RAILWAY GARDENING IN CALIFORNIA. 77 



New as is the San Joaquin Valley division of the Santa Fe, and as 

 jet under the constant expense of solidifying into standard existence, 

 vet the palms and the trees and the posies have followed along with the 

 laying of the ties and the rails, so that there is not now a depot nor a 

 section-house between the Tehachapis and the Alhambras which has 

 not its thrifty garden, its rows or groups of varied shade trees, its beds 

 of sun-glowing posies, its constantly-growing shadows of spreading 

 branches. 



In southern California, where the Santa Fe Kailway gardens are 

 older, fine effects have already been reached. The palms there are 

 already large and spreading; the shrubs have attained their character- 

 istic forms, brilliant with semitropical bloom, and trees of Australian, 

 oriental, South American, and South European nativity are holding 

 up large limbs terminating in leaves of many forms, from the large, 

 plushy, heart-shaped ones of the Paulownia imperialis to the feathery, 

 delicate ones of the acacias. Out of the wild sage and the greasewood 

 wilderness has been won many a little station garden. Closely situated 

 as these are in southern California, they might be compared to jewels 

 set in leafy filigrees pending from the glittering bracelet of the kite- 

 shaped track. These depot gardens up through California give daily 

 .pleasure to thousands and many more; and their esthetic influence is 

 incalculable. They spread the gospel of the California flowers also to 

 far distant homes. 



The questions arise: 



Which is the best way of laying out a depot garden? 



Which are the most desirable trees, shrubs, and plants for such? 



Which is the best way of maintenance? 

 . Which are the desires of future development? 



The garden plots on the San Joaquin division of the Santa Fe vary 

 in size from 40x80 feet to 40x160 feet. Only at Merced does the 

 garden exceed the latter extent. 



While I must admit the highest beauty of gardens planted in the 

 so-called natural style, so that they, so to say, become a part of the 

 landscape, I have found this mode had to be greatly modified on account 

 of small size of the plots, and because a garden in the San Joaquin and 

 through all of the interior of California must appear more like an oasis 

 than a part of the sunburned landscape. To break the monotony of 

 this vast level, I had beautiful volcanic rocks of rough and spongy tex- 

 ture brought from the distant mountains, and in nearly all the depot 

 gardens of the San Joaquin there are now rockeries to which busy 

 trailers and creepers, aloes and cacti, with sedums and mesembryanthe- 

 mums, are doing their best to lend the charm of artificial naturalness. 

 Under the conditions, I felt nn'self almost forced to give some kind of 



