gardener who never makes a mistake. 

 Go into the fields and forests and note how shrubs and plants 

 are arranged there. Here a group, there a group — a result 

 that seems to have no plan back of It, and yet, who can say 

 that Nature did not plan out carefully every one of these 

 clumps and combinations? Try to make your wild garden 

 look as much like a real wild garden as possible, and the 

 closer you study Nature's methods and pattern after them 

 the nearer you will come to success. Avoid formality as you 

 would the plague If you want your wild garden to afford all 

 the pleasure which can be got out of it. Nature's arrange- 

 ments are always restful in effect, and never give one a sense 

 of premeditation. Like the Topsy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 

 they "just grow." But in order to successfully imitate Nature 

 it is absolutely necessary that we should familiarize ourselves 



with her way of doing things, and we can only do this by 

 studying from her books as she opens them before us in every 

 field, and by the roadside, and the woodland nook. The 

 secret of success, in a word, lies in getting close to Nature's 

 heart. 



Among our early flowering plants will be found the dog- 

 woods, the plums, the crabapple, the wild rose, and smaller 

 plants like the trilllum, the houstonia, the bloodroot, the 

 claytonia, and the hepatica. Among summer bloomers we 

 have aqullegia, daisy, coreopsis, cranesbill, eupatorium, 

 meadow sweet, lily, helianthus, enothera, rudbeckia, vervain, 

 vernonia, and many others that grow here and there, but are 

 not found In all parts of the country, as those named above 

 are. Among the shrubs are elder, splrea, clethra, and others 

 equally as desirable. Among the late bloomers are solidagos, 

 asters, helenlum, ironweed, and others which continue to 

 flower until the coming of cold weather. The sumach, which 

 is too large for a shrub and too small for a tree, deserves a 

 place In every collection, because of the magnificent color of 

 Its foliage in autumn. Among the desirable vines are the 

 ampelopsis, which vies with the sumach in rich color, in fall; 

 the bittersweet, with its profusion of fruitage as brilliant as 

 flowers; and the clematis, beautiful in bloom, and quite as at- 

 tractive later, when its seeds take on their peculiar plumes. 



Though I have named only the leading varieties of our 

 best-known plants, the list. It will be observed, is quite a long 

 one, and no one need fear of not being able to obtain plants 

 enough to stock a good-sized garden. The trouble will be. 

 In most cases, to find room for all the plants which you would 

 like to have represented In your collection, after you become 

 thoroughly interested in the delightful work of making it. It 

 Is a work that will grow in attraction as you go on with It. 



