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The Garden Magazine, February, 1921 
pilfering them and ruining many more than they eat. An examination 
of the Brown Thrashers beak will show any one what a destructive 
organ it is. Its tremendous length and strength will show just what 
it is intended for. It is almost as sharp at the point as a lance and can 
penetrate the ground to a remarkable depth. As your correspondent 
says, while the Robins will eat mulberries they also eat the cherries. 
I have tried the red rag in the Cherry trees. The birds act as if they 
regarded it as an attempt on my part to ornament their work shop 
and they seem to stay the longer. 
Birds are so plentiful that we have to bag our grapes else we would 
have none. But the Brown Thrush is equal to any emergency. As 
the bags are only paper, this bird is able to tear them open and then 
Honey Bees find the perforated grapes and suck out the juice. This, 
of course, does no additional harm as the juice of a perforated grape 
soon sours any way, and the bees had as well eat it as not. — A. W. 
Foreman, III. 
California Gardens in Our December Issue 
To the Editor of The Garden Magazine: 
W HAT a splendid last number (December) of The Garden 
Magazine is this California one! and how pleased 1 am to see 
Miss Sessions writing in it. She knows everything about her subject. 
Mr. Wilson’s letter is a very important one, and I like your editorial 
comment too. On my way to Signal Mountain, Tennessee, the brake- 
man on our train noticed my blue and gold copy of The Garden 
Magazine on the seat. “1 take that,” he said, “1 couldn’t get along 
without it!” It only goes to show how interested we Americans are 
in gardening. All success to your magazine, it is more and more inter- 
esting to me. — Louisa King, Alma, Mich. 
— I have received the December number of The Garden Magazine 
and have nothing but words of praise for it. It is not only represen- 
tative of California landscaping, but is typical of the best in garden 
designing in California. — G. R. Gorton, San Diego, Calif. 
— Congratulations upon the Californian number of The Garden Mag- 
azine. It has always been a source of trouble to me, that the valuable 
'‘hints” to amateurs for the different months of the year, were value- 
less to us in California; although the beauty and clearness of the illus- 
trations are always a joy, and the articles themselves the best “garden” 
material I can find. Please give us the California Calendar monthly. — 
Frederick M. Lee, Piedmont, Calif. 
— My December Garden Magazine has just arrived and been greatly 
appreciated and enjoyed. I feel much complimented to be in so good a 
number. Mr. Mitchell’s article is excellent and worth preserving 
for reference for a long time.- I think your cover of the magazine is 
fine — so simple and yet artistic and the color is good. — Kate O. 
Sessions, San Diego, Calif. 
— 1 have just looked over the December “California Gardens,” num- 
ber of The Garden Magazine and I hasten to compliment you on 
the result of your efforts. This number seems to be so full of meat, as 
well as of interest to the traveler that I expect to cut out several of the 
articles for our reference files. As far as I can see, the only thing that 
the number lacks is the money to take the reader out to California. — 
Fred Dawson, Olmsted Brothers, Brookline, Mass. 
— Allow me to express my appreciation of the December number of 
The Garden Magazine on the gardens of California. It contains so 
much of interest and so much of which I have never before known. 
I hope in your articles on various parts of the country, you will include 
one now and then on the southwest (Kansas, Oklahoma, western 
Texas). I have been trying for some years in a small way to make a 
study of what will grow well in Oklahoma, but I haven’t found any 
infallible rule, as we rarely ever have two seasons alike. — Doris L. 
Byfield, Oklahoma City, Okla. 
— No Garden Magazine has ever reached our office that interested 
me more than the December Garden Magazine in which 1 read Miss 
Sessions’s article and others on California gardens. — B. P. Wagner, 
The IVagner Park Nursery Co., Sidney, 0. 
— I have about finished reading the articles in the December issue of 
The Garden Magazine, so am in a fair position to judge of their re- 
spective merits. The number as a whole impressed me as being very 
representative of California conditions. The information given in the 
various articles is invaluable to Californians, and of great interest to 
people living in other sections of the country. Another thing that im- 
pressed me was that every phase of landscape treatment was treated 
in respect to its relation to Californian conditions. Every writer 
showed a profound knowledge of the subject, and I have not discovered 
a single instance cited that could not be carried out in actual practice. 
Unfortunately, many of the splendid suggestions offered are seldom 
carried out. Especially is this true in the planting of Palms. Many 
estates have been permanently ruined by an indiscriminate planting 
of Palms with trees and shrubs of totally dissimilar habits of growth. 
The relation between house and garden is seldom clearly brought 
out. 
During my last trip to the East I had occasion to observe the many 
well-designed estates one encounters, both in the cities and in the 
rural districts. It is indicative of a higher appreciation of landscape 
art than is to be found in some parts of California. But Californians 
are rapidly coming to appreciate the value of properly grouping trees 
and shrubs, also of placing flowers in their proper relation to other 
plantings. Although all of the articles were splendid, 1 thought Mr. 
Mitchell’s article was especially comprehensive. 
I hope that a large subscription list will be gained in California in 
the near future. — A. M. Woodman, University of California, Berkeley. 
Begonia Evansiana as a Hardy Shade Plant 
To the Editor of The Garden Magazine: 
T HERE is a remarkable plant growing wild not far from our office. 
There are few lovelier sights outside of the tropics than a wood- 
land carpeted with Begonia Evansiana. Warm colors are especially 
charming in cool shade; few plants exhibit so exquisite a color com- 
bination as this one; indeed, few showy flowers really love the shade. 
But this has a tropical-looking leaf, lobed like an Abutilon, of a delicate 
BEGONIA EVANSIANA 
Luxuriant of growth and abundantly self-propagating, an accom- 
modating filler for shady nooks where most things refuse to grow 
waxy, green-gold, stronglv contrasted with the rich crimson of the under 
surface displayed when the plants grow out from the banks of ravines. 
The leaf-stems are translucent and glowing like ruby, as is the flower- 
stem which sets off the flesh-colored blossoms. 
It is not without reason that it suggests the tropics. Evans’ Begonia 
has the astonishing range of North China and Japan to the jungles 
of Java, where eternal summer reigns! I have no doubt that it would be 
hardy in Canada if the bulb were well mulched with leaves. In cold 
climates it reaches about two feet, but great numbers of bulblets form 
in the axils of the leaves, fall to the ground, yielding plants which flower 
the next summer, so that it spreads rapidly. Like the other Begonias 
it is probably a sort of epiphyte or air-plant, which will, given a 
very damp air, grow upon bare rock, peat, or on the trunks of trees, 
as do the Begonias in the mountain gorges of Jamaica. This kind 
(Evans’) is very free-flowering in shade, perhaps less so in sun. It 
prefers a well drained peat or leaf-mold soil. The moist air of a ravine 
or gully, or a sheltered corner of the shrubbery gives it the humidity it 
prefers. I hope that people will naturalize it in the woods. — Russell 
F. Silvers, Avery Island, La. 
