GARDEN committee's REPORT. 71 



If a pond of clear watei* should be made in the low lands, fed by numer- 

 ous springs, it would add beauty and variety to the scenery; but there 

 is a steady progress over the ground which bespeaks a promising future. 

 The City having lately added more land by purchase, will erelong find 

 the place of great utility. 



A gratuity of fifteen dollars is recommended to be given to the 

 Superintendent, for his successful etforts in imjn-oving the cemetery. 



Your Committee next visited the 



GuouNDs OF Edward S. Rand, Jr., Esq., at Dedham. 



Here they were received with great hospitality, and were shown 

 many objects of interest; but the hours passed so rapidly that all of 

 " Glen Ridge" — its plans and views, its plants and products — could 

 scarcely be examined. The show of standard Rhododendrons and Kal- 

 mias was truly admirable; and several trees and shrubs of excellence 

 were pointed out; among them the English cut-leaved beech, a very 

 large specimen, bushed to the ground over a circle of a dozen feet, and 

 rising up twenty feet, its leaves showing here and there a tendency to 

 revert to their original type, but checked at once by amputation of the 

 rebellious limbs, — the Pimis N'ordmanniana (imported at considerable 

 cost), now four feet high, and proved to be hardy, one of the finest 

 of all exotic evergreens, — the Acer J^egundo variegata, one of the best 

 foliaged trees; very etTective when sui3ported by a dark back ground 

 of green; and the Philadelphus Gordoni (or Gordon's Syringa), a 

 fine species. The hedge of Pyrus Japonica, ever beautiful and reliable 

 in leaf and flower, was also noticed here. 



Such plantings deserve to be more general. In the open ground, 

 some dwarf apple trees, plums and cherries were seen, and more than 

 twenty varieties of the strawberry. But a practical experiment with 

 the Magnolias, — of which eight species of hardy kinds were observed, 

 — excited much interest. Near the front door of the mansion house, 

 were two trees or plants, both five years planted, receiving the same 

 sun, soil and care, yet one was twenty feet high and full of luxuriant 

 growth, and now has hundreds of flower buds on its branches; while 

 the other is only four feet high, a mere bush in comparison, and show- 

 ing very few buds for flowers; yet both are of the same species. Mag- 

 nolia conspicua^ the only diflerence being, that the bush is on its own 

 root, and the tree was budded on the Magnolia acuminata, which seems 

 to give it wonderful vigor! 



Mr. Rand's bulb-planting has been always a success; his lilies were 

 superb. He has borders of tulips, crocuses and hyacintlis. But his 

 collection of native plants is, perhaps, unequalled. He has borders 

 devoted to the "Lady's Slipper;" growing finely, all the hardy species, 



