June io, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



231 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 



1896. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — Where Competitive Examination may Fail 231 



Daffodils in the Grass 231 



A Botanical Journey in Texas. — V E. N. Plank. 232 



The Flora of the California Coast Range. — III Carl Purdy. 233 



The Reproductive Powers of our Forests. (With figure.). . . .L. C. Corbett. 234 



Plant Notes 234 



Cultural Department: — Notes from the Herbaceous Border. .Robert Cameron. 236 



Flower Garden Notes E. O. Orpet. 237 



Herb Robert G. A. XVoolson 237 



Correspondence: — Notes from West Virginia Danske Dandridge. 237 



Some Rare Erythroniums Carl Purely. 238 



The Increase of Redwood Forests Carl Purdy. 238 



A Wild Garden B. L. P. 238 



Recent Publications 239 



Notes 240 



Illustration : — Second-growth Chestnut-trees, in West Virginia, Fig. 34 235 



Where Competitive Examination may Fail. 



ABOUT a month ago the office of landscape-gardener 

 and forester for the city of Philadelphia was to be 

 filled, and the Board whose duty it was to name the man 

 decided to open the place to competitive examination 

 instead of making it a subject of personal patronage. 

 Precisely what the duties of a city landscape-gardener and 

 forester may be in Philadelphia we do not know. He 

 probably has charge of the street-trees and superintends 

 the construction and planting of the small parks, and if 

 these are his functions the examination would give a fair 

 idea of the knowledge of the applicant in this particular 

 field. There were questions in surveying, in drawing as 

 applied to landscape-gardening, and in road-building. No 

 attempt was made to ascertain how much the applicant 

 knew of general horticulture, but there were twelve care- 

 fully prepared questions relating to trees and the way to 

 plant, protect and care for them, so that a comparison of 

 the answers given by the nineteen candidates would, no 

 doubt,enable good judges to select the man whose knowl- 

 edge on this subject was the most comprehensive and 

 thorough. 



The only question relating directly to landscape-garden- 

 ing was the following : " What is the chief point to be con- 

 sidered in laying out the grounds for a public square ? " 

 This might furnish the text for an essay which would ena- 

 ble the judges to learn some of the views of the writer on 

 the general subject of designing small urban parks, but lit- 

 tle more than this could be hoped for. Indeed, it would 

 be a difficult task to discover by a written examination 

 whether a man has creative artistic talent. If a city wished 

 to make an intelligent selection of an architect to design a 

 municipal building it would not choose the man who could 

 answer the most questions about architecture. One who 

 wished a landscape painted would hardly think of select- 

 ing an artist by competitive examination of this kind. But 

 it requires just as much constructive skill to adjust a piece 

 of ground to varied public uses as it does to make a build- 

 ing which in all its parts shall be adapted to a given pur- 

 pose, and it requires as much taste, at least, to prepare this 

 ground so that it will make an impressive appeal to the 

 imagination through the eye as it does to make a beautiful 



building. By an examination we can ascertain whether a 

 man is a good critic in any branch of art, but it will give 

 no adequate idea of his creative capacity. The proper way 

 to judge of a landscape-architect is by his works, just as we 

 judge of a landscape-painter, or a sculptor or a poet. 



Again, if we wish to be informed as to a man's executive 

 faculty — that is, his capacity for administration, for man- 

 aging men and getting things done in the right way — we 

 naturally study what he has done, or observe what he is 

 doing, rather than cipher up what percentage of his answers 

 to certain questions is correct. A competitive examina- 

 tion conducted by eminent experts was held in one of our 

 large cities some years ago, and the candidate whose papers 

 were easily first in quality was appointed chief gardener 

 of an extensive park system. He had a thorough knowl- 

 edge of the shrubs and trees and plants used in our parks, 

 he knew how to propagate them and how to cultivate 

 them, but after his appointment it was evident that he had 

 no idea of proper grouping and arrangement, no refinement 

 of feeling, no taste for simple natural beauty. Besides this, 

 he lacked the power of organization and command, and he 

 made a miserable failure. 



All this means that while the service in public parks 

 should certainly be kept out of politics, and no one should 

 be admitted to subordinate positions without examination, 

 there is no certainty of securing an efficient administrative 

 head of any departmental work by any such competition. 

 Wherever we need moral power, the force of will, the 

 ability to control others, we must select a man who has 

 displayed these faculties in other positions. And the same 

 is true where artistic talent is in question. A man may be 

 able to write an instructive essay on landscape art without 

 possessing a particle of faculty for original design, just as 

 one may be a competent critic of architecture or sculpture 

 or painting without any talent for invention or construc- 

 tion in either of these arts. 



Daffodils in the Grass. 



THE different varieties of Narcissi are beautiful any- 

 where, whether grown in large masses for commerce 

 or in beds in the flower garden, but they never are more 

 attractive than when seen among the grass along a wood 

 border. On the 14th of April a conference on Daffodils, 

 with an exhibition, was held in Regents Park, London, and 

 Messrs. Barr & Son had planted thousands of Narcissus- 

 bulbs in groups of from 150 to 200 of each variety in the 

 turf of the park the autumn before, so that they would be 

 in bloom for this occasion, and the display thus made was 

 said to have been a most interesting feature of the meeting. 

 The cheapness of these bulbs, the ease with which they can 

 be made to bloom, the fact that they can be grown any- 

 where, on lawns as well as in flower-beds, their satisfying 

 variety in form and color, have made them the most popu- 

 lar outdoor flower in England, and they are rapidly increas- 

 ing in public favor in this country, although comprehensive 

 collections of all the different sections, including the expen- 

 sive novelties, are not yet common here. And yet we can 

 grow, with proper care, quite as beautiful Daffodils in this 

 country as any which England can show. Unfortunately, 

 however, our climate is such that not so many of the dif- 

 ferent varieties can be naturalized in the grass. The Poet's 

 Narcissus, different varieties of the Star section, the Jon- 

 quils and some of the Trumpets can be made at home in 

 the grass. Almost any of them will bloom for a season or 

 two, but which particular ones will grow persistently and 

 increase from year to year no one can tell until they have 

 been tested in different soils. Most of the varieties like 

 some cool moist place and in well-drained meadows which 

 are covered with snow most of the winter, and where the 

 soil is a trifle stiff many of them will be sure to succeed. 



In the admirable paper of Mr. William Robinson, read 

 before the conference to which we have alluded, he speaks 

 of one menace to the best effect of Narcissi in the grass ; 

 and that is the practice of scattering them evenly over a 



