413 
PARK AND CEME^TERY 
Its beauty renders it a very fine plant for parks and 
large grounds, but I would not recommend it for small 
flower gardens. 
Tall Milk<zveed, Poke-lea<ved Silk<weed. Asclepias 
exaltata. 
Grows about 5 feet tall. Leaves broad, smoothish, 
not glaucous. Flowers large, pure white in large clus- 
ters. While its roots are rhizomes, it spreads exceed- 
ingly slowly and is always a very scarce and rare plant. 
Purple Milhvoeed. Asclepias purpurascens. 
Another broad-leaved species with large dark purple 
flowers. Leaves dull green. Pretty but not very bril- 
liant. Roots rhizomes, spread slowly. 
Whorl-lea'ved Milkweed, Asclepias verticillaia. 
Our smallest species, 3^ foot tall, very slender, with 
whorls of narrow leaves, and at the summit clusters of 
small white flowers. Root a mass of fibres, a clump. 
Pretty dry, high sandy hills. 
A WINTER FOLIAGE GARDEN. 
We love to have a rich variety in summer with the 
various tints of green. 
In the autumn our forests and mountains are gorge- 
ous in their brilliant colors ; when all nature goes into 
a grand carnival before the sober spirit of winter. In 
arranging our landscape and parks we should always 
plan for the most pleasing autumn effect. 
But how few plan for a winter foliage garden, thus 
making beauty perennial. When we study our ever- 
greens we are impressed with the fact that there is 
a well-nigh undiscovered country before us. The rich 
variations of our Rocky Mountain conifers give effects 
unknown a century ago. They have such a marvelous 
diversity in form and foliage that a collection of them 
is a perpetual joy. 
In the softer climate of the west where the delicate 
Retinosporas of Japan can be grown, the variations can 
be greatly enhanced. In the trying climate of our west- 
ern praries we can not have as wide a range and we 
must also discard some of the northern evergreens, for 
they can not endure our dry winter air. Yet, we have 
a rich variety which will add much to our comfort and 
pleasure. 
You may plant the different kinds together as na- 
ture does, or have a Rocky Mountain section and a col- 
lection from Europe, and also one from our northern 
forests. 
But your winter garden will be a perpetual splendor. 
You will have the deep green and the glassy needles 
of the ponderosa and Austrian pines, and the lighter 
shading of the jack pine and the Scotch. The Picea 
pungens, looking as if it had been sprayed with softest 
moonlight, stands in pleasing contrast with the Douglas 
spruce. The latter has a rich variety in form and color. 
Some are of the brilliant glauca type, some almost blue, 
others light green. Some are rigid, others graceful and 
willowy in form with needles of varying length. 
The Juniperus scopulorum fairly glistens with its 
frostings of silver. Often the white spruce of the 
Black Hills will give a wide range from light green to 
silvery blue. 
The ponderosa pine has wide spread and sturdy 
branches, and the silver cedar and Swedish Juniper 
are snug, compact and conical. Look closely at a 
forest of a thousand confiers gathered from different 
lands and you will find a clearly defined individuality 
as you would among a thousand people of different 
nationalities. 
The aristata is unique ; the whole tree being covered 
with green fox-tails, so it is called fox-tail pine, while 
the contorta, though a symetrical tree, yet, when the 
lower limbs die they wither with such contortions that 
one would think the dead limbs were writhing serpents. 
These trees growing upright in their native forests 
straight as arrows, are packed like sardines. They are 
called the Tamarack or lodge pole pine on account of 
being so straight and slender. 
C. S. Harrison. 
TREE ROOTS IN SEWERS. 
An experiment lately tried by us at Mt. Greenwood, 
Ilk, in overcoming the annoyance of sewers obstructed 
by tree roots may be of interest, as I do not remember 
to have heard of its being tried before. 
The sewer in question was a six-inch one, some 400 
feet long and about five feet deep. A few years ago 
we had been compelled to take up the entire line as it 
was completely blocked and the obstructions extended 
through a large part of its length. It was evident that 
it had again become nearly closed, as the water only 
passed through very slowly. 
We poured about twenty gallons of our concentrated 
arsenic-soda weed killer into the upper end of the 
sewer. In a few days the flow was better and in a very 
short time a test of it with the hose showed an unob- 
structed flow. 
My theory is that the solution killed the roots and so 
burned them that they broke into small pieces and were 
washed out. 
The expense was so absurdly small in proportion to 
that of taking the pipe up, and the result so completely 
successful that it seems best to make the facts known. 
We shall run a smaller quantity, perhaps about six 
gallons, through this sewer each year hereafter, and 
have no doubt that we shall, by that means, do away 
with the trouble. 
The whole experiment was guess work, and the 
amount used was simply what we had handy. Very 
likely a smaller amount would have answered. 
The material was our stock solution which we dilute 
for weed killing and the formula has been published in 
Park and Cemetery. W. N. Rudd. 
