Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1880-04-01

A learned writer under this head makes q
plea for the old fashioned flowers and
modes of planting that have gone out in the
prevailing new taste for carpet beds, Of
uniform color, leaf plants and masses of
smooth scarlet, purple and white, OF solid
ly planted flowers all of a kind. 1t con-
trasts these with the old walled garden,
with its crooked peach and plum trees,
with here and there a shady corner for lilies
of The valley, and the sunny exposure
where the autumn violets were the first to
bloom. There was wealth and variety of
pot-herbs; one wall was crowned with a
patch of yellow sedum; another was fringed
with wall flowers, and the old bricks
were often covered by network of the
delicate and beautiful creeper, s'the mother
of millions" There was the delightful
smell of newly turned mould to mingle
with the fragrance of hedge of sweet peas,
or of bed of clove-gilly flowers. Sweet
William and mignonette filed the vacant
spaces, and the bees from a row of straw
hives were humming over all. The lark
spur and the lady slipper, the double pop
py, double daisies, French marigolds,
with Their strong heady scent and glorious
show for color" in short the whole sue
cession of Towering plants in the same bed.
these made all the difference between the
old flower bed and the modern Landscape"
planting. An old English author, Parkin-
son, who writes himself "Apothecary of
London, 1929, -" sets forth this succession
OF plants, that doe so give their flowers
one after another that all their bravery In
not spent" In Parkinson's day it was too
early for the immense variety of roses; the
damask and the briar rose and few single
roses were all that found place in his list.
but not the cabbage and most roses which
seem old fashioned to-day. There were
almost hundred sorts s'of daffodils, which
the ''Apothecary'' insists shall all be called
by their Shakespearian name and not some .
OF them ''Narcisses, when as all know that
know any Latino, that ''Narcisses, is the La
tine, and Daffodil the English of one and the
same thing. | would willingly, therefore,
that all would grow judicious and call
everything by his proper English name IN
speaking English, or else by such Latine
name as everything hath that hath not a
proper English name, that thereby they
may distinguish the several varieties of
things and not confound them 1t is often
asserted that vegetables formed a small
part of the diet of Englishmen in preceding
centuries-but it appears that they had all
tire vegetables now. in ordinary (English)
use, and more variety of salads. They used
sorrel for sauce, and made tarts of spinach
as well as of rhubarb aud gooseberries.
Red lettuce, red onions were grown in the
garden, and a Spanish onion, which is
''very sweete and eaten by many like an
apple" was described. There is a curious
mixture in the old book Of fragrant scents
from the garden, and the ''vertues' of
plants and herbs and the apothecary of
Charles the First's time Believed that tthe
flowers of the white kind Oily of the val
ley) are often used with those things that
help to strengthen the memory and to pro-
cure ease to apoplectic persons" AT
those great houses, ''where head gardeners
are kept at salary which would support
two curates, the modern carpet beds of
flowers are as much an appendage of style
as the liveried footnen or the stables of
sleek horses. But the home-care of flowers.
In the windows or in the yards of cities, as
well as in the country plots, can gain much
by study of these old varieties in their
blooming tangle among the grass grown
alleys, and whose very names bring back
their fragrance to people who knew them
in their youth.