THE MAGAZINE 



HORTICULTURE. 



JULY, 1838. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. The Picturesque in Floriculture. By X. 



To an observant admirer of nature, incidents, seemingly trivial 

 to others, present to his eye objects of beauty or valuable hints 

 for improvement. We were led to the above remarks by the 

 casual discovery of a subject, imitatively introduced into floricul- 

 ture, to give effect to the garden, or facilitate the cultivation of 

 delicate plants. A pleasant ramble up a mountain ravine in 

 the bed of a foaming and noisy brook, suggested many reflec- 

 tions, agreeable enough to our taste for the beauties of nature's 

 peculiar economy, but detracting not a little from a favorite 

 pursuit — the rearing of flowers. What florist could group 

 with such exquisite loveliness and picturesque effect those scar- 

 let columbines, and intermingle that spreading, snowy-flowered 

 ci?cta3^rt, or bend over the mirrored basin the cylindric racemes of 

 wild cherry, or clothe with tinted variety the wet rocks with 

 lighter and darker, and brown and purple mosses, or cause to 

 sparkle with the beaded spray of the torrent such green and lobed 

 Marchantea3, hiding themselves under the dripping rocks, and 

 seeking in an always humid atmosphere a proper sustenance? 

 Show us the arboriculturist who could hang in midair, high above 

 our heads, in the rifts and crevices of precipice, the dark juni- 

 per, the stiff cedar, the sylvan beech, the light green and needle- 

 leaved pine, now suiting to the circumstances of the situation 

 some crooked and gnarled stem and root, now inclining towards 

 the horizon an entire trunk, and now shooting into upper air a 

 feathery crest? Who would not envy us our skill, could we 

 combine, by the aid of analytic process and nice manipulation, 

 such varieties of soils observable in that nairow area, suited and 



VOL. IV. — NO. vn. 31 



