July 8, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



271 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sakgent. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 1896. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article : — Privacy in Suburban Life 271 



The Redwood Flora in April Carl Purdy. 272 



Forms of some European Conifers. — II Dr. If. Christ. 273 



Pineapple-growing in Florida. (With figure.} Professor P. H. Rolfs. 274 



Plant Notes 276 



Cultural Department: — Seasonable Worli IV. H. Taplin. 277 



Perennial Peas J. N. G. 277 



Strawberry Culture E. O. Orpet. 277 



Hrowallias G. IV. O. 277 



Coronilla Capadocica E. O. O. 278 



Correspondence : — Notes from Natick, Massachusetts T. D. Hatfield. 27S 



Notes from West Virginia Danske Dandridge. 279 



Recent Publications 279 



Notes.. 279 



Illustration : — The Cultivation of Pineapples under Sheds in Florida, Fig. 38.. 275 



Privacy in Suburban Life. 



IN an article on "Suburban Homes" in The Cosmopolitan 

 for June, Mr. R. Clipston Sturgis says that more indi- 

 viduality, more separateness, more seclusion should be 

 achieved in the arrangement and planting of the grounds 

 about suburban houses of the better class than is usually 

 achieved or even desired in America to-day. This senti- 

 ment is not only in the interests of beauty as such, but still 

 more in the interests of humanity. The article goes on to 

 say that the lives led by the owners of such houses should 

 be more individual, more private, more truly domestic and 

 more closely in touch with nature, and that this cannot be 

 accomplished unless the character of their environments is 

 changed. 



This is sound doctrine, and Mr. Sturgis preaches it with 

 an attractive enthusiasm which, however, is not altogether 

 wise in the special line it takes. The text is the English 

 suburban garden as permitting and determining English 

 habits of suburban life. But the local obstacles are not 

 noted which stand in the way of a widespread acceptance 

 in America of the gospel of privacy and seclusion upon 

 this particular Anglican basis. And, therefore, many read- 

 ers may fail to be convinced of the truth of the gospel 

 itself. Our wish just now is to show the soundness of the 

 general statements before we try to point out the errors 

 made in their application. 



Speaking first of English suburban houses themselves, 

 Mr. Sturgis says that, whether old or new, owned by the 

 rich man or the artisan, they have " an air of comfort and 

 quiet dignity, they look substantial, respectable, self-con- 

 tained, inviting ; in a word, they are homelike." Our 

 own, on the contrary, are usually " frame houses, looking 

 unsubstantial and temporary. They convey no suggestion 

 of dignity and retirement. They do, indeed, look hospitable 

 and open, and have an air of saying, 'All mine is yours ; 

 pray, enjoy it !' They even invite you to look in on their 

 grounds and through their open windows, where the Eng- 

 lish house says, ' Don't come in unless you know us/ But 

 notwithstanding all this, I think on account of all this they 

 are not so pleasant to look upon nor so sweet to live in." 



There is truth in these words, and a great part of the dif- 

 ference they mark might profitably be done away with. 



As long as economy — which, most often, means necessity 

 —bids the American build with wood, it will be more diffi- 

 cult to give a look of permanence and stability to his house 

 than to the Englishman's; and upon this look, of course, 

 must largely depend its air of dignity. But it is by no 

 means impossible to achieve stability and dignity of effect 

 even with wood. The main trouble is not with our mate- 

 rial, but with the way in which we use it, preferring showi- 

 ness to quietness, variety to harmony, over-elaboration to 

 simplicity, loudness to modesty, evident costliness to a 

 well-bred reticence. 



But the outer aspect of a house, while it may reveal the 

 owner's character and thus give an insight into his probable 

 habits of life, does not actually mould and determine these 

 habits. They are more directly moulded and determined 

 by the disposition of the interior of his house. It is impos- 

 sible to lead a comfortable, sensible, profitably occupied, 

 quietly amused, genuinely domestic life in a house that has 

 been planned and furnished "for show." Many American 

 houses seem to have been built rather as places which may 

 be proudly exhibited to visitors, or in which troops of 

 guests may be sumptuously entertained, than as places in 

 which the occupants, each in his or her individual way, will 

 find the needs and desires of personal existence agreeably 

 and adequately met. They areas well fitted for occupation 

 by one family as by another, and they are not really well 

 fitted for occupation by any family which finds its best 

 pleasures in hours of privacy and domesticity. 



We do not say that the majority of American suburban 

 homes are of this kind. Even their exterior aspect is often 

 more satisfactory than that of similar houses in other lands, 

 as English architects have been the readiest to proclaim. 

 And many appear unsatisfactory on the outside (owing, 

 perhaps, to the architect's, rather than the owner's, lack of 

 good sense), which, when one enters them, present a very 

 different face. Probably we exaggerate the relative num- 

 ber of those which are really undomestic within as well as 

 without, because the house built "for show" is the one 

 most often exhibited. But against the environment of our 

 suburban houses a much stronger indictment can be brought 

 than against the houses themselves. 



The character of the life that is led in a suburban house 

 is determined, at least for seven or eight months in the 

 year, very largely indeed by the character of its grounds. 

 If the grounds are not beautiful, the sense of beauty will be 

 dulled and distorted in those who perpetually gaze upon 

 them. If they are planned for display, as ministers to pride 

 and vanity, the general mental attitude of the family will 

 be unfavorably affected. If they are not well adapted to 

 outdoor repose or activity, and to the development of a 

 personal interest in nature and her products, they will not 

 be lived in ; the days of the family will be passed indoors 

 or passed away from home ; and the true enjoyments, like 

 the true refining, softening and cultivating influences of 

 rural or semi-rural life, will be altogether missed. And if 

 the grounds are adapted to outdoor living they must have 

 a good measure of privacy — of seclusion. The English 

 suburban place, says Mr. Sturgis, "yives the househo 

 quiet, rest and retirement." These are the results of sepa- 

 rateness, protection, privacy ; and it is their posses 

 which fosters, not only the typical English love of nature, 

 but the typical English form of domestic life — reserved, 

 intimate and thoroughly domestic, yet hospitable in the 

 best sense of the word, because the truest hospitality is 

 that which admits the outsider into the most homelike 

 home. 



Quite different from this is the current American ideal of 

 beauty, comfort and convenience as expressed in the sur- 

 roundings of suburban homes. In colonial days we 

 approached more nearly to tin- English ideal, as is 

 shown by such streets as still exist in towns like Salem 

 and Annapolis. As a rule, the English house is set hack 

 from the road, while the American colonial house is set 

 upon it, or very near to it. but privacy tor the grounds is 

 111 both eases achieved. Here they lie behind the house. 



