440 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



THE ART WHICH DOES NOT MEND NATURE. 



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BY HON. CHARLES W. GABFIELD, GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN. 



The object in the selection of this topic is not so much to indicate what it shall cover 

 as to form a sort of clothes-line, upon wliich can be pinned a number of articles in the 

 form of criticism aod suggestions upon subjects that are quite diverse, and not 

 arranged in logical order, but having one common factor. 



Step with me, for a moment, to the border of the average city or village cemetery, 

 and note the methods in which the so-called embellishments of the grounds, in 

 the form of trees and shrubs, plants and flowers, have been bandied. See how trim 

 and accurately pointed are the forms of the Junipers and Red Cedars, scattered here 

 and there over the premises. Note with what precision the shears have been employed 

 in forming the oval, globular or pyramidal heads of Norway Spruces. Just see how 

 the native drooping habit of the Hemlocks has been metamorphosed into a stiff geo- 

 metrical form. Here and there a lot has been enclosed by a hedge that has been 

 pruned into the rigidity of right lines. Cast your eyes upon the triangles, rectangles, 

 circles and ovals of the flower beds that adorn the individual graves. Even the shrubs, 

 the distmctive character of which is due to the individuality of leaf and branch, have 

 been cut to one model. There is a stiffness and unnaturalness that makes one feel as 

 if he were out of place except he is arrayed in swallowtail coat, choking collar and silk 

 tile ; and still, some of Nature's most beautiful forms, most attractive creations, have 

 been taken in the name of adornment and shorn of the very elements of attractiveness, 

 in order to bring about this condition of things that seems to be concomitant with the 

 term " city cemetery. " 



I wish to enter an emphatic protest against this misuse of the beautiful creations of 

 Nature, and to suggest if cold, stiff formality is to rule, that granite and marble be 

 employed exclusively, and that the delicate live things that naturally, if left alone, 

 assume beautiful proportions and delicate forms, be excused from forming any intrinsic 

 part of such an environment, after being shorn of all those attributes that render 

 them attractive to people of taste. I find men all over the country in charge of these 

 places (which should be, because of their association, made quietly beautiful), even cal- 

 ling themselves plantsmen and horticulturists, who are entirely lacking in every ele- 

 ment fitting to these employments. Ought not our horticultural clubs and societies 

 devoted to progressive horticulture, to give utterance in no feeble way to their protest 

 against ihese outrages upon the professions they are engaged in developing and 

 elevating. 



The professional tree-pruner counts himself an artist in his way. Upon various 

 theories and hypotheses, with shears and pruning-knife and saw, he modifies the forms 

 of trees to accord with his artistic (?) notions. The grounds of many people who have 

 been willing to expend money without stint in the embellishment of their premises, 

 bear witness to the presence of these men who are in the constant practice of the art 

 which does not mend nature ; men who have never heard of a tune that was pitched to 

 the key of B natural. To them there are certain ideal forms to which all tree life must 

 conform, and every specimen, no matter what its own tendencies may be, must be 

 brought into line with one of the forms in their list. 



This is especially true in the treatment of Evergreens. With the ostensible purpose 

 of thickening the branches, of beautifying the outlines, of shaping the tree, they elimi 

 nate all the natural beauty and individuality of the specimens. The only morphology 

 they know anything about is found in the regulation figures that adorn the pages of a 

 geometry. I cannot express too strongly my lack of sympathy with this devotion to 

 the shearing business. 



A gentleman of my acquaintance, whose life for years had been devoted to the destruc- 

 tion of trees ; whose ideal value in a tree was to be calculated by the distance from 

 the ground to the first limb, bought him a beautiful place upon the front of which 

 there stood two magnificent specimens of the White Pine. They had been planted 

 rather too closely together in the beginning, so that at the date of this purchase, each 

 was intrenching upon the domain of the other, and both obstructed the view from the 

 favorite window of the mansion to the highway. One could have been removed leav- 

 ing an open vista from the window, and the other would have developed grandly in 

 proportions, and given an individuality to the place that would have even suggested a 

 name as connected with the tree. Hut what did this dealer in lumber, laths and 



