2900 RAILROAD-GARDENING 



RAILROAD-GARDENING 



The common quince is used to a limited extent in 

 Uruguay for binding earth on embankments, and the 

 paradise tree for shading station platforms. "The 

 Ombu is the national tree of Uruguay, useless as fuel 

 or as timber, useless as food, but as welcome as Jonah's 

 gourd at midday at certain seasons." 



The Royal Railway Department of Siam reports 

 through M. Kloke, acting Director General of Rail- 

 ways, that efforts have formerly been made to estab- 

 lish protective tamarind hedges along embankments in 

 the Korat section, which were destroyed by cattle; 

 Eucalyptus trees grown from seed received from Aus- 

 tralia have developed quickly into "stately trees;" 

 and good success has also resulted from the introduc- 

 tion of a tree from Manila which is said strongly to 

 resemble the cherry tree, and is well suited for making 

 "shady alleys;" and that India-rubber trees are used at 

 smaller stations. 



Remarkable work has been accomplished in Algiers. 

 The director of the P. L. M. Railroad Company wrote 

 some years ago that about 525,000 trees had been 

 planted between 1869 and 1875, of which 495,000 were 

 forest trees and 30,000 fruit-trees. The prevailing 

 forest trees are eucalypts and locusts; others are mul- 

 berry, plane, pine, cypress, willow, poplar, oak, syca- 

 more, and mimosa. About one-fifth of the forest trees 

 were planted about stations and watch-towers for 

 ornament, and the remaining four-fifths were used in 

 protective plantings. The fruit-trees include mandarin, 

 orange, lemon, medlars from Japan, pomegranate, 

 apricot, and almond. 



In Mexico some companies, notably the Mexican 

 Central, maintain flower-gardens and parks at larger 

 stations. 



United States. The first traceable indications of the 

 movement in this country are about 1870. It was 

 not until several years later that infrequent allusions 

 to the work crept into print. From the year 1880, how- 

 ever, the movement gained in favor so rapidly that 

 the late W. A. Stiles said of it in "Garden and Forest," 

 March 13, 1889: "Railroad-gardening has come to be 

 considered a necessary part of constructions and main- 

 tenance among prosperous and progressive companies 

 seeking to develop local passenger business." 



As nearly as can be determined with certainty, the 

 first railroad-garden made in this country occupied the 

 triangular plot of ground formed by the main line and 

 the "Y" of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway, at Relay 

 Station, where the through line from Washington 

 joins the main line from Baltimore to the West. Frank 

 Bramhall, of the passenger department of the Michigan 

 Central Railroad, says of this plot: "I first saw it just 

 before the Civil War." "Harper's Magazine" for 

 April, 1857, gives a wood-cut of this station and its 

 surroundings, but makes no mention of the planting. 



The first example of gardening known to have been 

 made by official order, as far as can be learned, was to 

 be seen in 1869, on the line of the Central Railroad of 

 New Jersey, on the stretch between Elizabeth and 

 Bound Brook. The credit for this was directly due to 

 the president of the railroad, J. T. Johnston. That 

 gentleman was therefore one of the pioneers, if not 

 actually the first American railway official to recognize 

 the advantages, and to encourage the development of 

 such improvement of station grounds. 



Another early example, also on the Baltimore & Ohio 

 road, is a little flower-garden which has been main- 

 tained at Buckhorn Point, on a narrow strip of ground 

 between the tracks and the edge of a precipitous height 

 overlooking the valley of the Cheat River. 



In 1880, the Boston & Albany Company built a new 

 station at Newtonville, Massachusetts, and a baggage- 

 master (E. A. Richardson?) who took charge at that point 

 in 1881 evinced an interest in the care of the grounds 

 that attracted the favorable attention of the assistant 

 engineer, who sent him men and material for grading 



and sodding. This so encouraged the baggage-master 

 that he solicited the townspeople for money to buy 

 seeds and plants, and with such success that he main- 

 tained for three years a flower-garden that favorably 

 impressed the higher officials of the road, and led to the 

 establishment of similar gardens at other points, and 

 eventually to the adoption of a system of planting 

 which, under intelligent artistic supervision, has been 

 radically changed in style till it now stands as the near- 

 est approach to a comprehensive and consistent exam- 

 ple of railroad-gardening. (Fig. 3334.) 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 adoption of a, 

 consistent scheme of permanent planting, aiming at 

 nature-like effects instead of the purely ornamental, 

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

 result was due to the influence of Charles S. Sargent, of 



3335. One method of treating a railway ground, temporary 

 formal ornament and no durable flank-planting. 



the Arnold Arboretum, a director of the road, and to 

 Wm. Bliss, its president. Designs for the improvement 

 of the grounds around these stations were made by 

 F. 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, E. A. Rich- 

 ardson, who says: "The plan followed is to conform the 

 treatment and development of the station 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 improvements 

 are being made; to supply beds for shrubs with from 

 eighteen to twenty-four 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. 



Among the first railway companies to improve their 

 station grounds by planting were the Central of New 

 Jersey (1869), the Baltimore & Ohio (date uncertain), 

 the Boston & Albany (1880), the New York Central & 

 Hudson River (1880), the Erie (1881), the Southern 

 Pacific (1885), the Pennsylvania (1886), and the Austin 

 & Northwestern of Texas (1887). Other roads appre- 

 ciate the value of the work and encourage it; and rail- 

 road-gardening has now become a recognized form of 

 landscape improvement, although yet at its merest 

 beginnings. 



The methods. 



In the public mind, railroad-gardening usually means 

 the formal use of flower-beds about stations. Such work 

 is ornamental gardening, not landscape gardening. 

 Most of the so-called landscape gardening at railroad 



