June 24, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



251 



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 VORK, N. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 1896. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article : — Hitch your Wagon to a Star 251 



Forms of Some European Coniters. — I Dr. H. Christ. 252 



Plant Names ot Indian Origin. — I //". R. Gerard. 252 



Foreign Correspondence: — Rhododendrons and Azaleas. ... William Goldriug. 253 



Plant Notes 254 



New or Little-known Plants :— Clematis Suksdorfii. (With figure.) 255 



Cultural Department: — Notes from the Herbaceous Border R. Cameron. 25s 



The Rock Garden T. D. Hatfield. 256 



Clerodendrons IV. H. Taplin. 257 



Strawberries W. N. Craig. 257 



Correspondence :— A Garden of Single Roses H. S. H. 257 



Climbers and other Plants in Northampton Edward J. Canning. 258 



Pyrus coronaria Rev. E. J. Hill. 2 58 



Meetings of Societies: — The So-called Exhaustion of Nursery Lands 259 



Notes 260 



Illustration : — Clematis Suksdorfii, Fig. 36 255 



Hitch your Wagon to a Star. 



COLONEL WARING may not have remembered this 

 counsel of Emerson when he set out to clean the 

 streets of New York ; but he certainly began with a lofty 

 aim, and of this the city was reminded in a striking- way 

 a few days since when his well-disciplined force of men 

 and horses marched down Fifth Avenue under the eyes of 

 applauding thousands and were ceremoniously reviewed 

 by the Mayor. It was a remarkable spectacle when one 

 imagined how impossible the mere idea of a "Street- 

 cleaners' Parade" would have seemed two short years ago, 

 and what one would have seeirhad the men and the carts 

 and the horses of that time filed by in procession. It was 

 an inspiring sight when it was recalled through what a 

 storm of distrust and abuse Colonel Waring had to make 

 his way when he proposed to turn politics out of his de- 

 partment, and especially when he put his men into uni- 

 forms — and white uniforms at that. The banner bearing 

 the prosaic legend, " Four Hundred and Twenty Miles of 

 Streets Cleaned Every Day," had an air of poetry to all who 

 realized that those miles had really been cleaned, and be- 

 yond this one accomplished fact there stretched before the 

 imagination unbounded possibilities of municipal improve- 

 ment and refinement along a hundred hitherto untrodden 

 paths. 



Our streets are not yet as clean as streets should be ; 

 but the fault does not rest with the chief or with the men in 

 white uniforms. It lies partly with our rough and ill-kept 

 pavements, and partly with the untidy habits of our people. 

 Therefore the astonishment with which our people beheld 

 the manly-looking men, the well-bred, dignified officers, 

 the neat, brightly painted carts and the well-groomed 

 horses, which now are thought none too good for the 

 humblest kind of municipal service, drove home a doubly 

 significant lesson. Our people were taught respect for 

 municipal work of every kind — for every sort of civic ser- 

 vice ; and let us hope, at least, they were taught that they 

 should try to help the actual servants of the city in the 

 prosecution of their tasks. Especially hopeful, from this 

 point of view, was the presence in the parade of the school 

 children, girls as well as boys, who have banded them- 

 selves together to keep watch over the cleanliness of our 



streets. For, it hardly needs saying that it is easier to train 

 up children to be moral, in public as in private ways, than 

 to reform the immorality of adults. 



Colonel Waring aimed high when he insisted upon 

 securing the best workmen to be had, put responsible 

 educated men in control of them, and supplied his depart- 

 ment with the best tools of every sort. Therefore 

 the clean white uniforms on parade were not grotesque, 

 but made an impressive and an instructive sight. The 

 lessons thus taught do not hold good for New York 

 alone, or for great cities alone. The spirit shown by the 

 head of the Street-cleaning Department here should animate 

 every city official all over the land, every town officer and 

 every selectman or village ruler under whatever name. 

 The intensely practical American people possess a deep 

 vein of idealism. They are too busy to give much heed to 

 its murmurs, but once a strong enough appeal is made, 

 they respond with surprising alacrity. Our dump-cart has 

 been hitched to a star, and so we are growing proud of our 

 street-cleaners and more sensitive in regard to other munici- 

 pal matters. Already the laborer has learned that a city's 

 uniform is not a badge of slavery or inferiority, but, like a 

 nation's uniform, a sign of respectability and honorable 

 office. Looking at these white uniforms, the people under- 

 stand that even a street-sweeper can be pleasant to be- 

 hold, and that no servant of the public should be allowed 

 to present himself before the public untidy. With the chil- 

 dren to help us, we shall soon blush for our ill-kept pave- 

 ments, shall grow ashamed to litter our streets with papers, 

 shall take better care of our doorsteps and yards. 



What a huge and hurried and overpopulated and neces- 

 sarily dirt-amassing city like New York can do, and what 

 its overbusy people can learn, surely may be done and 

 learned in those country towns and little villages where 

 the conditions are infinitely more favorable and the people 

 are far less severely taxed in body and in mind. It is much 

 easier to hitch the car of cleanliness, orderliness and beauty 

 to a star in the country than in the town. Efforts to reach 

 the highest ideal should be earnest and unrelaxing, but 

 they are not worthy of the name if they are prosecuted in 

 a hurry, or superficially. The aim should be the loftiest, 

 but if workers are few and resources small, the field may 

 well be limited. It is better to make one street as orderly 

 and beautiful as possible than to putter about a dozen 

 streets in an irregular, futile way. It is better to put a sin- 

 gle little park or square into perfect condition than to make 

 a couple of new paths and set out a few new trees and 

 shrubs in every open space in the town. It is better to 

 choose a single fine young tree of an appropriate sort, to 

 plant it in the very best way, and to tend it carefully, than 

 to choose a hundred carelessly, plant them cheaply and 

 give them scant attention. It is better to cultivate a single 

 Rose-bush lovingly than to fill a whole border with Rose- 

 bushes and then neglect and starve them. 



If the good taste of our people and their habits as to 

 cleanliness and order are to be judged by the quality and 

 care of their public buildings, public streets and public 

 grounds we certainly need a good deal of education in this 

 direction. The great proportion of our municipal and state 

 buildings have little artistic value, their walls are scribbled 

 over by idlers, and they are generally defaced, dirty and 

 ill-kept. Few people ever think that it is a mark of untidi- 

 ness to throw paper and other litter into the public streets. 

 Indeed, most people toss rubbish of all sorts into the high- 

 ways as if they werebuill as a receptacle for refuse. Unless 

 watched by policemen, visitors in public parks too often 

 break offarmfuls of flowers and shrubs, walk on the grass 

 borders where paths are provided, and never think that as 

 part-owners of the place they ought to do as much to pro- 

 tect and beautify it as they would to their own private 

 grounds. The object-lesson of clean streets here and the 

 league of children to save them from becoming a dump- 

 ing-ground for all that is unclean marks an era in our 

 municipal history. It is not too much to expect that with 

 such examples here and the work of village-improvement 



