324 



TEE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[November, 



which have been cut down, or beauty to the trees 

 which are crowded together all over the park. 

 To many the neglect of a year or two longer will 

 be fatal. They will then have acquired a one- 

 sided growth, and thinning out will make it so 

 apparent that the only remedy will be to cut 

 them down entirely and plant others in their 

 places. Money cannot control the elements of 

 time ; trees cannot be produced in a day, and if 

 the remedy be delayed too long, many years of 

 time and large expenditures of money may be 

 required to x'epair the serious injury. 



"•Twenty years ago I walked with Sir William 

 and Dr. Hooker around the level plain of Kew 

 Gardens, and they were full of praises of the 

 varied surface of our Central Park and its pictu- 

 resque capabilities. As we looked upon the 

 perfect turf of Kew, its large collection, and the 

 exquisite keeping of all its parts, I wondered if 

 the time would ever come that Central Park 

 would be other than it then promised. My won- 

 der has become a reality ; the park has become 

 a cause of sadness to those who remember its 

 inception and former beauty. 



"My summing up must, therefore, be that the 

 Central park was once a thing of beauty, charm- 

 ing all with its structures, its plantations, and 

 its keeping, and recognized by all connoisseurs 

 as the best example of landscape gardening in 

 the world; that it is now loosing its beauty, is 

 fast going to decay, and unless speedy action is 

 taken will soon be past remedy. The open 

 spaces and the thickets will remain in the midst 

 of a large city for the relief of a crowded popu- 

 lation, but the old charm will be gone, and will 

 be sought for in vain by future visitors." 



The editor of this magazine had a two hour 

 ride through this park about the time this must 

 have been written, and is sorry to feel that the 

 picture is not at all over-drawn, and the ride left 

 on him the impression that this once celebrated 

 piece of work is fast going to ruin. On inquiry 

 as to the cause of this rapid decay, he was told 

 that it was " because the park was now wholly 

 run in the interests of politicans. Mr. Dawson, 

 who is only a politician, gets $3,500 per annum, 

 and there is not a man in any position that 

 brings over $2.00 per day that knows one thing 

 from another, except how to vote right at elec- 

 tion times." And then there was much abuse 

 of Mr. Dawson and the politicians. 



"VYe must say, as we have said when the pub- 

 lic squares of Philadelphia have been criticised, 

 that if the people of the United States can de- 



vise no plan whereby the " politician " can be 

 kept from ruling, they should not blame the men 

 who rule. We often wonder that considering 

 the immense labor, not to say money, these men 

 spend to get into positions, it is wonderful they 

 give back to the public so much as they do. 

 Going back to the Central Park, we are free to 

 say that it is fully as bad as the Times says 

 it is, but considering that Mr. Dawson and 

 his aids are " mere politicians," we ought to be 

 very thankful that it is not in a much worse 

 plight than it is. We will not join in the cru- 

 sade against them, but blame the respectable 

 citizens of iSTew York, by whose acts or apathy 

 they get there. 



The Laurel Hill Cedar of Lebanon. — 

 One of the two magnificent specimens, perhaps 

 fifty feet high, which so many persons visited 

 Laurel Hill expressly to see, and which indeed was 

 one of America's arboreal treasures, — as the tree 

 so seldom does well here, — has been cut down, be- 

 cause it prevented the visitors from having a good 

 view of the obituary poetry, probably, on the 

 graven marble. Great inducements were offered 

 to induce the woodman's axe to spare that tree, 

 but it fell in spite of all. Poor simpleton ! 

 That tree would have been a monument, long 

 after the marble ceased to be of any interest to 

 anybody. It would have a story which would 

 be read long after the most enthusiastic "• Old 

 Mortality," would give up the job of re-cutting 

 his name. After all it was the gentleman's own 

 tree, and he had a right to do as he pleased with 

 it. 



Insects on Public Trees. — Mr. William 

 Doogue has made a report to the Committee on 

 Public Grounds, of the city of Boston, which 

 has been ofiicially published. He says that the 

 city owns 22,254 trees. Some have proposed a 

 heavy appropriation from the taxes to clear 

 these trees of cocoons and the eggs of insects. 

 He shows that with the vast number of unclean- 

 ed private trees, and forests, the money would 

 in a great measure be thrown away. Also 

 by facts I'anging from 1848, to the present time, 

 that insects appear and disappear in these large 

 quantities periodically, probably because their 

 enemies follow and prey on them. He thinks 

 horses, bad pruning, and other injuries, wholly 

 within human control, are far more destructive 

 to street trees than the insects ; and it is because 

 trees are so thinned out by these neglects, that the 

 insects crowd to the trees that are left. He be- 



