1880.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



37 



celsa and the bold front of the Pinus ponderosa. 

 Next, indeed, to his services with the pen must I 

 be ranked his many and persevering importa- 

 tions from every quarter of the globe; unless 

 one should choose to lay greatest stress upon 

 the patriotic purpose which has multiplied and 

 circulated these specimens for the adornment of 

 other homes. "Wodeuethe is a paradise of exotics. 

 Yet these do not constitute its chief attraction. 

 It is pre-eminently a paradise of vistas. Art has 

 so planted and disposed the trees on the borders 

 of the twenty acres that the visitor might be- 

 lieve himself in the midst of an estate compris- 

 ing hundreds of square miles. The spot was 

 selected by Mr. Sargent for its natural advanta- 

 ges. In front of and partly around it rolls the 

 lordly Hudson. Behind, are the Fishkill Moun- 

 tains, one of them sixteen hundred feet high. 

 At the left, across the gleaming stretch of river, 

 tower the rounded heights of Cornwall and West 

 Point in the fine blue of the rare old hills. At 

 the right is a rolling surface cultivated to the 

 base of distant headlands. Yet all around the 

 place are villages, factories, shanties, highways. 

 Only you do not see them. The trees and 

 shrubs that belt Wodenethe are placed so as 

 to shut off such sights; and where there are 

 openings in the boundary line of the estate 

 the eye looks out upon charming vistas of 

 river, valley, glade and mountain, that seem to 

 be parts of one magnificent country seat. 'No 

 gentleman in this country has succeded as Mr. 

 Sargent has in peaceably sequestrating the prop- 

 erty of his neighbors. Part of the work was 

 done simply by the use of the axe. Trees have 

 been cut down where the views beyond them 

 were pleasing; they have been planted where 

 the scenery in the distance was of a sort to be hid. 

 The illusions created thereby are sometimes 

 amusing. In one instance his artistic chopping 

 brought within a hundred yards of his library 

 window a part of the river that really is three- 

 quarters of a mile off. Mr. William Cullen Bry- 

 ant used to tell how one evening, when seated 

 at that window, he saw a boy fishing in the Hud- 

 son from a spot close b}' on Mr. Sargent's lawn. 

 He expressed his surprise that the river was so 

 near. The place from which the lad had thrown 

 his line was on the verge of a steep declivity, at 

 the foot of which the water seemed to flow. 

 Not until the poet had walked there the next 

 morning did the false show vanish. The young 

 fisherman had planted himself temporaril}' to 

 keep up appearances. 



To name the varieties of trees on Mr. Sargent's 

 estate would be of more interest to the botanist 

 than to the general reader. I will not enumer- 

 ate the Homeric list. It represents almost all the 

 varieties ever acclimated in this country, and it 

 is constantly receiving accessions. You remem- 

 ber the words of the Autocrat of the Breakfast 

 Table : " I have a most intense, passionate fond- 

 ness for trees, but if you expect me to hold forth 

 in the scientific way about them, to talk for in- 

 stance of the Ulmus Americana, and describe 

 the ciliated edges of its samara, and all that, 

 you are an anserine individual." The most 

 beautiful of the specimens are not aboriginal. 

 I do not know whether or not the owner has yet 

 succeeded in naturalizing the Eucalyptus, which 

 amateurs in England are so fond of, and so un- 

 fortunate with. But if the species has a chance 

 in this climate you may be sure that it will be 

 made to flourish at Wodenethe. Weeping 

 birches, weeping beeches, weeping ashes, weep- 

 ing larches, weeping elms and weeping wil- 

 lows are specialties there, and so are purple- 

 leaved trees and shrubs, and the silver and 

 golden tinted evergreens from Japan, while 

 oaks, elms, chestnuts, maples and other stand- 

 bys appear in choicest varieties. The magnifi- 

 cent palms constitute a show by themselves. 

 There is scarcely a mountain, a shore or a plain 

 in Europe that has not contributed to Wodenethe 

 the ' threaded foliage through which the western 

 breezes sigh.' And there is not a hungry speci- 

 men on the place. 



{ Velvet grass and umbrageous tree alike 

 ; have been well trenched, and are, in conse- 

 quence, well fed. I should not be surprised to 

 learn that the roots of some of the common 

 clover go down four feet into the soil. The late 

 Mr. Downing said that he had seen clover roots 

 as deep as that. It is trenching that does the 

 business, and Mr. Sargent has lately done as 

 much as any writer in this countr}'^ to enforce the 

 importance of depth of soil for trees and lawns. 

 Of course there is no setting of trees in formal 

 rows, no alternation of the willow and the 

 rougher-rined pine around the house, no plant- 

 ing of flower-beds under the drippings of the 

 monarchs that line the broad approach to the 

 dwelling, none of the hundred discrepancies and 

 oftences that good taste prohibits. The place is 

 a picture, and the painter is an artist, especially 

 in his sense of symmetr}' and color, and in his 

 effects of light and shade. ' Let in through all 

 the trees come the strange rays.' 



