named by William Forsyth, a Scotch, horticulturist, who wrote 
a book on the cultivation of fruit trees, was also King's gardener 
at Kensington and last but not least was painted by Raeburn. 
Forsythia viridissima and its companion, Lonicera fragrant is 
sima, are often the two earliest shrubs to flower in our Parks. 
The Forsythia is covered with small yellow floAvers and although 
not quite as hardy as Forsythis suspensa fortunei, the Golden 
Bell, it blooms considerably earlier and is valuable for this 
reason. The Golden Bell is too well* known to need any 
description but it is not often enough used in large masses as it 
should be, nor yet is the slender variety, the true Suspensa, 
grown as a trailing wall-shrub. AVhen grown in this way it 
either covers the wall with a solid mass of its A^ellow flowers or 
if not closely trained, makes literally a yellow cascade. 
We must not forget the Cornelian Cherry, Cornus mas, a 
much branched, tree-like shrub not unlike the Benzoin in flower 
but stronger growing. Now please be patient with me while we 
gallop through the Sy ring as or Lilacs. The first to bloom is the 
species oblata, with lilac flowers and in autumn wine-red foliage. 
This was found by Fortune, after whom one of the Forsythia 
is named, growing in a garden near Shanghai and is unknown 
in a wild state even in China. Since Emil Lemoine of Nancy 
first began experimenting with the common Lilac by crossing it 
with various species, he has given us a variety of color and length 
of bloom quite unknown twenty years ago. It is very nice and 
sentimental to talk about the dear old-fashioned Lilacs that we 
remember in our youth but even the most conservative of us are 
forced to acknowledge that the new kinds are a vast improve- 
ment over the old. To take one concrete instance, Emil 
Lemoine 's white lilac, which he called Marie Legraye, has every- 
thing that the old Lilac lacked. The old white Lilac was rather 
a spindly, leggy shrub, its leaves smaller and less vigorous than 
the common purple kind and in general an anaemic and badly 
nourished looking object. The flowers of Marie Legraye are as 
full and as sweet as the purple, the leaves are strong and the 
bush healthy looking. Let us choose a dozen Lilac bushes for our 
spring garden and do not let us be deluded into getting grafted 
plants. We must look fiercely at the nurseryman and tell him 
that we want "own root" plants, otherwise we shall be perpetual- 
ly struggling with the graft which will come up around the 
variety you want and will gradually smother it. The only reason 
plants are grafted is that the grower finds that he can produce 
a larger plant in a shorter space of time than he can by striking 
cuttings and growing from them. If we must have two whites 
let us add Alba major to Marie Legraye; Charles X and 
Philemon for the reds ; Geant des Batailles, Ludwig Spaeth and 
Amethyst for the blues; Ambroise Verschaffelt and Glorie des 
Moidins in the pinkish tones ; Matthieu de Bombasle, lilac ; and 
if you feel reallv enterprising and have not my personal dislike 
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