Old Flower Favorites 1 8 1 
ment or injury of fragile things; so in a limited gar- 
den space, grass room under our feet, with flowering 
vines on the surrounding walls are better than many 
crowded flower borders. A tiny space can quickly 
be made delightful with climbing plants. The com- 
mon Morning-glory, called in England the Bell-bind, 
is frequently advertised by florists of more encourage- 
ment than judgment, as suitable to plant freely in 
order to cover fences and poor sandy patches of 
ground with speedy and abundant leafage and bloom. 
There is no doubt that the Morning-glory will do 
all this and far more than is promised. It will also 
spread above and below ground from the poor strip 
of earth to every other corner of garden and farm. 
This it has done till, in our Eastern states, it is now 
classed as a wild flower. It will never look wild, 
however, meet it where you will. It is as domestic 
and tame as a barnyard fowl, which, wandering in 
the wildest woodland, could never be mistaken as 
game. The garden at Claymont, the Virginia home 
of Mr. Frank R. Stockton, afforded a striking ex- 
ample of the spreading and strangling properties of 
the Morning-glory, not under encouragement, but 
simply under toleration. Mr. Stockton tells me that 
the entire expanse of his yards and garden, when he 
first saw them, was a solid mass of Morning-glory 
blooms. Every stick, every stem, every stalk, every 
shrub and blade of grass, every vegetable growth, 
whether dead or alive, had its encircling and over- 
whelming Morning-glory companion, set full of 
tiny undersized blossoms of varied tints. It was a 
beautiful sight at break of day, — a vast expanse 
