1884.] 
THE AMERICAN GARDEN. 
191 
A GARDEN IN PARA, 
Sunday in Bm.il, as in all Catholic conn- 
drunken revels, but alHriuierenj'Zien!!;- 
walks into the oonntry, vides in li,o horse 
cars, or visits to I’riends; otton on great 
church festas music and flro-works in the 
evening; but very seldom, although crowds 
of people come together, the slightest dis- 
order. 
Let us, this lovely Sunday morning, visit 
Hie garden of our friend Senor 01 inda, who 
is always at home on Sunday, and to whom 
a \nsit from any lover of plants is always 
welcome. The time is eight o’clock; coffee 
is over, and bre.aMast will not be ready till 
eleven, so we have three hours before us. 
The garden is just outside of the city in the 
precinct of Salvaterra, but yet only twenty 
minutes from the business center. The 
morning is perfection, like the loveliest June 
day, as indeed every morning in the year is 
in Para. Let us, therefore, take a less direct 
route, and walk out by the great Estrada of 
St. Josd. 
We leave the Palace Square, with its large 
Mango-trees (Mandigofera Tndica), lyhieh at 
this season (August) are bright with the new 
bronzy leaves, and hanging full of the green, 
odd-shaped fi-uit, which in January will be 
bright yellow with a red cheek,—a fruit vary¬ 
ing much according to the tree, the poor ones 
tasting like a mixture of tow and turpentine, 
the best more delicious than the choicest 
Peach,—andseebeforeustheEstrada, withits 
long lines of Royal Palms (Oveodoxa regia), 
the great fronds meeting over the broad 
street, and the columnar trunks seeming to 
converge in the distance. 
On each side are houses and gardens; a 
short distance out is the once famous botanic 
garden, now, alas! utterly neglected, but 
still preserving many rare trees, and in 
winter a mass of bright-leaved Caladiums, 
chiefly bicolor and Chantini, the leaves of 
which grow to an immense size and are very 
brilliant. Many other Palms attract us, of 
which the Assai (IkUerpe edulis)\&^&rao&t 
graceful and beautiful and the ugliest; in 
fact, a Palm of which one rarely sees a good 
specimen is the Cocoa-nut (Cocos nitcifera). 
Should we linger to describe all the bright, 
attractive plants that we meet, the various 
flowering vines which cover the fences, the 
White Paneratiums in the ditches, the Coral 
Erythrinas and the little Orchids and Tilland- 
sias perched in the trees, we shouid never 
reach the garden; but an easy wal k of half an 
hour brings us 'to Salvaterra, and we are at 
Senor Olinda’s gate. 
The house stands back from the road, with 
a little garden in front. The entrance is 
through a huge plank gate, with a httle door 
cut out in the middle of it for foot-passen 
gers, and the whole is covered by a a 
structui-e supported on great posts, loo e 
with red tiles, and sloping inward near y o 
the house. 
As we enter, we see that the posts aie eov 
ered with climbers; on one is Cleio en ion 
Salfourii covered ivith masses of w i -o 
scarlet bloom larger than our bat j ^ 
other Allatnanda Sendersoni full of 1 *“ 
iv i t of 
w uto Hwoot-scentod flowers; the Wax 
lmt(rJoya carnosa) with jowolod blossoms; 
some very brilliant species of perennial Co.,’ 
volvulus. Trumpet Flowers mid P.assion 
riowors the lattci- both with flower and 
im , the beautiful f/cxaccnlris Mgsorensis, 
with long pendant racemes of rich bloom,— 
and indeed, many others. Blue is supplied 
oy Ihiinbcrgia rfarrisi, which, if not kept 
well priiiiod, would soon fill the whole gar¬ 
den, and pink by the lovely yi«//V/How leplo- 
piis, the beauty of wlioso masses of rosy 
flowers no words can describe. 
Trained along the whole front is Cmus 
discolor, which hangs almost to the ground 
in long streamers, and in the play of sun 
and shade shows a wonderful brilliancy of 
foliage. And all these are in bloom all the 
time ; it is perpetual spring in Para, and 
beyond pruningoffi the too rampant branches, 
they require no care, save at times, when the 
afternoon shower does not come for sev¬ 
eral successive days, a little water in the 
morning. 
The little front garden is a mass of brilliant 
foliage and flow'or. Crotons, Poinsettias, 
Draeajnas, and Aealyphas are dazzling, and 
the Madagascar Periwinkle forms beds which 
are always covered with bloom. 
There are Roses, but, beyond giving plenty 
of flower, the plants are not attractive, as 
in this warm climate they cannot be pruned, 
but must be allowed to grow at will, and 
Hybrid Perpetuals are six feet high, with 
flowers only on the end of the shoots. 
The most striking plants in the front gar¬ 
den are a Russeliajuncea, eight feet high, and 
at least three feet in diameter, which forms 
a fountain of Coral Flower and delicate 
spray, and an Alocasia macrorhixa variegaia, 
which has great white leaves, three feet long 
by two feet broad, on tall foot stalks. 
A long fence is a blaze of Bougamvillea, 
many of the shoots ten feet high, rich masses 
of color, and, just beyond, an Ixora cuneata 
is even taller and covered with crimson 
blossoms. 
On our right is the house, the windows 
full of Tydaeas and Aehimenes covered with 
flowers, and before us stretches a path shaded 
by Orange-trees, the branches weighed al¬ 
most to the ground with fruit, and with 
borders on each side full of choice flowers 
and plants. All the trees are hung with 
Orchids, many being in bloom; but here we 
must divide our letter, and at present only 
m-ite of the flowers and foliage plants, re¬ 
serving a description of the Orchids for a 
future time. E. S. Rand. 
AN AUSTRALIAN DROUGHT. 
In February last, in New South Wales, a 
correspondent of a provincial newspaper 
traveled for some two hundred miles by rail¬ 
way, and throughout the whole journey he 
saw on either side nothing but a desert — “ 
wilderness destitute of any green thing, 
without any water worthy of the name, of cat¬ 
tle in the paddocks, dead or dying; the sun’s 
seoi’ching rays fell on fields as hard as iron. 
The leaves of the trees were as motionless 
as death itself, there being not a breath of ah* 
stu-ring. The state of affairs was quite as 
bad in other parts of the country. There 
were thousands of square miles of land, baked 
and cracked, with the dry, bro'wn grass flying 
off in dust, without a vestige of green, or a 
drop of water anywhere.” 
The expedients resorted to in this terrible 
crisis were sometimes of a most desperate 
character. Some fanners endeavored to send 
their cattle down to the coasts or to the 
towns, but they died on the road, and their 
owners had to bear not only the loss of the 
animals, but the cost of their conveyance.. 
This double loss largely prevented others 
from imitating their example. They sat 
down in mute despair to watch their ruin. 
One man lost twenty thousand, another fifty 
thousand, and the third one hundred and fifty 
thousand sheep, without the slightest power 
to save one of them. Millions of sheep have 
died, and hundreds, and probably thousands, 
of colonists who were prosperous last year 
are poor and, perhaps, rained to-day.— Scien- 
Ujte American. 
MADEIRA AND ITS VINTAGES. 
This island, in consequence of its pecul¬ 
iarly rocky, volcanic soil, and the remarkable 
evenness of its climate (varying only be¬ 
tween 60 and 80 degrees), is in trath “ The 
Home of the Vine.” Its mnes have that 
spceiallj' rich, nutty flavor, which has given 
them a world-wide celebrity. They were for 
the last two decades partially forgotten, on 
account of the almost total failure of the 
vintages (1851 to 1861); but the late series 
of full vintages have again given them the 
prominence their sterling qualities deserve— 
the demand having trebled within a year. 
The old-time practice, so universally followed 
by well-to-do people, of laying down a pipe 
or more of it from time to time, is again 
being practiced. 
History imforms us that in the good old 
days before the Revolution, it was the cus¬ 
tom of John Hancock, and other merchant 
princes of Boston, on great occasions, to roll 
out a pipe of this grand old wine on the Com¬ 
mon, and allow the people to imbibe at will. 
1813, 25,000 pipes; 1814 to 1846, 
gradual increase to 31,500 pipes, thence a 
gi-adual decrease , to 1851 (on account of 
disease of the vine) to 10,000 pipes. 
1852 to 1861, very small; 1861 to the 
present year, gradual increase from 400 
pipes, to 14,000 pipes in 1874. The vint¬ 
ages of 1879 to 1882, reaching 20,000 
pipes.— Wine and Fruit Grower. 
A VEGETABLE BOUQUET. 
Quite a novelty in the way of a bouquet 
was produced by Mr. Aldous, florist, of 
South Kensington, states the Gardenei^s 
Chronicle. 
A lady was desirous of presenting a gentle¬ 
man with a bouquet— this being the ladies’ 
privilege in leap-year—and gave the order 
that culinary vegetables only were to be 
employed in its fabrication, which was taste¬ 
fully carried out. It consisted of the follow¬ 
ing items, in their smaller forms: Carrots 
in two shapes, long and short; Radishes the 
same; Brussels Sprouts; variegated Scotch 
Kale; Curled Endive, and the broad-leaved 
Batavian variety, Parsley being used instead 
of the usual Pern fronds seen in ordinary 
bouquets. The whole, including the holder, 
measured fifteen inches in diameter, and 
was mounted in the usual way with wu’es. 
