March 25, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



123 



affairs, legal and financial, which needed consideration. It 

 has seemed curious that in Philadelphia so little gen- 

 eral interest has been shown in this unique place, 

 for there are some repairs which should have been 

 made earlier if means had been available. But, on the 

 whole, delay has not been a misfortune, for it has given 

 those best fitted for the work time and opportunity to 

 formulate plans whose value will become apparent with 

 time. 



Suggestions for "beautifying " have been made, the very 

 thing to avoid, for it would destroy the air of antiquity 

 which" pervades the place, and which even the suburban 

 squalor apparent in some portions cannot destroy. One 



far as present conditions permit, of restoring the house and 

 grounds to original conditions. In labeling specimens the 

 historic ones will have brief histories attached, in addition 

 to botanical and popular names. Apart from association, the 

 buildings are well worthy of preservation as examples of the 

 constructive methods of the first half of the eighteenth 

 century. They stand about midway in the grounds, where 

 the higher portion ends and the slope to the Schuylkill 

 begins, and are reached, as in Bartram's time, by a private 

 lane that runs in from Darby Road, and which is bor- 

 dered by forest trees, among them some beautiful Willow 

 Oaks. 



The lane skirts the upper part of the orchard where 



Fig 14 — John Bartram's House— west tront. 



enthusiast on the subject of beautifying shed abroad some 

 quaint and curious botanical information. After stating that 

 "the wild growth of underbrush has choked the rare shrubs 

 that still survive, and none of these plants is still labeled so 

 that the visitor may identify them," went on to describe one 

 of the trees (Mossy Cup Oak, Quercus macrocarpa) as "a 

 huge and spreading Oak which bears acorns with a fringed 

 cup, the like of which no one to-day has ever seen, and 

 whose original habitat is unknown." Besides this, there 

 were "varieties of the British ^Ssculus, American Horse- 

 chestnut, Buckeye, Cottonwood, and several supposed to 

 belong to the tropics, such as the Magnolia, Cypress and 

 Chinquapin Oak." Glib ignorance of this sort will, it is 

 hoped, be dispelled by the educational work, admirably 

 planned by the University authorities, to follow their present 

 practical work of retracing paths and boundaries, removing 

 dead wood, giving crowded specimens light and air, repair- 

 ing broken stonework, filling in washed-out places, and, so 



Bartram experimented successfully with irrigation. Near a 

 group of White Pines a diverging path runs diagonally 

 from the lane across the orchard, past a fine Yew, and on 

 to the west entrance to the house, where lane and path 

 meet again at the doorway, after having passed through 

 the oldest part of the Garden. Near the house they cross 

 a railroad cut (really a picturesque feature, its rocky walls 

 curtained with herbaceous plants and vines) that marks 

 the site of the old kitchen garden ; between this and the 

 house was the flower garden, and portions of the beds are 

 yet outlined by Box borders that were planted about fifty 

 years ago. 



The path is, perhaps, rather more attractive than the 

 lane, but those who know their "Letters" will follow the 

 lane. From its entrance into the grounds, across the 

 bridge, past the barns and to the house-door it is like turn- 

 ing the pages of the earlier Collinson letters, first come 

 the "narrow-leaved Oaks" and "noble White Pines"; 



