208 HOME AND GARDEN 



makes handsome tufts of its vigorous deep-green leaves, 

 and Rhubarb is one of the grandest of large-leaved 

 plants. Or if the garden were in shape a double 

 square, the further portion being given to vegetables, 

 why not have a bold planting of these grand things 

 as a division between the two, and behind them a nine- 

 feet-high foliage-screen of Jerusalem Artichoke. This 

 Ai'tichoke, closely allied to our perennial Sunflowers, is 

 also a capital thing for a partition screen ; a bed of it 

 two or tliree feet wide is a complete protection through 

 the summer and to the latest autumn. 



Other climbing plants of quick growth, just what 

 are wanted for makino- a oood show during: Ifl short 

 tenancy, are the blue Passion-flower (bought in a pot 

 at the nursery and planted in spring or autumn), 

 Eccremocarpics scciber, hardy in our southern counties, 

 Cohcea scandeus, sometimes surviving if well protected, 

 and the annual Japanese Hop. The three last are easily 

 grown from seed, but Cohcea and Eccremocarjms should 

 be sown in heat. The common Hop is all very well if 

 it is there already, but as it is a strong-rooting peren- 

 nial it takes two years to become established ; then, as 

 it is herbaceous, it has every year to grow afresh from 

 the root, so that it does nothing more to om* advantage 

 than the annual one, while its great roots are desperate 

 robbers of our poor soil. 



Still thinking of some of the questions of my 

 camp visitors, and also bearing in mind the indefinite 

 way in which the word " herbaceous " is commonly 



