We have none too many broad-leaved evergreen shrubs that will flourish well in our hot and dry summers, and this is the finest of them all. If it did not cost so much for the plants they would be in every garden in the cooler parts of the country ; they are so showy in flower and the foliage is so rich through all the year. In England, where this native American shrub is used in immense quantities, they do not generally use all named sorts in making a plantation of this evergreen, but use R. ponticum, a rapid growing and cheap sort for the bulk of the mass, with a smaller number of the higher colored and costlier sorts around the edges. We can not use R. ponticum as it is quite tender here, but we can use our own R. catawbiense for the same purpose, and this sort can be bought for half the cost of named kinds. In making a bed of these superb plants of, say 100, use 75 R. catawbiense hybrid seedlings and 25 named sorts.

A few of the best named kinds are. hardiness and color being the desired qualities: Album Elegans, Roseum Elegans, Everestianum, Grandiflorum.

A neat low evergreen plant to form an edging about such groups is Empetrum nigrum, or "Crow Berry," one of our hardiest native plants. It forms a close carpet of fine leaves, which are of a very dark green color. Daphne Cneorum and the Callima, or heath are also used for this purpose, and all three form charming finishing touches to a good bed of rhododendrons. - F. L. Temple, Cambridge, Mass.