The front edge of the main flower border should also have care- 
ful consideration. The natural tendency is to plant it with small 
things, but in a border of considerable size, something of bold and soUd 
appearance is helpful. Here is a chance for a good use of the Broad- 
leaved Saxifrages (Megasea). The best for foHage is the major form 
of Megasea cordifolia, with grand leathery leaves that stand all through 
the winter. The bloom comes early in the year and is a rank magenta 
pink, but it is easy to cut it out. Then there are the Funkias; the 
best being the bright green-leaved Funkia grandiflora and the 
glaucous Funkia Sieboldii. Funkia grandiflora is best placed where 
there is slight shade as the leaves are apt to burn in hot sunshine, 
but Funkia Sieboldii has foliage of stouter build that stands sun well. 
A useful front edge plant, though not wide leaved, is the crested form 
of the Common Tansy. The multiplication of the leaf divisions seems 
to intensity the colour of the whole plant whose feathery masses are 
of a splendid deep green. But the bloom stems should be carefully 
cut out and the leaf tufts themselves cut back at least once in the 
summer, in order to keep it in good form and under a foot in height. 
There are many useful ways of arranging and contriving that 
have come to my mind from time to time during many years' work 
among flowering plants — ^work which stimulates invention and the de- 
vising of means to meet the various needs that are constantly occurring. 
These I shall hope to say something about in a later article. 
How To Start Beekeeping 
Letitia E. Wright, Jr. 
After deciding to keep bees, purchase your hive with its colony 
of bees from a reUable Bee-keeper. Ask for Italian bees, as they resist 
disease better than the black or the hybrid bees, and are the most 
popular bees in this country, although Carniolans are bred in some 
places here. The Carniolans are very gentle but given to excessive 
swarming, and this with their black color, which makes them hard 
to distinguish from the German or black bee, has kept them from 
the popularity they might otherwise have gained. The German bees 
build very beautiful combs, and cap the section boxes over with the 
whitest of wax; but they are nervous and excitable when their hive 
is opened, and they do not resist disease as well as the Italians do. 
Do not buy your bees from too great a distance, nor yet from too 
near home. In the first place unless you are going to get something 
better than you could obtain nearer, you are running a risk of losing 
many bees on the way. Bees suffer for air and water when they are 
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