206 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 430. 



before the trees are 90 or 100 years it would not pay to 

 cut them, and then 100,000 feet, not of common box-boards 

 but of good lumber, may well be expected. 



Forestry Division, Washington, D. C. -"• £-• t 1 eniOW. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



Bamboos in English Gardens. 



DURING the last six or eight years considerable atten- 

 tion has been given by certain English and French 

 horticulturists to the Bamboos that are sufficiently hardy to 

 be cultivated out-of-doors in the warmer parts of the king- 

 dom. Previous to this period Bamboos were practically 

 unknown as ornamental plants for the garden, the only 

 species grown generally being the plant then known as 

 Bambusa Metake, while Arundinaria Falconeri, often erro- 

 neously called A. falcata, was cultivated in a few gardens 

 where the conditions were exceptionally favorable. In 

 1866, Colonel Munro prepared a monograph of Bambusacece, 

 and in his introductory remarks he stated that "a large num- 

 ber of Bamboos are now in cultivation, and, perhaps, 

 twenty species at Kew alone. I am informed there are at 

 least fifty in Paris. Few of these, perhaps of Arundinaria 

 only, are hardy in England, or even in the warmer parts of 

 Ireland. " There has been a collection of hardy Bamboos 

 at Kew for at least twenty years, and, according to a letter 

 from the late Canon Ellacombe to Sir Joseph Hooker in 

 1879, he had then in his garden at Topsham, near Exeter, 

 " flourishing most vigorously, a collection of twenty Bam- 

 busae, all named by General Munro." Nothing, however, 

 appears to have been done to prove the value of Bamboos 

 for the outdoor garden until Kew, Mr. Mitford and Sir E. 

 Loder took the matter in hand. The Kew collection was 

 formed partly by purchase from the Japanese nurserymen, 

 from Monsieur Marliac, of Temple-sur-Lot, and from the col- 

 lection formed by the late Monsieur Lavallee at Chateau du 

 Segrez, near Paris. A garden was made specially for them 

 in a sheltered, picturesque position, and the collection, 

 consisting of about forty sorts, was set out in groups and 

 masses. At the same time Mr. Mitford had decided to 

 make a feature of hardy Bamboos in his lovely garden at 

 Batsford, near Stratford-on-Avon. He has always taken an 

 interest in Kew, partly from his love of plants and also 

 from his having held for some years the position of secre- 

 tary to the minister in whose department the Royal Gar- 

 dens are. Probably the collections at Kew and Batsford 

 are equally rich in number of species and varieties of Bam- 

 boo, and the success met with in their cultivation in these 

 two gardens appears to be on fairly equal lines. Mr. Mit- 

 ford has utilized the resources of Kew in naming and work- 

 ing out the history, cultural requirements, etc., of Bamboos 

 in a most interesting book,* in which he states that the 

 task of preparing it has not been an easy one, and would 

 have been impossible but for the kindly help and encour- 

 agement which he received from Sir Joseph Hooker, Mr. 

 Thiselton Dyer and several members of the Kew staff. The 

 outcome of Mr. Mitford's thoroughness and perseverance in 

 working up material for his book is a work of considerable 

 value, both to botanists and horticulturists. It embraces 

 all that is known of all the hardy Bamboos in cultivation 

 in England; consequently it will be accepted as the recog- 

 nized authority on all matters appertaining to these plants 

 for some years at any rate. 



The book is divided into chapters which treat upon the 

 formation of the Bamboo garden and the positions and 

 best time of planting for the plants ; their propagation ; 

 the uses of and customs and superstitions connected with 

 Bamboos ; their classification according to easily recog- 

 nized characters of habit, culm, leaf, sheath, etc.; descrip- 

 tion and history of each species ; the future possibilities of 

 these " Royal Grasses " ; a plea for Bamboos ("Apologia 



* The Bamboo Garden, by A. B. Freeman Mitford, C.B. Macmillan & Co. 

 10s. 6d. 



Price, 



pro Bambusis meis "), and a list of the Japanese names of 

 Bamboos, with their botanical equivalents. 



Mr. Mitford is preeminently qualified to write about Japa- 

 nese Bamboos from his having resided for some years in 

 Japan. He is the author of Tales of Old Japan, described 

 as " pictures of Japanese life and manners not worked out 

 in the monotony of minute detail, but dashed in with bold, 

 telling touches." His Bamboo book may be described as 

 a happy combination of scientific accuracy, reliable prac- 

 tical directions, and a skillful, charming style. Even the 

 descriptions of the species are drawn up in such a way as 

 to interest even readers who know nothing of Bamboos. 



Mr. Mitford, while modestly calling his book a descrip- 

 tive list, claims an attraction for it "in the admirable 

 drawings furnished by Mr. Alfred Parsons. " I confess to 

 a feeling of disappointment with regard to these drawings. 

 They may be art, but they are of no value either to the 

 gardener or botanist. Photographs of representative plants 

 would have been more acceptable. 



The number of species described in the book as having 

 proved hardy at Batsford and Kew is forty-five. Of this 

 number thirty-six are natives of China and Japan, one of 

 the United States, five of the Himalayas, the other three 

 being of doubtful habitat. These are all distinct and not 

 difficult to recognize after a little practice. They present 

 considerable variety in thickness and height of stem, 

 size, color and form of leaf and in their manner of 

 growth. Most of them grow with astonishing rapidity and 

 are evergreen even through severe winters. The only 

 drawback Bamboos have is in the somewhat shabby ap- 

 pearance assumed by some of the sorts in April and May, 

 the result of the trials of winter. Against this, however, 

 may be pitted the perfectly healthy appearance they wear 

 throughout the autumn and winter, when most plants are 

 looking their worst. There can be no doubt that Bamboos 

 will add a considerable attraction to the garden, and as 

 they are not particular as to soil, living and growing in 

 gravel, or even sand, if only they can obtain a good supply 

 of moisture, they are available for all gardens where the 

 climate is not too severe for them. At the same time they 

 well repay liberal treatment in regard to soil and manure. 

 All the species described by Mr. Mitford "have stood 

 through four winters and twenty-six degrees of frost, and 

 they have resisted an even more deadly enemy than frost 

 in the droughts of 1892, 1893 and 1895. . . . As for Phyllo- 

 stachys nigra, nigno-punctata, Boryana, Henonis and 

 viridi-glaucescens, they simply laughed at the thermometer, 

 and were as bright at the end of the winter as at mid- 

 summer." 



The following extract may be taken as a sample of the 

 style of the author ; it is also interesting as a description 

 of his own garden at Batsford, one of the most charming, 

 most informal and, at the same time, richest in grand 

 effects to be seen in England : 



As I write I look out upon a great rolling track of park-land 

 studded with patriarchal Oaks that were saplings in Plantagenet 

 and Tudor days, giant Ashes, Elms and Thorns planted in the 

 reign of good Queen Anne. Far be it from me to introduce 

 any change into such a scene. It is thoroughly English and 

 perfect of its kind ; no impious hand should dare to tamper 

 with it. But farther up the hill there is a spot snugly screened 

 from the cruel blasts which come from north and east, where, 

 when the great Oaks and Elms, shorn of their summer bravery, 

 are mere gaunt skeletons, there is still some shelter and some 

 warmth. Here, amid the sparkling glitter of a Holly grove, 

 are all manner of beautiful evergreens, rare Pines, steepling 

 Fir-trees, Rhododendrons, Cypresses, Junipers. A tiny rill 

 trickles over the green velvet of the rocks, with Ferns peeping 

 out of crannies in which many an alpine treasure is hushed to 

 rest, waiting the warm kiss of spring and the song of the birds, 

 that, like Orpheus with his lute, shall raise the seeming dead 

 from the grave. Tall Rushes and gracefully arching Bamboos, 

 hardly stirred by the wind, nod their plumes over a little 

 stream from which the rays of a December sun have just 

 strength enough to charm the diamonds and rubies and sap- 

 phires ; a golden pheasant, all unconscious of a human pres- 

 ence, is preening his radiant feathers by the water-side. It is a 



