1878.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



121 



.striking feature o*" English landscape oardening 

 and, for the matter of that, French garden art 

 also, to so make the most of ground that a very 

 little goes a great way. The tract was secured 

 hy the city in 1850, and all tliat has heen done is 

 wholly the work of art since that time, nature 

 i>iving nothing but the irregular piece of ground. 



It was in a driving rain, and we expected to : 

 have a quiet stroll through by ourselves ; but I ! 

 had to learn over again what I had forgotten, ' 

 that weather like this, the half-normal condition 1 

 of the English climate, is no bar to the open 

 air enjoyments of an Englishman or woman, and : 

 so we found, with umbrellas and overcoats, 

 water-proofs and sensible, thick-soled shoes, i 

 some hundreds enjoying the walks through the 

 1)eatitiful grounds. As all the walks were 

 asphalted, there is no ditficult}' about this to one , 

 who does not care for the rain overhead. 



The eftbrt to make a small place look larire 

 requires great skill in its accomplisliment; and I 

 think it is becaust* this efibrt has been so success- 

 ful here that this ''Arboretum " has such a world- 

 wide rejnUation •, the irregular contour of sur- ! 

 face is, of course, veiy favorable. But not only 

 are the paths varied in width, and led around 

 knolls wherever there might seem no excuse for I 

 going any other way. but the whole style of art . 

 i one c<mtinual change, and even the plants an 

 trees are all of separate characters as we go 

 along. Here, for instance, in a hollow, is a 

 mass of red Colchicum Maples; we follow a 

 winding walk, and there in a sheltered nook 

 come on a sort of Rhododendron garden ; pass- 

 ing then around a curve we come on a belt of 

 mixed slirubliery of tio special imjiortnnce, and 

 perhaps really intended to keep from us the 

 knowledge that we are very near some point we 

 went over an hour ago ; but in front of this belt 

 of shrubberj', and beyond the stretch of nice 

 green grass, there is a Sweet William garden. 

 'Continuing to oive way to the enchantment of 

 the walk, we turn again around a knoll and are 

 brought to face with a stretch of Laurels and other 

 eversi'eens, having in front of them broad belts 

 filled with blooming Hollyhocks, their gay 

 flowers showing to great advantage by the help 

 ■of the wall of green foliage l)chind them. 

 Leaving the irregular masses of shrubbery, we 

 are then introduced for a change to a very for- 

 mal Privet hedge with a narrow l)order of earth 

 in front, and then a row of our common woolly 

 Mullien, Yerbescum tliapsus. as courtly and 

 severe as the hed^e ftself, as if each vied with 

 each other as to which should be the most statel}^ 

 in the beholder's eye. 



The ''Landscape Gardener "' that Downinsr, I 

 believe, once told al)Out, wlio took a handfull of 

 stones, scattered them, and where each one fell 

 stuck in atree, would find his "art" at a sad dis- 

 count here, where every yard is a new surprise. 



From these curvy walks and continued succes- 

 sion of floral chanires, we come suddenly into 

 the " Bell Garden." w scpiare and level piece of 

 liTonnd, full of architectui-al objects, geometri- 

 €al lines, and carpet beds gay with liright colors 

 ^o match. 



The hell is a war trophy taken by a Notting- 

 ham regiment from Hong Kong in 1857. The 

 tower which supports it is a beautiful piece of 

 architecture. It stands on a broad square plat- 

 eau, reached on all four sides by flights of stone 

 steps. On the four corners of the square plat- 

 form are four cannon taken from Seliastapol in 

 the Crimean war. This war trophy seemed to give 

 a reason for the broad plateau, and the numer- 

 ous pretty beds of leaf plants and flowers spoke 

 as if they were the decorations in honor of the 

 victories gained by English arms. It is this 

 fitness of things, this appropriateness, this defer- 

 ence to the ideal, that is the chief charm of these 

 successful pieces of English landscape gardening. 

 Then there are terraces from which we look 

 down on smooth gardens with bedding plants, 

 the sunken places not looking as if they were the 

 remains of some old canal, the grave of which 

 had been florally decorated by some sympathetic 

 hand, but the space so cut out as' if it could 

 not help being just what it was, and we should 

 rather wonder if we saw it in any other way. 

 Then there are nice seats and arbors where you 

 can ?it and enjoy each particular scene, and see 

 it so well from nowhere else. Now it is some 

 beautiful puljlic buildings in the city, appearing 

 as if it was l)uilt expressl}' for yi^u to admire from 

 that spot. Then it may be some scene in the dis- 

 tant Sherwood Forest ; or, perhaps, a mass of 

 flower beds, water fowl and lake, parade ground 

 or some other nice little bit on its own ground. 

 The points which struck me in the beautiful 

 garden as ])eing particularly worth}' of note 

 were that it was admiral)ly designed in the first 

 place : and in the second, that though the common- 

 est materials were employed in decorations, they 

 were used with such admirable skill that no one 

 would think of them in any other light than as 

 the highest effort of art. It was a cheap day in 

 my English experience, giving one of the best 

 lessons in public gardening I could possibly 

 have. 



As we cannot do more than take some types 

 of various classes of garden \\'t)rk, suppose we 

 skip over some hundred miles or moi-e in a 

 south-easterly direction, and spend a da}^ at the 

 celebrated Sydenham palace in Kent. This 

 also is a public garden ; but it is owned by a 

 private company, the idea being to do a little 

 gardening for profit as well as just for the pleas- 

 ure of the thing. 



Before I left America I had been kindly furn- 

 ished with letters of introduction by distiniruished 

 Americans in various walks of liife, to different 

 English gentlemen ; knowing, however, that the 

 acceptance of liospitality and attentions, seri- 

 ously interferes with the seeing a great deal in a 

 short time by one whose busy life suflcrs him 

 not to farry long in one place, I seldom used 

 any except where it was necessary to see some 

 desired point not otherwise attainable. But as 

 the Crystal Palace project is supposed to be a 

 pecuniary failure, 1 was really anxious to know 

 more about its fmancial prosjiecf than I could learn 

 l)y looking about alone. Finding a letter in my 

 wallet to Mr. Thomas Iluuhes, the President, I 



