The Carden Ma 
A NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR 
B efore the outdoor work of the garden New Year actu- 
ally begins, I wish to say a few words intimately to the in- 
dividual reader of this magazine. With the New Year we 
take a new outlook on our lives and our surroundings. So, 
looking to the future in the light of the past, I ask your attention to the 
new feature in The G.\rden Mag.\zine for 1917. “Among our Garden 
Neighbors.” 
In this new departure I hope to make The Garden Magazine more 
personal to you; to give you an opportunity to open up more intimate 
relations with each other. You, reader, are invited to become a sociable 
neighbor in the garden; to meet your friends “Among our Garden 
Neighbors”; to tell your personal delights (and disappointments); to 
speak of the plants, flowers or vegetables that have given you great 
garden joy; in short to put out the hand of helping friendship to other 
garden neighbors, and commune together. 
I am trying to present a modernized Garden Magazine! Just a year 
ago I addressed a few words to you (page 178, January, 1916) promising 
to do certain things to serve you in your garden work. In all sincerity 
I ask you to pass judgment on my stewardship of your subscription. 
Have I satisfied you all ? And, if not, will you tell me wherein I have 
failed ? 
We meet, you and I, on a common plane of an intense, I may even 
say acute, interest, in the things that grow in the gardens of America, 
and last year I promised you twelve messages that would reach you in 
season for the activities of each month. Have I kept my pledge ? 
I promised to, figuratively, take you by the hand and wander among 
the Tulips, the Daffodils, the Roses, shrubs and trees, and make you 
acquainted with their special merits and beauties. Have I kept my 
pledge ? 
The readers of this magazine are of necessity divided into two camps 
— one consisting of those who are but on the threshold of that glorious 
fellowship of the joys and delights of collecting, tending and knowing 
plants, who indeed feel the desire to garden, but find even the first 
steps to be seemingly full of difficulties; the other body embracing 
those who have passed the novitiate and who are concerned with 
the refinements of garden craft and lore. To serve both interests 
at the same time m the same article is hardly possible. 
The contents of any month’s issue are designed in different articles 
to satisfy both groups of readers. And so we have for example the 
“Month’s Reminder” for the tyro, to tell him what to do just when 
he needs the help; and for the needs of those who have become more 
skilled in the art of gardening, there are other kinds of writings. 
Now I am adding a third division — one of interchange and dis- 
cussion for garden lovers who, though far apart geographically, 
and unknown to each other personally, are neighbors in the spirit 
of gardening. 
The new feature begins with this number, on this page. Here is an 
open court for all who so desire to meet kindred souls and exchange 
experiences, and so help to build up a better knowledge of what is 
done and may be done in .American gardens. You are invited to enter! 
As I have said before The Garden Magazine will always strive 
to serve the needs of its readers so far as they can be learned, to which 
end I ask your help in a free exchange of ideas in these pages. 
Leonard Barron. 
Among Our Garden Neighbors 
Virginia Fringe Tree in Maine — Few 
summer flowering trees are more beautiful 
than this Chionanthus virginica, and in the 
more favored parts of the country, where it is 
perfectly hardy and the conditions are suit- 
able, it attains to tree size. One would not 
naturally expect to be successful with the 
Fringe Tree so far to the northeast as Mount 
Desert Island, and I was pleasantly surprised, 
after coming here, to find it growing well and 
apparently quite happy. The largest speci- 
men we now have is about twelve feet high 
and as much through, a well-grown, symmet- 
rical bush and an object of much interest in 
July when clothed to the ground with hand- 
some, dark green foliage and quantities of its 
delicate, pure white flowers. The conditions 
under which it is growing are undoubtedly 
favorable, being sheltered on all sides by sur- 
rounding trees, and on the eastern side par- 
ticularly by a large Arborvitae. It receives 
abundant sunshine, and the wood becoming 
well ripened in the fall blossoms freely the 
following year. Our specimen is growing in a 
deep loamy soil on the edge of a brook and 
close to a pond, conditions which would seem 
to be just to its liking, but I know of one other, 
some distance away, which is quite a success 
as a lawn shrub. Being in a juxtaposition to 
the house this is also well sheltered from 
cold winds. 
It is very gratifying to see what can be done 
with the Fringe Tree here, and while the na- 
tive flora is largely arctic and we experience 
very sev'ere conditions in some winters there 
are, undoubtedly, many beautiful trees and 
shrubs which by being planted in carefully 
selected positions and given proper care in a 
young state, can be grown successfully. — 
A. E Thatcher. 
Who Has These Michaelmas Daisies? — 
I am interested in an article on Perennial As- 
ters by B. Y. Morrison in the May, 1916, 
Garden Magazine, and was just about to 
order those recommended when I learned that 
my regular dealer did not keep any of the 
named sorts mentioned. 
I write therefore to ask where I may obtain 
them, and will be obliged by having informa- 
199 
tion sent to my winter home: — Mrs. Alexander 
Graham Bell, 133 Connecticut Avenue, Wash- 
ington, D. C. 
The Comice Pear, in my opinion, deserves 
more general planting especially for home use, 
of all the high quality pears I would place it 
second only to Seckel, though Sheldon pushes 
it rather hard for this high place. It is cer- 
tainly finer flavored than any specimen of 
Bose, Anjou or Clapp I have ever eaten. In 
size the best specimens I have sampled equal 
Angouleme which they surpass in texture as 
well as flavor. In juiciness it is the equal of 
Louise Bonne de Jersey which it surpasses in 
having a far less astringent and tough gritty 
skin. As to its sweetness it is a close rival of 
Flemish Beauty. For a pear to form a suc- 
cession it would cap the climax in this list 
Clapp, Flemish, Seckel, Sheldon, Comice, 
thus covering the season from mid September 
to late November — provided the family 
appetite would let them last that long! A half 
dozen specimens I recently weighed at 3^ 
pounds — 10 ounces apiece. — M. G. Kains. 
