46 
PLANTS OF DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA 
with tight, low walls and roof strips so 
laid that they will cover about two-thirds 
of the space. Either on raised benches 
or the ground he can sow seed and root 
cuttings, tdardy seeds can be sown and 
cuttings can be rooted in the cool part of 
the year; those of tender plants should 
be put in in the spring or summer. It 
is well to have a pit covered with glass 
which can be shut tight on cold nights, 
where one can preserve the very tender 
things. Even a small frame covered with 
glazed sash is a great help in propa¬ 
gating. 
I make claim to no skill whatever as 
a propagator or grower of plants. There 
are those who succeed where I fail, who 
seem to have a genius for making things 
grow. But after all, as Peter Henderson 
has said, eternal vigilance counts for 
more in growing plants than any skill. 
I can only claim for myself the deep, de¬ 
voted love for them such as a mother 
has for her little child. Looking over 
my grounds I feel that the dream of 3 my 
life has come true; that the reality is far 
grander, more beautiful and satisfying 
than I thought it ever could be. It is a 
source of the greatest pleasure to me to 
wander among these dear things, to watch 
the dormant buds breaking, to find some 
rare and cherished flower opening at last. 
I feel that I am a part and parcel of it all 
as I walk in my garden with a sense of 
reverence and devotion. 
I love to wander in my grounds at 
night; the trees seem larger than in the 
growing sunlight. I love to look upward 
where their tops make a blot of darkness 
against the lighter sky. I love to walk 
in the hammock at night even when it is 
darkest. But it is most beautiful when 
the moon overhead pours down its light 
through the epiphyte-laden trees like a 
sheet of illuminated spray from some 
waterfall. I cannot close this paper more 
fittingly than by quoting the words of 
Charles Kingsley, in his Christmas in 
the West Indies: “But how beautiful 
they are all and each after their kinds 1 
What a. joy for a man to stand at his 
door and simply look at them growing, 
leafing, blossoming, fruiting, without 
pause, throughout the perpetual summer, 
in his little Garden of the Hesperides, 
where, as in those of the Phoenicians of 
old, ‘pear grows ripe on pear and fig on 
fig’ forever and forever.” 
