- 
" beyond [compare ” any number of cart-loads 
of scentless bedding plants, mechanically ar¬ 
ranged and ribbon-bordered. 
sive or even exquisite culture, but only a few 
well directed efforts from year to year and the 
place takes care of itself. Every one surely 
can find a secluded nook in the garden or 
lawn, and there are many things we can do of 
the easiest nature that will tend greatly to 
perfect these delightful surprises. Wild flow¬ 
ers can be fostered and even planted in such a 
way as to preclude all idea whatever of the 
working of the hand. Hardy shrubs, too, 
maybe used in the most effective manner for 
this purpose, by planting them singly or in 
colonies in a thoroughly wild-wood manner. 
But, I believe, nothing will create such pleas¬ 
ant, artistic surprises in these nooks, audillus¬ 
trate the proper way to treat them better than 
the intelligent employment of climbers and 
creepers. With them alone we can do won¬ 
ders. Take that old stump before you and 
wreathe it with festoons of the long, crimson 
flowers of the Trumpet Creeper—Tecoma rad- 
icans, Nothing in its way can be finer ex¬ 
cept the employment of Tecoma grandiflora, 
with its great, orange-colored flowers. So 
vigorous and stout are these climbers that 
they soon grow into a tossing, wild mass of 
leaves and trumpet shaped flowers, to the en¬ 
tire obliteration from view of the old trunk 
over which they grow, Don’t confuse, how¬ 
ever, these trumpet flowers with those of the 
scarlet trumpet vine or honeysuckle—Lonieera 
leaves- liiui. oiteri nearly all Vv imwl 
Every one thinks of honeysuckle flowers as 
sweet-scented and yellow, white or red; but 
bow many stop to examine the rich, glossy 
shades of honeysuckle leaves, so admirably 
adapted for carpeting bare spots or draping 
heaps of stone and stumps and tree trunks ? 
There are scores of varieties of honeysuckles 
which are, every one of them, worthy of em¬ 
ployment. 
In some of these sheltered nooks we might 
even use the unequaled English Ivy, particu¬ 
larly if we use it as a carpet; but we certainly 
Can have the so-called Japan Ivy, Ampelop- 
sis Veitchii, or tricuspidata, in this coun¬ 
try the most perfect of hardy creepers for 
more effective in our tangled wild-wood cor¬ 
nel’s than great masses of the common Vir¬ 
ginia Creepers—A. bipionata. How its piled- 
up leaves festoon the tree trunks with over- 
lying masses of shining green in Summer and 
of scarlet and blood-red in Autumn every one 
familiar with Fall effects must remember. Of 
an entirely different, but none the less very 
effective, nature is the Virginia Silk—Peri- 
ploca Gnoea-with long, pointed, shining leaves, 
small flowers and brownish-red stems, reaching 
out with almost unrivaled speed away up the 
stem of the tree, illustrating in a temperate zone 
and harmless manner something of the tree- 
murdering propensities of certain vines of the 
tropics. For the adornment of the upper part 
of the trees and rock masses we must not forget 
the rich clusters of foliage and charming gar¬ 
lands of flowers of the purple and white wis¬ 
tarias. Wistarias, allowed to reach out, 
flower aud leaf most abundantly in their upper 
parts, and are, therefore, specially adapted for 
garlanding a tree or roof far up in the air 
without reference to covering its lower part. 
Then there is the neat-leaved akebia; the bold 
and picturesque, large, light-colored-leaved 
Dutchmau’sPipe; the Autumn-crimsoned pur¬ 
ple-berried Bitter Sweet, all lovely climbers 
for our purpose. But of all charming climb¬ 
ers, l verily believe the clematis must bear the 
palm. The variety of color and form of its 
^ t ,f l t-in I less, extending, as it does, 
ltulu cut ,*•’ . *■!. 'V. v- i i.’wC; A, .1 . i-‘ 
manii to the delicate, small, white and yellow 
flowers of C. Ilnmmula and C. apiifolia. And 
they are equally line in the nookery whether 
carpeting bare spaces of ground or garlanding 
and draping rocks and trees. 
Before leaving a subject thus closely allied 
to the very heart of nature I would note 
again, with increased emphasis, that one of 
the peculiarities of the proper treatment of 
these pleasant cornel’s, whether in garden or 
woodland, is that it may be said, almost, 
that the more you plant and the less you 
cultivate and cut with the sickle, scythe and 
pruning knife, the more surely you attain the 
end desired. Conventional methods are all 
Ijovtiniltural 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL GROUNDS 
The Rural Gold and Crimson Tomato. 
We are not positive as to the year when the 
“sport” ancestor of the tomato which we have 
drawn from life made its appearance. It was 
about five years ago, and certainly not less 
than four. Neither have we a positive re¬ 
membrance as to the variety upon which it 
firs-t appeared as a so-called “sport.” We 
thought it was the Acme and that the “sport” 
was due to the contiguity of a yellow vari¬ 
ety growing near it with which it had crossed 
the year previous. But Mr. Bliss points 
out to us that this could scarcely have been, 
since the Acme was introduced but four years 
ago. 
The “sport” consisted of a faint yellow 
band about the stem, which gradually merged 
into crimson. Seed of this was sown the next 
year and again seed of the tomato most decid¬ 
edly marked yellow and crimson was saved 
for the next, and so on every year since. The 
progress of “ fixing ” the two colors has been 
slow. Last season a majority were eri mson; 
about one-quarter were irregularly streaked 
and the rest quite uniformly marked, ns faith¬ 
fully shown in the portrait. Not alone, how- 
«"* , hi vc vt> lu... a** an v<**j*» I ■ * • ~ 
of the two colors. Very little attention has 
ever been paid to improving the keeping 
qualities of the tomato—a consideration, as it 
has seemed to us, of the very first import¬ 
ance. Cultivators have worked chiefly for 
earliness and, as as a minor consideration, for 
size and smoothness. As to earliuess, all eu- 
deavors have been futile, or nearly so. No 
real progress has been made in this respect 
for years, aud those kinds which are a few 
days earlier than the earliest of 10 years ago, 
are watery, small and disposed to rot. For 
earliness, size and quality we have to-day no 
better kinds than the Conqueror, Canada 
Victor or Hathaway's Excelsior. From the 
very nature of the tomato plant we eannot 
preserve its best qualities and yet force it to 
an earlier maturity. Nor, since the art of 
preserving them in cans has been so perfect¬ 
ed, is it desirable, since canned tomatoes are 
as good as the fresh fruit and far better than 
those which are forced out of their uatural 
season of ripening. But, as we have said, 
any systematic attempt to improve their 
keeping qualities has been quite ignored in 
so far as we have heard. 
Another object which w:ts constantly borne 
in mind was, therefore, to breed a tomato 
by selection w hich should keep sound longer 
than any other variety. To this end all of 
those which showed progress towards estab¬ 
lishing the two colors in one fruit v era 
pulled as soon as ripe, placed in the sun, and 
a record kept of how many days they re¬ 
mained in u sound condition. From the 
longest keeper only has seed been selected 
during these four or live years for the fol¬ 
lowing year’s crop. Last Summer seed was 
selected from a tomato (distinctly marked 
gold and crimson, as shown in the engraving) 
w hich remained perfectly sound for IT days. 
It is reasonable to hope for an improvement 
upon this, and that ultimately American to¬ 
matoes may become enduring enough to bear 
shipment to England and to be exposed in 
English market., plump and sound as long as 
they are now exposed here. The climate of 
England is no more favorable to the culture 
of the tomato than it is to that of Indian corn 
NOOKERIES ON THE HOME GROUNDS 
SAMUEL PARSONS, JR, 
How shall we treat our gardens or lawn 
uookeries ? to coin a phrase which means, I take 
it, an aggregation or congeries of nooks and 
cornel’s combined into a single isolated pic¬ 
ture. On general principles nooks of the gar¬ 
den attain a value not only because in them, 
as Lord Bacon quaintly puts it, “ when the 
wind blows sharp, you may walk as in a gal¬ 
lery,” but because these nooks afford the at. 
traction of a surprise, that may be in the 
truest sense, when properly taken advantage 
of, a pleasurable surprise. In a word, there 
must lie a succession of nooks, surprises in 
numbers, all within the limits of one small 
spot, to make your true nookery, for a bare 
corner is in no sense a nookery. Memory 
must surety recall to all of us such spots down 
in the orchard or behind the barn, and espe¬ 
cially in some remote corner of the old- 
fashioned garden uud in the edge of the 
woods at the back of the house. The old 
apple tree with the grape-vine trailing ovei 
it, down by the drinking-hole for cuttle in 
the corner of the orchard, was a delight¬ 
ful nookery in its way, with its rich turf and 
charming wild flowers, or weeds ns some would 
call them. Abounding, too, in uookeries of 
tin 1 pleasantest sort was the old flower garden, 
with its box lined borders and lark-spur eor- 
hollyhoeks where, for instance, in a far cor. 
ner, wc come suddenly on an old arbor fetr 
tooned with grape-vine, honeysuckle and 
trumpet creeper. I think, though, according 
to my remembrance*, t he best nookery was to 
be found dowu on the edge of the grove, w ith 
its pool of water on one side and its bays of 
shrubby growth and aisles of tree trunks on 
the other. The rushes and lilies of those re¬ 
mote, still waters, and the wild iiow'ers and 
climbing vines, Virginia Creepers and Bitter 
Sweets in the recesses of the woods, even now 
linger with me ns types of what garden nook- 
eries should be. 
After recalling the constituent parts of such 
scenes, it ought not to be hard to adorn, and, 
if necessary, create these pleasant nookeries 
in our gardens. It is not a question of exten¬ 
RURAL GOLD AND. CRIMSON TOMATO—FROM NATURE.— Fig. 548 
clinging by rootlets to stone or wooden 
surfaces. Few* plant effects can surpass 
in Summer the glossy color and urtistic 
forms of the leaves and tendrils of the Japan 
Ivy, or the crimson and gold of its Autumn 
tints. But w r e must not forget the other vari¬ 
eties of Ampclopsis in contemplating the 
charms of the Japan Ivy, for few thiugs are 
out of place in the true garden or lawn nook- 
ery. Grasses, mosses, tree trunks, fantastic*., 
“ lovely climbers and wild flowers, weeds even, 
and manie a plant that the fastidious woulde 
cast fortbe, ” tall, purple thistles and asters and 
great docks and sorrels, all make up a picture 
in such nooks, that, irradiated, perchance, by 
the level beams of the setting suu, surpass* s 
I am not aware that any of your readers 
grow kale. In Canada, Nova Scotia and in 
cool, moist and mountainous parts of the 
United States it should do well. After it gets 
