FoodNetArchive

The standard book of recipes and housewife's guide, comprising as complete cook book

1901

Page 120

Presented as published in 1901. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
The plant is a creeper, taking root free- ly wherever the stems come into contact with the ground. It is difficult to keep it through the winter, except in the house or conservatory, none of the roots being quite hardy enough to stand the wintry chill. Yet it continues to bloom after frost, and is one of the last lingering flowers of the fall. It can be easily reproduced from plants to be had at any greenhouse, and also from seed, which, if sown in Ma^v. will yield bloom in August. No plant surpasses the verbena for mass effect, when grown in beds cut out on lawns, wdiere the brilliant flowers contrast finely with the green grass. The petunia is another plant which blooms throughout the entire season, even after severe frosts. A bed of petunias will be profuse in flowers, varying widely in color and markings ; some single, others double, occasionally as large and full as a rose. There are three classes, the grandi- flora. the small-flowered, and the double, the small-flowered being the most common. It is the latter that add so much to the beauty of our gardens by their great variety of hue. The Lily and Ro5e. Of the lily there are numerous widely- varied species, many of them well known, many others rarely seen in gardens. It 463 96 THE MODEL COOK BOOK grows from a bulb, and will do well in any well -protected bed. To develop it in per- fection the soil should be dug to a depth of a foot and a half, filled to a foot with swamp muck and leaf mold or fresh manure, and the hole filled with six inches of peat and rich mold. The bulbs should be planted four or five inches deep, or, of the weaker sorts, three or four inches. Most of the species are quite hardy, but it is ad- vantageous to cover them with a deep com- post before winter. The cultivation of the rose needs no special directions. The plants, once rooted, last for years, and bloom freely with little cultivation ; some once only in the season, others continually. They are nearly all hardy, though many require some degree of winter protection. North America has furnished our gar- dens with various handsome flowers, among them the large and beautiful dahlia, whose very numerous varieties, more than two thousand in all, have been derived by culti- vation from two species of Mexican plants. The neat grace and perfection of their floral forms and great variety of shades of scarlet, crimson, purple, red and yellow, give them a special adaptation to floral borders, where they lift their trim heads with an air of pride. No plants surpass these in their in- clination to sport into new varieties. The dahlias are generally cultivated by the divis- ion of the tuberous roots. These will not bear the frosts of northern climates, and must be taken up as soon as frost blackens the tops and kept for winter in a dry and sufficiently warm place. Another handsome garden plant of North American origin is the familiar and favorite phlox, which bears its flowers in terminal panicles. The original form, once much grown in our gardens, is now rarely met with, the showy phloxes of to-day being all hybridized varieties, the production of the florists. They are highly ornamental in character. One species, the drunimondii, has sported into a variety of beautiful colors, and is one of the most showy of cultivated annuals.