; A WINTER GARDEN.

    
  
  
 

“wy N a certain Christ-
mas day not very
; long ago my com-
rade and I began
to make prepara-
tions for a series
of lovely experiments.
What they were to be
you might not guess in
a dozen times trying. We
had long been meaning
to do it, and saying that
we certainly would; and
‘with that intent had
brought home at one
time and another bushes,
boughs, branches, twigs,
osiers, brambles, enough
to have made a good-
sized bonfire, and more
than enough to keep the rooms in what housekeepers
call “a clutter.”

They were all leafless things, you understand,
which we collected after cold weather came on, and
all along through the winter as we had opportunity.
Sometimes they were dry tips of something that
stuck up through the snow, or that we could get hold
of by venturing on a drift or walking along the top
of a stone wall. And if we happened to be snowed
in, we had recourse to the trees and shrubs by the
side of our own garden fence. In that way we would
get together a nondescript variety; if only vigorously
alive it was all we asked for; and even that we
could not always tell without scraping up a bit of the
bark, so dry and dead did they look.

Not to make a mystery of it, let me say at once
that our “craze” just then was the study of buds—
we always had something. Examine the exquisite
drawings the artist has made from actual specimens,
cherry, butternut, spirea, maple, horsechestnut, and
other familiar things, and see if they are not fasci-
nating. Then try for yourself, as we did, to coax
such as these into leafage, some of them into bloom,

LEAFLESS THINGS.

439

A WINTER GARDEN.—I.

 

By Amanpa B. Harris.

 

and you will find great pleasure, as we did, in a win-
ter garden.

Are you aware that Nature does some of her
choicest work in buds? There is not an elegant
form in the world that she is not able to match in
one of these small things that so few people stop to
notice. The devices are inexhaustible; when you
have counted up all you can think of, like the ex-
quisite egg shape, an acorn, a cone, a pine-apple, a
ball, a cube, and the many pretty models for jar and
vase, you are only at the beginning of the list. And
the tints are infinite; there are nowhere else such
tender greens and rose pinks — fairer than the lining
of a sea-shell; and the browns and reds’ are of
shades which no painter can imitate.

You cannot come to a knowledge of all these
wonders without some help to your natural eye ; but
a cheap little microscope will admit you right into
fairyland. You can have no idea of the variety, nor
of the extreme delicacy, richness and beauty until
you have put them to the magnifying test. After
you have done so, you will
not think me extravagant in
my admiration; you will be
surprised at the finish of even
the minutest parts; and the
luxuriance displayed in some
of the buds as they unfold
will make you think of a gar-
den of the tropics.

LILAC FLOWERS IN DECEMBER.

We wished first to examine
the buds themselves, and see
what relation they bore to-
wards the future development
when woods were green; then
we were anxious to know what
would happen under a process
of indoor treatment. Many
of them—probably most—
would gradually swell, open,

 

WHITE-MAPLE BUDS IN
DEC. A. NATURAL SIZE.
B. ENLARGED 2 DIAME-
TERS.