262 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
their native land, at least. Whether they become infected 
with microbe of laziness under American influence is another 
story. 
The Hill Gardens of Switzerland. 
Switzerland may well be called the show place of 
Europe. It is on exhibition all the year round. Time was 
A Mountain foot and donkey foot in the Olive Groves of North Italy. 
when it was a summer resort only but now many parts 
draw more tourists in winter than in summer. The attrac¬ 
tions of snow and ice now draw the Englishman and the 
German, who is becoming a great traveller, as much as the 
rocks and mountains did formerly. 
The hill gardens and the little parks about the hotels are 
specially entertaining. These illustrate very forcibly the 
possibilities of “ handkerchief ” gardening. Every foot of 
space is utilized and every pound of soil put to use. As one 
looks on the miles upon miles of stone terraces and retain¬ 
ing walk used in making the hillsides available for grape 
vines and fruit trees, he wonders how the people have found 
time to do anything else. Every peasant can put up a 
stone walk with or without mortar or cement. By the use 
of the terrace, the side hill can be utilized. They are so 
steep that one is reminded of Sol Smith Russell’s statement 
in regard to “hillside farming” in New England “where the 
hills are so steep that the pumpkins sometimes break 
loose and roll down and brain the people in the valleys.” 
The stone terraces furnish background where the aspect is 
right for the training of pear and peach trees, or occasionally 
are covered with pendant vines. 
Think of transporting the necessary fertilizer in a basket 
on a man’s back up these terraces! Yet it is done. In 
fact, man is the only beast of burden usable in the steeper 
vineyards. The manuring is quite thoroughly done. The 
grape-wood as well as the fruit is carried to lower ground 
when the former is used for fuel and the latter taken to the 
press. No fertilizing material of any kind goes to waste in 
this country. The gardener who goes to town with a load 
of fruit or vegetables nearly always manages to return with 
a load of refuse of some sort which sooner or later is con¬ 
verted into fertilizers and is used on the garden or vine¬ 
yard. In spite of the terraces, the soil washes to the lower 
side and must be carried up again in baskets. This sounds 
like small business to the American farmer but thousands 
of acres of vineyards^are managed in just this way in 
Switzerland. 
Gardening in Central and Northern Italy.—Roses of 
the Riviera. 
We were fortunate in being able to spend the latter part 
of April and the forepart of May in the most picturesque 
part of Italy—the Italian lakes excepted—namely in the 
Riviera. There are two parts of this Riviera region or the 
country which lies along the Mediterranean, that which is 
in France and that which lies in Italy. The Italian 
Riviera runs practically from Genoa on the east to the 
French frontier on the west upwards of one hundred and 
twenty miles. The coast is irregular, sometimes bold and 
rocky, again level and gardenlike where the small rivers 
empty into the sea and always clad with the gray foliage of 
the olive and in summer livened with the green tints of the 
vine. One of the charming features of the region is the 
“cornice” road, elsewhere described—alike the delight of 
the pedestrian and autoist—although the frequent curves 
are not conducive to “scorching.” The road is often 
carved out of or rather into the cliff three or four hundred 
feet-above the- sea thus affording magnificent views and 
grand vistas in its serpentine windings. 
But I intend to speak of the gardens. It is wonderful 
what can be done on these rocky hillsides in the way of 
developing gardens. April and Ma}?- are the months of 
the roses. No description can convey an adequate idea of 
The season of the Naricissus Les Avants, Switzerland. 
the wealth of bloom one finds in these gardens during this 
period. Teas and the other tender roses are quite at home 
while Banskae red and white, clamber over arbors and run 
riot in the tree-tops. Undoubtedly, the handsomest and 
most striking rose we saw early in May was Fortuneana 
yellow climbing rose. It was also the commonest. Some¬ 
times, this rose formed a mass of bloom enveloping the tops 
