June io, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



239 



Aspidiums, will increase rapidly, and yet they are not objec- 

 tionably aggressive. Trilhums, the low Phloxes, Cypripe- 

 dium pubescens, Lilium Canadense, Dicentras and the delicate 

 Maiden-hair Fern will increase more slowly, and yet at a suffi- 

 cient rate to show that they are permanently established. Of 

 course, to keep up the variety one must be constantly thinning 

 out the more aggressive varieties and give aid to the more 



modest ones. 



Harniun9burg, Pa. 



B. L. P. 



Recent Publications. 



The Bamboo Garden. By A. B. Freeman-Mitford, C. B. 

 Illustrated by Alfred Parsons. Macmillan & Co. : London 

 and New York. 



In the great family of Grasses there is no more interest- 

 ing group than the Bamboos, some of them giants a hun- 

 dred feet or more high and others pigmies of the humblest 

 proportions, but all distinguished by a characteristic grace 

 which makes them as beautiful as they are generally use- 

 ful in the regions where they thrive and where the whole 

 social and industrial economy of the people are associated 

 with and dependent upon them. Where they abound they 

 largely help to give character to the scenery, but here in 

 the north there are hardly more than half a dozen which 

 are reliably hardy. In the soft and moist airs of England 

 a greater number of species will thrive, and all who are 

 familiar with current garden literature have read the 

 instructive writings of Mr. Mitford in the London Garden 

 and elsewhere. He has been an enthusiastic student and 

 cultivator of all these plants that can be made at home in 

 England, and this beautiful book is the result of his many 

 years of labor. It has been illustrated by Mr. Alfred Par- 

 sons, whose drawings give a fair idea of the decorative 

 quality of the different species. We cannot help but think, 

 however, that it would have been better to have something 

 more accurate, even if less artistic, figures that would, at 

 least, enable one to identify the various species. Even the 

 reproduction of photographs would have been more useful 

 in a treatise of this sort, although these always lack some- 

 thing of aesthetic value. Chapter I. gives an interesting 

 account of the plants in general and of their characteristics, 

 especially as they appear in cultivation ; and this is fol- 

 lowed by minute directions on the methods of propagation 

 both by seed, by division, by cuttings from the base of the 

 culm, and by pieces of the rhizome. In writing of the 

 choice of position, Mr. Mitford not only explains the quality 

 of the soil, exposure and cultivation which the plants need, 

 but he explains how to plant them for producing the best 

 effect. On this point he says : "A good background is of 

 the first importance to show off the beauty of the Bamboo. 

 A bay in a clump of Hollies or conifers will afford a most 

 appropriate setting. The tall columns waving their dainty 

 green foliage against such a backing under a gentle sum- 

 mer breeze are the embodiments of all that is graceful, 

 while the tender leaves look like a flight of delicate green 

 butterflies hovering in the air. A group planted on a lawn 

 may be effective, but Bamboos are seen at their best when 

 their bending columns are shown in contrast against softer 

 and darker foliage." It may be added that suggestions of 

 this sort as to methods of planting in an effective manner 

 are scattered all through the book, so that there is much 

 useful instruction on the general arrangement of gardens 

 and the views are almost invariably sound. The greater 

 portion of the book is taken up with a description of spe- 

 cies, beginning with those which are natives of China and 

 Japan. These are by no means dry botanical details, but 

 an effort to give descriptions of these plants that will indi- 

 cate their value for ornamental coloring, although every 

 paragraph shows careful study of their habits and observa- 

 tions which are of genuine scientific value. 



Mr. Mitford thinks that these plants are destined to be- 

 come much more largely used in extra-tropical gardens 

 than they have ever been. He calls attention to the fact 

 that the famous gardeners laughed at him when he began 

 to plant his newly imported and starveling canes, but unex- 

 pected success has attended his efforts at acclimatization, 



and he thinks that there are many other species than those 

 we now grow which can be made to beautify our gardens. 

 There are Bamboos growing high up on the Himalayas 

 which are only known by herbarium specimens, and one- 

 species, at least, in the Andes grows at an altitude equal to 

 that of the summit of Mont Blanc, and he thinks there arc- 

 many others waiting to be discovered on mountain heighls 

 where ice and snow are at home. He notes the fact that 

 all the Bamboos that have proved hardy in England have 

 the veins of their leaves checkered or tessellated, and by 

 something of a coincidence the hardiest of the Palms also 

 have tessellated leaf-veins. He thinks, therefore, that when- 

 ever a Bamboo is found at a great altitude, at least high 

 enough to be surrounded by non-tropical vegetation, a leaf 

 structure of this kind will be almost a guarantee of its 

 hardiness. 



A delightful chapter is one entitled Apologia pro Bam- 

 busis meis, which is a justification for his passion and a 

 plea for his reeds. He objects to that affectation of severe 

 taste which would banish everything from English pleasure- 

 grounds but English shrubs and herbs, and yet he plainly 

 belongs to those who see in the teachings of the architec- 

 tural school of gardening a menace to what he considers 

 the more beautiful and effective way of planting. Many 

 readers will sympathize with his criticism of the "acres of 

 paving-stones surrounded by balustrades, and bespattered 

 by jets of greater or less size, which were dear to the 

 French architects.'' Perhaps we cannot better conclude 

 this review than by adding some other quotations. 



In these heavy masses of masonry there is only dignity for 

 those who admire that which is costly. The poetry ot garden- 

 ing lies in another direction. Who can conceive a Dryad 

 making her home in an Orange-tree incased in a green wooden 

 tub? What nymph who respects herself would bathe her 

 dainty limbs among the glorified squirts of Sydenham ? 

 Another test: Could a painter paint these formal gardens of 

 ashlar ? Could a poet find inspiration in them ? Would Saint 

 Bernard say of them what he said of the woodland : " Aliquid 

 amplius invenias in sylvis quam in libris "? 



He who would lay out tor himself a paradise — I use the 

 word in old Parkinson's sense — cannot do better than to set 

 out to drink in wisdom in Japan. Not in the Japanese gardens, 

 for nowhere is the gardener's work more out of tune with 

 Nature than in that country of paradoxes ; but on the moun- 

 tain-side, in the dim recesses of the forest, by the banks of 

 many a torrent, there the great silent Teacher has mapped out 

 for our instruction plans and devices which are the living refu- 

 tation of the heresies of stonemasonry. There are spots among 

 the Hakone Mountains of which the study of a lifetime could 

 hardly exhaust the lessons. The sombre gloom of the Cryp- 

 tomerias, the stiff and stately Firs, Pine-trees twisted and 

 gnarled into every conceivable shape, flowering trees and 

 shrubs in countless varieties, combined with the feathering 

 grace of the Bamboo, and all arranged as if the function of 

 each plant were not only itself to look its very best, but also to 

 enhance and set off the beauty of its neighbors, present a 

 series of pictures difficult to realize. 



The Japanese are true lovers of scenery ; no people have a 

 keener feeling for a beautiful landscape ; to them a moon 

 rising over Mount Fuji is a poem, and their pilgrimages ti 

 the Almonds in blossoms, or the glories of the autumn tints, 

 are almost proverbial, and yet, strange to say, in their gardens 

 they seem to take a delight in setting at defiance every one of 

 those canons which Nature has laid down so unmistakably for 

 those who will be at the pains to read them. The Japanese 

 garden is a mere toy that might be the appanage <>t a doll's 

 house. Attached to some of what were the Daimios' palaces 

 in the old days there were some line pleasure-grounds, well 

 laid out, rich in trees and daintily kept. The gardens of the 

 Mikado, by the shore of the bay of Yedo, are beautitul. But 

 the average Japanese garden is such as I have described it a 

 mere whimsical toy, the relic of an art imported from China, 

 and stereotyped on the willow-pattern plate 



The truth is that in every good garden there is a poetical or 

 spiritual beauty with which these crude and Haunting artifices 

 (topiary work, grottoes, carpet-bedding and the like] are out ot 

 tune ; the air which breathed o'er Eden still in some mystic 

 sense pervades our groves. " God planted the first garden " ; 

 and if man was formed in His image, may we not believe 

 that certain more favored spots still reflect the idea of that first 

 Divine Garden ? To catch the spirit of these is the supreme 



