flMan to Beautify the Country IRoafcetfces 
The Warrenton Garden Club has begun a campaign of rousing 
interest in beautifying our roadsides, or rather in preserving their natural 
beauty. Committees have been appointed for each road leading into 
Warrenton, with a view to preventing the destruction and disfigurement 
of the native growth along the roads. 
In many States and foreign countries an elaborate and expensive 
system of roadside panting has been undertaken for the purpose of giv- 
ing shade and attractive appearance to the public roads. In this locality 
this is unnecessary, unless we make it necessary, by exterminating what 
we now have. Beautiful trees grow naturally, giving refreshing shade; 
and for beauty we have dogwood, redbud, elder, spicewood, sumac, 
sweet briar, honeysuckle, wild grape, Virginia creeper, ferns and many 
beautiful flowers. 
All these plants are sought after for royal gardens; all they ask 
of us is the right to grow and make our roadsides attractive and fra- 
grant. To cut, slash and burn them and call the process cleaning up, 
is as if the housekeeper for a spring cleaning should make a bonfire of 
her carpets, curtains, pictures and ornaments. Every property owner 
should protest against anything that disfigures the country, as it is cer- 
tain that beauty adds greatly to the value of property. But there are 
other considerations which make these natural hedges valuable. They 
protect the birds, the farmer's best friends, the surest and cheapest de- 
stroyers of injurious insects. They prevent the banks washing and 
stopping the ditches. And the roadsides, if left bare, soon become the 
breeding places of cockleburs and other noxious weeds, whose seeds 
stick to the legs of horses and other animals and so spread rapidly 
through the country. 
flRore about tbe Color Cbart 
In reading over the accounts of the third Annual Meeting of the 
Garden Club of America at Baltimore, it appears nothing was definitely 
decided as to the adoption of a standard color chart, with the idea of 
urging its use by the seedsmen. 
I think it goes without saying that all gardeners, especially ama- 
teurs, feel the necessity of knowing the true colors with which they are 
working, which is, of course, an impossibility from the verbal descrip- 
tions in the catalogues. 
It was hoped that an abbreviated color chart would be published, 
but as none seems forthcoming, I understand the committee considers 
the Ridgway Chart the best available. 
We now have the opportunity of buying it at the greatly reduced 
price of four dollars per volume, instead of eight, provided we purchase 
the entire edition of five hundred volumes now remaining in Doctor 
Ridgway's hands. 
