i 82 
Old Time Gardens 
of acres jewelled with Morning-glories — but it 
wasn’t the new owner’s notion of a flower garden. 
In my childhood flower agents used to canvass 
country towns from house to house. Sometimes 
they had a general catalogue, and sold many plants, 
trees, and shrubs. Oftener they had but a single 
plant which they were “ booming.” I suspect that 
their trade came through the sudden introduction 
of so many and varied flowers and shrubs from 
China and Japan. I am told that the first Chinese 
Wistarias and a certain Fringe tree were sold in this 
manner ; and I know the white Hydrangea was, for 
I recall it, though I do not know that this was its 
first sale. I remember too that suddenly half the 
houses in town, on piazza or trellis, had the rich 
purple blooms of the Clematis Jackmanni ; for a very 
persuasive agent had gone through the town the 
previous year. Of course people of means bought 
then, as now, at nurseries ; but at many humble 
homes, whose owners would never have thought of 
buying from a greenhouse, he sold his plants. It 
gave an agreeable rivalry, when all started plants 
together, to see whose flourished best and had 
the amplest bloom. Thoreau recalled the pleasant 
emulation of many owners in Concord of a certain 
Rhododendron, sold thus sweepingly by an agent. 
The purple Clematis displaced an old climbing 
favorite, the Trumpet Honeysuckle, once seen by 
every door. It was so beloved of humming-birds 
and so beautiful, I wonder we could ever destroy it. 
Its downfall was hastened by its being infested 
by a myriad of tiny green aphides, which proceeded 
