THE GARDENS OF CHARLESTON. 



605 



a perpetual su^ly of shoots for one's neighbors and 

 friends. But, taking roses altogether, they are not 

 profitable house-plants. The constant battle with 

 insect pests is fatiguing, and one cannot spray and fumi- 

 gate and spray and fumigate incessantly, as the florist 

 does. Now and then, after hard labor, virtue has its 

 reward in the shape of an exquisite rose or two ; but, 

 even then "the play is scarce worth the candle." 



The same may be said of carnations, which not only 

 teem with insects, but require a much lower tempera- 

 ture than we have in our living rooms, as also do winter 

 violets. The tulip, lily and narcissus as house plants 

 are comparatively uncertain ; but hyacinths, potted well, 

 will behave beautifully and give a sure succession of 

 bloom through the entire winter, filling the room with a 



faint, sweet perfume and calling forth words of deligh* 

 from the passers by, as they stop to ' ' take in " the beau- 

 tiful colors and forms of the spikes. 



As to the finer uses of house plants, I have but time 

 to suggest, in conclusion, that whoever cultivates them 

 from sheer material satisfaction in their growth, from 

 mere pleasure in their structural perfection, or with an 

 eye single to their market value (as a florist naturally 

 must), overlooking their poetical — I had almost said their 

 religions side — has grasped but a small portion of the 

 delight to be derived from floriculture, and has wholly 

 missed that divine inspiration, that mental help, which 

 emanates from "a thing of beauty" and makes it "a 

 joy forever. '' 



Sarah Warner Brooks. 



THE GARDENS OF CHARLESTON. 



■QST PEOPLE visit Charleston in 

 winter, and fear the heat of 

 August in a southern latitude. 

 Business recently called us to 

 that section of South Carolina, 

 and we took occasion to spend 

 a day in the city. There are 

 many things in the city at this 

 season that do not strike the 

 eye so plainly at other seasons. The great masses 

 of white oleander bushes are now snowy with flow- 

 ers, and the crape myrtle trees are loaded with 

 bloom. The giant camellias which are so gay in 

 early spring now show only their glossy foliage ; 

 but the palmettos are now in bloom. Great masses 

 of creamy white flowers in racemes two feet or 

 more in length hang around the bases of the great 

 leaf stalks, and are very popular with bees and 

 beetles. 



The Battery is at this season, more than ever, the popu- 

 lar resort, and under the shade of the live oaks the 

 nurses roll the baby carriages in crowds. What a 

 blessed resort this little Battery Park is to the city 

 babies, with its cool breezes fresh off the Atlantic ! Few 

 cities possess such a genuine breathing place. 



On Meeting street, close to St. Michael's church, we 

 stopped to see the famous Marechal Niel rose bush of 

 Dr. Shepard. This great plant, grafted on Banksia 

 roots, clambers on the one hand over the two-storied 

 piazza of a large building, and on the other, covers two 

 large arbors. At the base the stem measures over three 

 feet in circumference. We were disappointed, however, 

 in its appearance. The foliage seems thin and scanty, 

 in comparison with the massive lu.xuriance of the same 

 rose on our deep red clay here in Raleigh. In fact, all 

 the foliage of the roses in Charleston looked scanty 



and poor. The soil is evidently too sandy and hot 

 for them. 



We were very much interested in visiting Dr. Shep- 

 ard's tea gardens at Summerville, 22 miles from Charles- 

 ton. Here Gen. Le Due, when Commissioner of Agri- 

 culture, began some experiments in tea culture, which 

 his short term of office left no time to complete and 

 which his successor abandoned. Dr. Shepard has bought 

 the old government plantation, and has planted a large 

 additional area. The old trees planted by the Agricul- 

 tural Department have been given over to seed bearing, 

 and now nurseries are being started from these and 

 from imported seed. The new tea gardens are all 

 planted with the Assam hybrid tea, but the Doctor has 

 orders abroad for seed of all the best sorts from China, 

 Japan and the Himalaya region. His tea has been pro- 

 nounced very superior by experts. The well-cultivated 

 gardens and the thrifty plants showed that the tea plant 

 is perfectly at home there. 



That a high quality of tea can be easily made in North 

 and South Carolina seems evident. Before going to 

 South Carolina we visited a plantation of tea made over 

 thirty years ago near Fayetteville, North Carolina. We 

 found the tea bushes struggling for existence in a thicket 

 of pine, laurel, cherry, and all manner of wild growth. 



It has had no culture, whatever, since the war, and 

 yet from these trees the old lady who owned them gave 

 me a large bundle of tea of remarkably fine quality, 

 which a New York dealer who tested it at the hotel pro- 

 nounced worth one dollar per pound at wholesale. The 

 ridicule with which the northern press treated General Le 

 Due's experiments caused the abandonment of sys- 

 tematic effort in this direction, but it does look as though 

 a new money crop of great value might be added to the 

 south, and I am glad to record the fact that Dr. Shepard 

 is giving the matter a thorough test, I hope his work 

 may be crowned with successful results. 



W. F. Massey. 



