ears each year, for our eternal
solace and encouragement? There are some, like the wood thrush,
song-sparrow, oriole, robin, barn-swallow, catbird, and wren, without
which June would not be June, but an imperfect harmony lacking the
dominant note.

[Illustration: LONGFELLOW'S GARDEN.]

Down close to the earth, yes, in the earth, the same obtains. Upon how
few of all the species of annuals listed does the real success of the
summer garden rest? This is more and more apparent each year, when the
fittest are still further developed by hybridization for survival and
the indifferent species drop out of sight.

We often think erroneously of the beauty of old-time gardens. This
beauty was largely that of consistency of form with the architecture of
the dwelling and simplicity, rather than the variety, of flowers grown.
Maeterlinck brings this before us with forcible charm in his essay on
Old-Fashioned Flowers, and even now Martin Cortright is making a little
biography of the flowers of our forefathers, as a birthday surprise for
Lavinia. These flowers depended more upon individuality and association
than upon their great variety.

First among the worthy annuals come sweet peas, mignonette, nasturtiums,
and asters, each one of the four having two out of the three necessary
qualifications, and the sweet pea all of them,--fragrance and decorative
value for both garden and house. To be sure, the sweet pea, though an
annual, must be planted before May if a satisfactory, well-grown hedge
with flowers held on long stems well above the foliage is to be
expected, and in certain warm, well-drained soils it is practicable to
sow seed the autumn before. This puts the sweet pea a little out of the
running for the hirer of a summer cottage, unless he can have access to
the place early in the season, but sown thinly and once fairly rooted
and kept free from dead flowers and pods, the vines will go on yielding
quite through September, though on the coming of hot weather the flower
stems shorten.

I often plant seeds of the climbing nasturtium in the row with the sweet
peas at a distance of one seed to the fist, the planting not being done
until late May. The peas mature first, and after the best of their
season has passed they are supplanted by the nasturtiums, which cover
the dry vines and festoon the supporting brush with gorgeous colour in
early autumn, keeping in the same colour scheme with salvia, sunflowers,
gaillardias, and trito