BEAUTIFUL GARDENS IN AMERICA 
other localities, spring opening from one to two weeks 
later than inland. The difference in time of spring bloom 
on this shore and near New York City is only about a 
week. The climate on the lake front is especially variable. 
The country is a flat upland broken with wooded ravines. 
Out in central Illinois, in Piatt County, there are fif- 
teen thousand acres belonging to a famous estate beyond 
Monticello. The Farms contains delightful gardens on 
an extensive scale, quite English in design, and as far as 
possible in keeping with the Georgian architecture of the 
house. Juniper Hibernica is freely used over the main 
garden, enriching with its deep evergreen tones the broad 
expanse of flower-bordered beds. The walls are covered 
with Chinese Wistarias, Japanese Honeysuckle, trained 
peach trees, nectarines, pears, and plums. 
Monticello is in the latitude of Philadelphia; the 
blooming dates almost correspond, but frost destroys a 
trifle earlier. The highest summer thermometer rarely 
reaches one hundred degrees, sometimes dropping in win- 
ter to twenty-seven degrees below. Tender annuals can 
usually be planted out after May 15. Mulching and 
watering is necessary to preserve the summer bloomers. 
Famous in the annals of southern Indiana is the large 
estate at Lexington known as Englishton Park, and for 
six generations the property of the English family. 
Problems of insufficient rain, poor soil, and rocky 
ground have been overcome by most scientific measures, 
and now a pool filled with Lilies and bordered with water- 
267 
