H ouse and Garden 
and admit that after all some crumbs of know¬ 
ledge had escaped him. 
One naturally begins these reflections with 
the topic of soil. It is a huge subject—as 
big as the habitable world, in fact. From 
sea sand to the stony debris where alpities 
cling on the faces of precipices, every sort of 
mother earth demands our respect and study. 
When 1 say “respect,” however, I omit clay. 
Personally I have no use for clay in my gar¬ 
den until it has been baked into flower-pots. 
It is true that burnt clay has a charm for some 
good men ; but first you must burn it; and 
that is a very complicated task that often 
estranges the most friendly neighbors. I 
know that roses do well on clay : that, how¬ 
ever is merely to the credit of the rose, not 
the clay. 1 lingered on London clay myself 
for years; but nobody can pretend that 1 
flourished. ’ Pis sullen, bad-hearted stuff— 
greedy as the grave—and the only way with 
it—as with the devil—is to fly from it, or 
make it fly from you. Failing these alter¬ 
natives, put your trust in roses, and ever¬ 
greens that nothing will kill ; but do not 
dream of any bulbs except the narcissus 
family ; and if you are contented with that 
show don’t call yourself a gardener. In my 
garden the soil is good, bad and indifferent. 
Where the natural earth is loaded with lime, 
as here, one must make hard and fast limits, 
for many important things won’t stand it. 
For peat plants I dig special beds ; for others 
1 graduate the soil from stiff' loam through 
various stages and combinations of earth to 
the almost pure sand with a touch of leaf 
that a calochortus likes. In my rock border 
there are little separate beds of peat for the 
alpine roses and other dwarf rhododendrons 
and azaleas. These beds get bigger and big¬ 
ger; because, taking it all round, there is 
nothing like peat. Fortified with a good 
leaf-mould and mixed with sand and medium 
sized fragments of red sandstone and lime¬ 
stone, it makes grand rockery stuff; while 
in deep, cool half-shaded borders the choice 
plants that prosper in it are innumerable. 
In a full sun the big shrubs appreciate it, and 
also nearly all bulbs. 1 put Kelway’s grand 
strains of the gladiolus into choice loam and 
into peat side by side last year, and there 
was no comparison in the results, both above 
and below ground. The peat-earth people 
simply looked down on the mixed-earth com¬ 
pany from the first; and when, after flower¬ 
ing, all came up to winter indoors, the bulbs 
were far finer and the offsets more numerous 
from the peat. 
My climbing plants are displayed upon a 
garden room and pergola combined. The 
thing is my own invention, faces west and 
bends outward to the garden in the shape of 
a bow, the door in the middle and crescent 
beds in front of the pillars. One half is 
covered with red tiles carried back at a gentle 
slope into a belt of evergreen; the other 
half is open wire-work arranged for a summer 
curtain of many clematis, various vines, silk 
vine, Baldschnanic polygonum , cucumis , rose 
and aristoloclua Sipho. Annual climbers join 
the aspiring throng in July, and they all 
fight it out together. Salpicbroa did too 
well here, and his superabundance of zeal 
has resulted in the industrious soul being 
dismissed to a dead apple-tree elsewhere. 
Probably the polygonum will over-do it anon 
and go after the salpichroa. Authorities 
name September as this polygonum s flower¬ 
ing time; but mine has a preliminary flourish 
of rosy inflorescence during June, and gives 
a regular Brock’s Benefit in autumn. The 
pillars of my garden room support that lovely 
gem, Mitraria cocctnea , from Chili; 'Thladi- 
antha dubui\ the azure-berried vine (whose 
azure berries 1 take on trust); Apios\ Celastrus 
scandens —a plant perfectly foolish about 
peat; and a beautiful climber, Lophospermum 
scandens , which 1 grow as an annual. Among 
new arrivals here is the dainty Akebia c/uivata 
from Japan, and dioscorea , a fine twiner, that 
would be a popular vegetable it its huge, 
potato-like roots did not sink so deep. Both 
appear to be content. 
You naturally ask why I make no mention 
of the great convolvulus and ipomoea group. 
Well, they are lovely things and the double 
rose-colored calystegia is exceedingly charm¬ 
ing seen in another person’s garden; but 
when you have one little acre only, it is 
necessary to keep a sharp eye on all perennial 
bind-weeds — wild or tame. They travel 
underground as fast as a mole, and crop up, 
like poor relations, at the most exasperating 
times and places. 1 have some under a large 
araucaria, and annually they bound up into 
his thorny embrace with stern endeavor to 
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