60 
House & Garden 
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46-48 FRONT ST 
N EW YORK CITY 
Ijo u Py/lT/i i ncjs 
should be planned for with as much thought and 
discrimination as you have given to the building of 
your home and its interior furnishings. In arranging 
for these warm weather necessities you can obtain 
smartness of appearance as well as durability by ordering 
"CURTINMADE” AWNINGS 
They are absolutely color fast and give the utmost in wear 
Made-to - Order 
awnings improve the appearance and add to the comfort of your 
country home, apartment or place of business. 
Representative will call anywhere in the vicinity of New York 
Phone: Broad 6006 Write Dept. G 
John Curtin 
CORPORATION 
I NT E R IO R 
Replica of 
Spanish Desk 
$175 
Candlesticks 
$10 
The Embargo on Your Flower Garden 
(Continued from page 34) 
Our gardens will not be ruined or de¬ 
spoiled. There are many splendid things 
in this country, not yet widely known, 
which will be available for more general 
use. There are many native things 
which have never been fully appreci¬ 
ated, and have never been developed by 
plant breeders and hybridizers, which 
offer almost unlimited possibilities. It 
is rather illuminating, for instance, to 
think of what foreign growers have 
done with the rhododendrons, and of 
what we have not done with our native 
mountain laurel. 
Undoubtedly the greatest argument 
against American production of many 
of the things wjhich have been grown 
abroad heretofore is the uncertainty in 
the situation. And this is somewhat 
similar to those things said in regard 
to the production of potash during the 
war. We have sources from which to 
produce it here. But those who might 
have produced it were very shy about 
going into the matter and starting an 
American potash industry when they 
did not know what day the war would 
stop and importations from the German 
potash mines might be again brought 
in, at a lower figure than potash could 
be produced here. If the plant embargo 
existed in the form of a tariff, there 
would be something definite to go on. 
As it is now, the ruling may be repealed 
at any time. The American grower as 
a result feels that he stands on quick¬ 
sand, that at any time the bottom may 
give way under his feet. 
In a word, then, the effect which the 
plant quarantine is likely to have on 
your own garden is this: There will 
undoubtedly be a very great shortage 
during the next few years of many 
things which heretofore have been in 
plentiful supply. Particularly fruit 
trees, broad-leaved evergreens, trained 
formal plants, such as pyramidal box¬ 
wood, bulbs, azaleas, and roses. The 
prices on these things will be higher 
than they have been before. Possibly 
in the past they have been too low. 
Nursery stock in general has been sold 
too cheaply, frequently far below the 
actual cost of production. This has not 
been a benefit to the American gardener. 
It has been the direct cause of much 
poor stock, and poor service, and re¬ 
sulted in a great deal of dissatisfaction 
which has discouraged the growth of 
gardening in America. 
Early Summer in the Peony Border 
(Continued from page 13) 
have done so much to increase the 
treasures of our gardens. Enthusiasts 
of other countries have been busy to 
good purpose, too. Every American 
peony lover, at any rate, will know the 
story of our own John Richardson and 
the peonies of his Dorchester garden, 
of H. A. Terry of Crescent, Iowa, and 
of George Hollis, of South Weymouth. 
At present the stress seems to be more 
and more on the production of single 
and the so-called Imperial and Japanese 
types. And it does, in truth, seem as if 
the possibilities of new double forms 
must have been quite exhausted. Of 
the herbaceous peony alone there are 
perhaps five hundred or more really 
distinct named sorts. I am not ready 
to join^ that modern cult that would 
discard all double flowers merely be¬ 
cause they are so. I can, I think, make 
room in the garden for them all. 
These various types beginning with 
the single and running through the suc¬ 
cessive stages of doubling, as the sta¬ 
mens become gradually changed into 
petaloids until the full double rose type 
is reached, are shown in some of the 
accompanying illustrations 
Concerning the culture of peonies 
little need even be said, as very little 
culture is necessary. I must confess to 
being a sort of reckless, law breaking 
gardener myself. Anyhow, as I have 
had to do about all the planting and 
cultivating with my own two hands, I 
have learned to skip that part of the 
gardening books that tells how the 
earth must be disemboweled as a 
trench is prepared and all this sub¬ 
soil carted away and fresh top soil and 
tons of manure carted back to take its 
place. In the beginning the strip of 
land set apart for the border was fer¬ 
tilized, plowed, harrowed and stone- 
picked exactly as the adjacent land was 
prepared for a lawn. Then when there 
was a peony root .to be planted, a hole 
some 2' deep and wide was dug, into 
which a couple of shovelfuls of old 
manure were thrown and mixed with 
as much top soil, taken up alongside. 
Over this mixture another shovelful of 
soil was spread, and the peony root so 
placed that the eyes were 2" below the 
adjacent undisturbed surface of the 
bed. Next a stout stake inscribed with 
the date, name of the variety, and the 
grower’s name who supplied the root, 
was put in place, and the hole filled. 
In very dry ground water should be 
supplied. 
During the growing season weeds are 
kept down and the surface of the bed is 
given an occasional stirring with a 
cultivator hoe. 
Architectural Paintings and Etchings 
(Continued from page 30) 
The ruins of the Coliseum at Rome 
seem to contain the slumbering soul of 
the mighty empire, the zenith of whose 
grandeur it typified. Aside from the 
beauty of the ruin, it moves powerfully 
the person whose imagination and in¬ 
tellect love to dwell on the past. It is 
the “antique reliquary” of Poe’s splen¬ 
did poem. Painters and etchers have 
been inspired by its personality. 
Eighteenth Century Venice, as de¬ 
picted by the broad canvases of Guardi 
and Canalletto, has a personality in 
which romance mingles with religion. 
The inspiration which it gives to the 
painter is identical with that which it 
gives to the poet. 
On a rugged crag stands a Scottish 
castle, baring its face to the stern ele¬ 
ments, as staunch and weather-beaten 
as the character of the Scottish race. 
Here is a personality calculated to in¬ 
spire the pencil of a Brangwyn or the 
brush of a Cameron. 
By the side of the Ganges, at the 
crest of a broad stairway, arises an 
Indian temple, while at the edge of the 
river ascend columns of smoke from 
the funeral fires of the devout. The 
scene personifies the subjective soul of 
the Hindu religion—the spirit of Nir¬ 
vana. 
The personality reflected in archi¬ 
tectural paintings and etchings is not 
that of an individual, but that of an 
age, or a race. 
And so it comes that one whose four 
walls are adorned by them cannot, in 
his thoughtful moods, be lonesome, for 
he will be conscious of the presence of 
that which speaks to him, as with a 
human personality, of the glories and 
achievements and hopes and romances 
of the past. 
