The name, Bitter Sweet, is likely to mislead those somewhat benighted people who know the very different Solananum dulconum by the same word-label. The picture of my Bitter Sweet or Climbing Staff (Celastrus scandens), on page 31, is of a vine trained upon a cedar pole about eighteen feet in height, and the photograph was taken after all the leaves were fallen. The vine is four or five years old, one and a half inches in diameter and had upon it about 600 bunches of berries. With its abundance of orange berries it presented a remarkable appearance, especially to those who are accustomed to see it growing wild and know it as a shy bearer.

The reason for my writing is to call attention to the Celastrus scandens as a beautiful vine for home decor der d the fr speci one o all of ries as much as this one is.

In summer, the clean, fresh green foliage and the wonderful luxuriance of growth are remarkable. Indeed, its rapid growth seemed at first a drawback to its value, for it is difficult to keep the vine within bounds. Its desire for upward growth is such that one branch, growing two or three feet in a few days, stands up from a mass of vines trained horizontally; then another springs up, twining around the first, and then a third, and perhaps a fourth, rapidly mounting. Supporting each other, they stretch up and grasp the branches of a tree or anything else that promises support skyward.

Several years' trial have shown me that this aspiring vine can be trained. I have a gateway arch covered with bitter sweet, and admired by all who see it. The arch is formed of ordinary water-pipe, with couplings and wire netting, two feet in width.

An upright of pipe on either side of the gate has a cross-bar of pipe two feet long at its top, and from the ends of the cross-bar spring arches of small pipe upon which is laid a roof of wire netting. The vigorous vines climbed the uprights of the arch like wildfire, and when I bent them down and fastened them to the netting, they soon bristled everywhere with upreaching branches, but under a free use of the pruning shears, cutting back to two or three buds, they behave charmingly.

All summer the clean, thrifty leaves, waxy branches and bunches of plump green berries are a delight to the eye. But when autumn comes and the leaves turn yellow and the berry capsules are orange, I almost think my arch is more beautiful than in summer. Still, again, as winter approaches and the snow begins to fall and the yellow capsules turn back and show coral red berries hanging out from the snowy arch, I am in delight, and at Christmastime when I am asked for bunches of berries for decoration I am selfish enough to refuse to let them go, for they will hang bits of brightness through the long northern winter, and I cannot spare them.

To sum up the virtues of the Celastrus scandens : first, it is easily obtained, growing quite commonly along the river flats. It is easily transplanted, having abundant rootlets, or it may be raised from the seed. It is vigorous and free from all vermin. I have never seen a worm upon it, and it is beautiful as I have attempted to describe it in summer, autumn and winter. These virtues ought to recommend it, without mentioning the famous "Grandmother's Salve," which mothers, grandmothers and great-great-grandmothers have praised without stint, and which is made from the berries or roots of the Ce-lastrus scandens. Bittersweet.