1492 



RAILROAD GARDENING 



RAILROAD GARDENING 



various companies that are even now turning from the 

 Inartistic and fleeting summer show of perishable ma- 

 terial. For instance, the New York Central & Hudson 

 River Railway Company reports : "Heretofore the 

 planting has consisted largely of bedding plants. Since 

 the towns and villages have now reached a stage where 

 their commercial importance can be determined with 

 some degree of accuracy, and permanent facilities pro- 

 vided in the way of side-tracks, freight and passenger 

 stations, we have adopted a liberal policy towards the 

 permanent improvement of station-grounds with orna- 

 mental trees, shrubs and vines instead of annuals." 



So with the Michigan Central road ; the extensive 

 summer bedding that has been made a feature at cer- 

 tain stations is being limited to those points, while per- 

 manent planting is used for any additional grounds 

 that are improved. Similarly the Boston & Maine, the 

 Philadelphia & Reading, the Pennsylvania, the Lake 

 Shore & Michigan Southern and several others are con- 

 stantly increasing the amount of hardy material used, 

 while an official of the Chicago & Northwestern says: 

 "The tendency on our line Is to replace flower beds with 

 hardy flowering shrubs and plants to the greatest ex- 

 tent possible, partly because the greater part of our 

 planting is seen by passengers while traveling at a high 

 rate of speed, and shrubbery and hardy plants attract 

 more attention than small, low flower beds; and partly 

 because the use of shrubs entails very much less labor 

 in their care during winter, and also obviates the neces- 

 sity of planting out and taking up the plants each sea- 

 son." 



Thus, by one train of reasoning or another, progres- 

 sive railroad men are gradually sifting out the chaff 

 and retaining the good grain of correct methods and 

 artistic results in their gardening. But it would seem 

 that, as a class, they are not reaching the pith of the 

 subject as directly as is their custom in the more prac- 

 tical features of railroad business. 



From Mr. Stiles' editorial (previously mentioned) we 

 find that in 1889 the highest authority in the art of plant- 

 ing held the opinion that: "Up to the present time, with 

 few exceptions, railroad gardening has failed to accom- 

 plish what the public has a right to expect of it from an 

 artistic point of view. Instead of using their opportuni- 

 ties for increasing the taste and knowledge of the com- 

 munities they serve, railroad managers have generally 

 been satisfied to reproduce all that was glaringly bad in 

 the prevailing horticultural fashion of the time. Per- 

 haps this is inevitable, and it will continue so as long 

 as they feel that they need not call for the advice of an 

 expert of a higher class than the ordinary jobbing gar- 

 dener. It is the old story— a man employs an architect 

 to build his house, but thinks he needs no advice in lay- 

 ing out the park that surrounds it. , 



"The principles that underlie good railroad gardening 

 are simple. They relate, — so far as such gardening has 

 been attempted, — to the immediate surroundings of 

 country stations and to the shaping and turfing of the 

 slopes rising and falling from the permanent way. 



"The essential features are: convenient and abun- 

 dant approaches, and some treatment of the ground not 

 needed for approaches. This treatment should be at 

 once economical and permanent, and of a character 

 simple enough to be successfully maintained by the sta- 

 tion-master and his assistants, under the inspection and 

 with the occasional advice of a higher official charged 

 with the management of the horticultural affairs of the 

 corporation. 



"The selection of a system of general treatment is the 

 only difficult thing, and it is here that railroad managers 

 have usually failed. Most railroad gardens, — and this is 

 as true of Europe as of America, — consist of a badly 

 laid out and constructed approach, bordered with turf 

 in which are cut as many large and often grotesquely- 

 shaped beds as can be crowded in and filled during four 

 months of the year with the most showy and ill-assorted 

 plants, and quite bare of all covering during the remain- 

 ing eight months; of a few shrubs, mutilated almost 

 past recognition by bad pruning, and by a clump of 

 pampas grass to complete the decoration; also often the 

 name of the station in stones (mere 'toys'). As Bacon 

 wrote three centuries ago, ' You may see as good sights 

 many times in tarts.' Such grounds are not artistic, 



therefore bad from the point of view of the public. 

 They are enormously expensive and difficult to main- 

 tain, therefore bad from the point of view of the rail- 

 road. 



"If railroad gardening is ever to become a potent and 

 permanent means of public education, it must be orga- 

 nized upon a more economical basis, and with more re- 

 gard to the laws of good taste and good business. This 

 subject has already occupied the attention of a few 

 thoughtful men, and we are confident that some progress 

 has at last been made." 



Mr. Stiles goes on to commend the plans of the then 

 new station -grounds of the Boston & Albany railway 

 for "convenience, neatness and simplicity. No beds, no 

 brilliant flowers, no startling effects. They rely for at- 

 tractiveness on convenient, well-kept roads, neat turf, 

 a few good trees, and masses of well-selected and well- 

 planted shrubs, among which herbaceous and bulbous 

 plants are allowed to grow. The plan is simple, and 

 when thoroughly carried out in the beginning it is easy 

 to maintain." This editorial seems succinctly to express 

 the crystallized ideas of the lamented editor of Garden 

 & Forest on the subject of railroad gardening. 



In 1882 and 1884 several new and exceptionally artistic 

 stations had been built for the Boston & Albany Railway 

 Company after designs by the late eminent architect, 

 H. H. Richardson, and the latter date marks the adop- 

 tion of a consistent scheme of permanent planting, aim- 

 ing at nature-like effects instead of the purely orna- 

 mental, i. e., formal gardening, previously used. This 

 happy result was due to the influence of Prof. Charles 

 S. Sargent, of the Arnold Arboretum, a director of the 

 road, and to Mr. Wm. Bliss, its president. Designs for 

 the improvement of the grounds around these stations 

 were made by P. L. Olmsted, the veteran landscape 

 architect, and since 1884 the development of these plans, 

 as well as all of the horticultural interests of the road, 

 have been in charge of a competent landscape gardener, 

 Mr. E. A. Richardson, who says: "The plan followed is 

 to conform the treatment and development of the sta- 

 tion-grounds to the adjacent ground: a natural style 

 being followed amid natural surroundings, and a more 

 cultivated style in highly cultivated regions ; to utilize 

 all natural advantages of ground surface, rocks, water 

 and native growths: to make large use of trees, shrubs, 

 vines and plants indigenous to the locality where im- 

 provements are being made ; to supply beds for shrubs 

 with from eighteen to twenty-f oiir inches of good loam ; 

 and to plant so closely in the beginning that as the 

 plants grow they can be thinned to supply other grounds 

 as needed." It goes without saying that these methods 

 are not only the most practical but that they insure the 

 most artistic results. 



Bailroad Gardening in Florida. — Fossihle develop- 

 ment of railway horticulture is limited in the southern 

 states only by the taste and work expended. With logi- 

 cally treated station-grounds southern railways would 

 become pleasant highways studded with charming 

 groups of foliage and bloom, expressing the type of the 

 country traversed and marking the advance into a differ- 

 ent climate. Florida, especially, should become cele- 

 brated for its railroad gardens. Its chief "crop" is con- 

 ceded to be the winter tourist, and nothing appeals more 

 strongly to this class than the contrast of luxuriant 

 vegetation with northern ice and snow. Each station- 

 ground should be planted to emphasize this contrast on 

 a gradually increasing scaie, to reach its climax in the 

 novel and effective semi-tropical vegetation possible in 

 the southern part of the state. Such a planting scheme 

 should commend itself as the best advertisement for 

 securing both pleasure-seeking and home-seeking pat- 

 ronage. Little has been done so far, although the 

 Florida East Coast Railway Co. has improved several 

 of its station-grounds, notably, with decorative plants 

 at St. Augustine and with roses at Ormond, but the 

 planting on this line is largely in the way of demon- 

 strating horticultui'al possibilities for the benefit of 

 home-seekers and property-owners (peach trees around 

 its section houses being an example of practical results 

 shown), and viewed in tliat light is considered a success. 

 The Florida division of the Southern Air Line, and the 

 Jacksonville & Southwestern railroads have done simi- 

 lar planting. All that has been done is ineffectual com- 



