74 
House & Garden 
MOTT 
OVew bathroom fixtures 
worth knowing about 
E ACH fixture in its own way x'eflects the best current 
thought on modern bathroom comfort and sanitation. 
A. Lavatory. Vitreous China or 
Solid Porcelain, with wall 
brackets of the same mate¬ 
rials. 
B. Bath. Light Weight Solid 
Porcelain, equipped with 
Thermostatic valve which 
controls both temperature 
and flow. 
C. Water Closet. Quiet action, 
yet flushes thoroughly. Flush 
operated by a push-button 
valve concealed in floor. 
D. Dental Lavatory. A vitreous 
China fixture of appropriate 
shape and height. Supplies 
mixed water to the nozzle 
and cold water to the flushing 
rim at the same time. 
E. Scales. Platform counter¬ 
sunk in floor. Weighing 
mechanism concealed in wall. 
Dial face flush with tiling. 
Prospective builders will find it an advantage to visit our 
show rooms below—accompanied by the architect or plum¬ 
ber. Or, write for Mott’s 138-Page “Bathroom Book’’ 
giving full descriptions and prices of modern equipment, 
and showing floor plans of 22 model bathrooms, mailed 
for 4c. 
The J. L. MOTT IRON WORKS, Trenton, N. J. 
New York, Fifth Avenue and Seventeenth Street 
tBoston 
Pittsburgh 
tChicago 
Atlanta 
Los Angeles 
tPhiladelphia 
Seattle 
Cleveland 
Dallas 
f Detroit 
fDes Moines 
tToledo 
Portland, Ore. 
■{■Washington, D. C. 
Columbia, S. C. 
Minneapolis 
tNew Orleans 
Denver 
fSan Francisco 
tSt. Louis 
tMontreal, Can. 
San Antonio 
t Showrooms equipped with model bathrooms 
C V:V “V \V ! ~.V • VC V'..”. V V V % • % . V 
Under 
Garbage 
installed at your home—means less danger from infantile paralysis 
germs. Act NOW—for your protection. Eliminate the dirty gar¬ 
bage pail. 
SOLD DIRECT SEND FOR CIRCULAR 
Look for our Trade Marks 
ground 
Receiver 
C. H. STEPHENSON, Mfr., 20 Farrar St., Lynn, Mass. 
PEONIES 
One of the showiest, richest colored and spicily frga- 
rant of ail garden flowers. 
My American grown roots are all clean, hardy and 
guaranteed true to name. Over one hundred of the 
best varieties. 
For most satisfactory results they should he planted 
in September or October. 
Send today for my booklet “Your Spring Garden." 
It also tells about Tulips, Narcissi, etc. 
176 Broadway Paterson, N. J. 
The Best Baker’s Dozen of Evergreen Trees 
(Continued, from page 72) 
instead of being stiff as most conifers 
are. It is a tree that sways and re¬ 
sponds to the breeze, rather than resists 
and fights against it. 
The Aggressive Firs 
For wind-swept places where nothing 
else will stand up and maintain itself, 
use Nordmann’s fir (Abies Nordman- 
niana) a native of the Caucasus and 
consequently inured to hardship. This 
is a tree of characteristic fir-tree form— 
pyramidal and aggressive and compact, 
growing to a height of 100' or more, 
with stiff and resistant branches and 
leaves that shred the winds to fragments. 
Very much alike are the firs and the 
spruces to the eye. One of the best 
gardeners I have ever known confessed 
to me once that he did not know of any 
certain and fixed rule for determining 
which group a specimen belonged to; but 
of course, he did not go about with a 
lense in his pocket, with which to ex¬ 
amine details such as the arrangement 
of the pores on a leaf—or perhaps the 
forms of the scales of the bark. Botan¬ 
ists decide tilings in this way. 
Generally speaking, a fir tree is more 
severe than a spruce—in every way. Its 
branches are severely horizontal, scorn¬ 
ing to take advantage of the rising line 
and its capacity for lessening strain in 
their growth. The branchlets likewise 
stand straight out instead of drooping 
in ever so slight degree; and the leaves 
which are short and arranged along the 
branches evenly, stand out from these 
branches in every direction, so that if 
you grasp a branch in your hand, it 
pricks you for your pains, quite merci¬ 
lessly. The branch of a spruce is not 
at all so resentful, for the very good 
reason that the leaves on it are ranked 
on either side only, as the fibers of a 
bird’s feather are ranked along the quill. 
The most certain way of all to tell 
which is which is the cones; but as 
neither bears cones until it is perhaps 
ten years old, this often means quite a 
time to wait. Cones of the fir partake 
of this same severe character, and are 
upstanding forever. Cones of the spruce, 
on the other hand, stand up for a little, 
then reverse themselves and open their 
scales to scatter the seed graciously—and 
then fall off the tree altogether, without 
having shed any of the scales. Fir cones 
scatter their seeds from the erect posi¬ 
tion, and then one by one the scales 
drop away; but even after every one is 
gone, the core of the cone stays there, 
defiant to the last. 
So the fir is not a gracious tree; but 
this particular species nevertheless is 
valuable and worthy a place in the dozen 
best evergreen trees that we have. And 
when used to defy the winds on a pro¬ 
montory or a hilltop where these are 
wont to disport in their fiercest moods, 
the military character of these trees com¬ 
pels admiration, and claims for them the 
same sort of affection that one feels for 
the stern commanding officer. He is a 
forbidding figure whom we revere and 
venerate and cannot do without; but as 
an intimate, we should rather dread him. 
As to Red Cedars 
Probably there is nothing more pic¬ 
turesque in the evergreen world than an 
old red cedar—but one has to wait such 
a long time for it to get old enough! 
During the years of its accomplishment, 
however, there is nothing in this country 
that will so nearly approximate the 
cypress of Italy in landscape effect; so 
the period of waiting is not altogether 
barren of beauty. 
It is unfortunate perhaps that the red 
cedar has been associated in the Ameri¬ 
can mind with poor land, through the 
habit which this species has of taking 
possession of old fields on rundown 
farms. Actually, the presence of a 
colony of these really lovely spire-like 
trees does not signify poor land so much 
as it signifies neglected land. They 
quickly make the most of opportunity 
by establishing themselves in fields no 
longer cultivated; for in such places they 
find exactly the conditions suitable to 
their growth—namely, lack of other 
heavy vegetation with which they can¬ 
not compete, and land mellow and easily 
penetrated by their fine roots. 
This is why “abandoned farms’’ show 
them in such numbers, ranked by twos 
and tens and twenties, forming wonder¬ 
ful little chapels and amphitheaters, 
with gothic aisles leading from one to 
another. I came upon a group last sum¬ 
mer, on a lovely sweep of hillside that 
had once been pasture land, ranged in 
as perfect a circle as man himself could 
have planted. At one side was an open¬ 
ing through which one could enter the 
enclosure—truly a temple of Pan, if ever 
I expect to see one ! 
In certain places and for certain pur¬ 
poses, nothing can equal this red cedar 
(Juniperus virginiana ) but it finds itself 
so far down in the list just because the 
qualifying clause must be attached to it 
—“for certain purposes.” It is distinctly 
a special purpose tree; and it is one of 
the trees that those who devote them¬ 
selves to big tree moving especially de¬ 
light in handling, for it usually trans¬ 
plants, even when 30' to 40' high, with 
a considerable degree of success. And, of 
course, it is invaluable for screening, 
providing enough are used. 
Whatever the purpose of it may be, 
however, do not make the mistake of 
confining it to straight and formal lines. 
Straight and formal itself, it should al¬ 
ways be grouped in the natural fashion; 
and in any given group, specimens of 
varying size should find a place. This 
alone will reproduce Nature’s handling. 
I have exhausted six of the twelve 
which it was here my task to consider 
as the very best evergreens there are. 
The Final Six Sorts 
Besides them, there is the Colorado 
spruce (Picea pungens ) ; and then there 
are the Swiss stone pine (Pinus cembra), 
the Bhotan pine (Pinus excelsa), the 
bull pine (Pinus ponderosa ), the Nor¬ 
way pine (Pinus resinosa) and last but 
not least, for it will grow where no other 
evergreen can or will, the pitch pine 
(Pinus rigida). Head and shoulders 
above the rest of the conifer tribe stand 
these six; and considering the position 
of the pines generally, it is not to be 
wondered at that tribal legends among 
the North American Indians declare it 
to have been the first tree to spring from 
the bosom of mother earth. Certainly, 
there is no genus whose members so uni¬ 
versally serve man as this; and certainly 
there is none that in addition to service 
holds so much in the way of beauty. 
The Swiss stone pine, from the high 
regions of middle Europe, is naturally 
of the greatest hardiness. Also, it is slow 
growing, and thus valuable where one’s 
space is restricted. The choice of a tree 
of this character makes it possible to use 
evergreens where otherwise there would 
be no opportunity; or where a planting 
could at most be left only a few years 
without thinning to such a degree as 
would destroy its quality. As it grows 
old, this species changes from tire dense 
pyramid of its youth and middle age to 
a most picturesque, broad-headed, irregu¬ 
lar specimen. 
The Bhotan pine is not as hardy, being 
a native of the Himalayas. Yet as it en¬ 
dures as far north as Massachusetts it 
need hardly be called a tender variety. 
Its branches are loose and gracefully 
pendulous, although generally ascending 
in growth. The bull pine—one of the 
pines that is called “yellow”—is a mon¬ 
ster of the west, very tall and very im- 
(Continucd on page 76) 
