Ornamentals. 65 



stone lanterns and sometimes also buildings. Buddhist and 

 Shinto temples are numerous, for, according to their light, 

 the Japanese are a religious people. The grounds dedicated 

 to these temples constitute their public parks which are open 

 at all times, and where the people gather for recreation and 

 amusement. They differ from the gardens in that they show 

 little or no attempt at artificial landscape work, and usually 

 contain groves of majestic trees, while dwarfed and trained 

 specimens are comparatively scarce. 



*' What trees and shrubs do we find in these places ? In 

 the temple groves forest trees predominate. Cryptomeria, 

 bamboo, pines, keaki, oak, camphor trees, ginkgo trees, cam- 

 ellias, flowering cherries and plums, and some shrubs especi- 

 ally regarded as sacred, like the Illicium religiosinn, are the 

 leading trees. In the gardens the available space generally 

 controls the character of the flora. The larger forest trees 

 are often absent ; flowering cherries and plums are always pre- 

 sent ; dwarfed and trained forms of pine and other evergreens 

 are great favorites, and besides these a large variety of shrubs 

 and flowering plants, some of which are well known here, 

 while others are not. 



''This brief outline of the character of the ornamental 

 stock in most demand gives us also a good index to the con- 

 tents of the nurseries. These establishments, w^hich are 

 usually numerous on the outskirts of every considerable town, 

 give little attention to the propagation of fruit trees and 

 berry plants, and, in fact, but few nurseries have any of these. 

 Ornamental stock is all important. They are interesting places 

 to foreigners. It was from these at Tokio, Nagasaki and 

 other open ports that Fortune procured the collections which 

 so enriched the gardens of Europe and America thirty years 

 ago. Evergreens of every kind, but especially conifers, pre- 

 dominate. Of the latter they have a dozen or more species, 

 and scores of varieties, in common culture, trained in many 

 forms. And I want especially to enter a plea for the intro- 

 duction and more general planting of the numerous dwarf 

 varieties of pines, firs, cypresses and arbor vitaes, and of many 

 other conifers. The leading species may usually be found 

 here, but their varieties are not. They differ much in habit 

 of growth, length of needles and general appearance, and are 

 known by distinctive names. And the same is true of nearly 



