362 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 446. 



Stassfurt salts in some form, whether sulphate or muriate, 

 is the next best way of applying potash. Chili saltpetre 

 will be the main reliance for nitrogen since it contains six- 

 teen per cent, of that substance and is better suited to most 

 soils and plants than the salts of ammonia. Desiccated 

 blood is also rich in nitrogen and gives out its supplies 

 more uniformly, and is not washed out by sudden rain or 

 a profuse watering, and it does not " burn " the plants in a 

 dry time. It also contains some potash and phosphates 

 and a good deal of valuable organic matter. Bones in some 

 shape remain the favorite form of phosphoric acid, and they 

 have an additional value because they contain animal 

 matter which is rich in nitrogen, and because they are 

 more easily dissolved than the mineral phosphates, like the 

 South Carolina and Florida rock. The more finely divided 

 the bone is, of course the more active and valuable it is. 

 All the commercial fertilizers on sale contain these elements 

 in various proportions, and in states where some legal con- 

 trol is exercised over this trade the stations will furnish on 

 application the percentage of each ingredient, with its con- 

 dition as to solubility, etc., in any given brand of which a 

 sample is sent. 



An English visitor at Newport, writing to the Liverpool 

 Evening Mercury about the palatial residences of that city, 

 is impressed by their size and splendor, and has this to 

 say : 



The situation of these houses, the distribution, the separa- 

 tion without fencing or walling, give to the whole scene an 

 unimaginable stateliness, with the bay as a glorious outlook. 

 No words can convey an idea of the marvelous spectacle of 

 well and graciously and artistically applied wealth which has 

 harnessed to its aspirations the greatest architectural art of the 

 country. The best part of the whole story is that all around 

 the edge ot the great cliff there is a beautiful well-kept path. 

 A lovely sward comes down to it and the palaces all stand 

 well back, two hundred yards, perhaps, from the cliff. Observe, 

 there are no fences, nothing to prevent you, if you are rude 

 enough, from walking up the lawn and staring into the cot- 

 tagers' lordly windows. No one does, but anybody might. 

 How is it that these palace mansions are built in this open, 

 unprotected way ? Well, there was a right of way around the 

 cliff, which had to be respected, and so the cottagers agreed 

 upon the present policy. We know what would have hap- 

 pened in England. The path would have had a grim wall 

 built just inside of it, and the dukes and gentlemen who were 

 going to build the mansions would have instructed their archi- 

 tects to secure for them a maximum of sea view, while taking 

 care that the passing pedestrian public got a minimum of 

 opportunity to see their houses and grounds. Instead of that 

 these much-abused American millionaires hit on the bold and 

 beautiful idea ot building two hundred yards in and leaving 

 their grounds and lawns absolutely open right down to the 

 public path. The result is such a combination of natural and 

 contrived beauty, open for the enjoyment of all, as cannot be 

 seen on such terms anywhere else in the world. 



We have had occasion to criticise what seemed to be the 

 ostentatiousness or excessive showmess of many of the 

 houses at Newport, and the lack of good taste shown in 

 the over-elaborate and gaudy treatment of many of their 

 grounds. At the same time we have praised the neatness 

 with which these grounds are kept, and the advantages to 

 the public of the open promenade upon the brow of the 

 cliff, with its wonderful beauty and magnificent outlook. 

 This English visitor does not seem to have received the 

 impression of vulgarity which these palatial houses, calling 

 themselves cottages, have made upon some American eyes. 

 But what is rather more astonishing, the traditional English 

 love of privacy does not seem to have been offended by the 

 omission of tall boundary walls and screening planta- 

 tions. 



The vegetable life does not content itself with casting forth 

 from the flower or the tree a single seed, but it (ills the air and 

 the earth with a prodigality of seeds so that if thousands 

 perish thousands may plant themselves, that hundreds may 

 come up, that tens may live to maturity, that, at least, one 

 may replace the parent. — Ralph Waldo Emerson. 



Botanical Gardens. — II. 



PROFESSOR BRITTON continued his address by giving 

 some brief descriptive notes of some of the foreign 

 gardens. These include the great garden of Buitenzorg, of 

 Java, which contains eleven hundred acres, and has been 

 in operation for eighty years ; the Royal Gardens at Kew, 

 of which at different times we have given somewhat full 

 descriptions ; the Royal Gardens just outside the city of 

 Berlin, with their great herbarium and a museum of 

 economic, systematic and archaeological collections ; the 

 long-established Jardin des Plantes of Paris, with its enor- 

 mous herbarium, library and laboratories, a grand institu- 

 tution which for more than a hundred years has been 

 making contributions to the literature of botany ; the Gar- 

 den of the University of Vienna, established in the middle 

 of the last century ; the Botanical Garden of Geneva, with 

 the herbariums and libraries gathered by De Candolle and 

 Boissier ; the gardens at Edinburgh, at Dublin, at Brussels, 

 St. Petersburg, Trinidad and others. The conclusion of 

 the address is as follows : 



Botanical Gardens in the United States.— The first 

 botanical garden established in America was begun by John 

 Bartram in Philadelphia in 1728. In it he placed a considera- 

 ble number of plants obtained in the course of his extensive 

 travels. The plot still remains, including the family home- 

 stead, somewhat modified, and it is a pleasure to know that it 

 will be preserved as public ground by the city. 



Andre Michaux in the latter part of the last century planted 

 gardens at Charleston, South Carolina, and New Durham, New 

 Jersey, but they were essentially nurseries, from which he sent 

 seeds and plants to Europe. 



In the year 1801 Dr. David Hosack, then professor of botany 

 and materia medica in Columbia College, purchased twenty 

 acres of ground in New York City, and called it the Elgin 

 Botanical Garden; in this tract he accumulated with great 

 labor during the next ten years a very large and valuable col- 

 lection of plants. The institution was transferred to the state 

 of New York through an act of the legislature in 1810, and was 

 then known as the Botanical Garden of the State of New York. 

 It was subsequently granted to Columbia College. Funds for 

 its maintenance were not provided, however, and it was ulti- 

 mately abandoned. Two catalogues of its plants were issued 

 by Dr. Hosack, one in 1806 and another in 1S11. The condi- 

 tion of botanical gardens in America at that time is indicated 

 by the following note in Dr. Hosack's catalogue of 1806: 



" I learn, with pleasure, that a botanic garden is proposed 

 to be established near Boston and connected with the Univer- 

 sity of Cambridge. The Legislature of Massachusetts, with a 

 munificence which does them honour, have granted for this 

 purpose a tract of land, the value of which is estimated at 

 thirty thousand dollars, and several individuals have evinced 

 their liberality and love of science by voluntary subscriptions 

 to the amount of fifteen thousand dollars towards the establish- 

 ment and support of that institution. Another is also begun 

 at Charleston (South Carolina), and a third is contemplated in 

 New-Jersey in connection with the College of Princeton." 



In the year 1824 there was published at Lexington, Kentucky, 

 the First Catalogues and Circulars of the Botanical Garden 

 of Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky, for the 

 year 1S24, by W. H. Richardson, M.D., President of the Board 

 of Managers, and C. S. Rafinesque, Ph.D , Secretary. This 

 rare pamphlet, which is not recorded in Dr. Call's very com- 

 plete life and writings ot Rafinesque, is of twenty-four pages, 

 and is printed alternately in English and French, It is essen- 

 tially an appeal for plants and material for the garden and a 

 list of plants that it could furnish to kindred institutions. This 

 garden was evidently short-lived, inasmuch as in Rafinesque's 

 Neogcnyton of the following year, 1825, he remarks, "I mean, 

 therefore, to indicate and propose in this small essay many of 

 the numerous new genera ot plants detected or ascertained, 

 some of which were indicated last year, 1824, in the Catalogue 

 of the Botanical Garden which I have tried in vain to establish 

 in Lexington." 



The principal gardens at present operated and in course of 

 development in .the United States are as follows : 



1. The Botanic Garden of Harvard University, at Cambridge, 

 Massachusetts, founded in 1S05. There are here about seven 

 acres of land under cultivation, a small greenhouse and a 

 famous herbarium and library from which have flowed during 

 the past forty years voluminous and invaluable contributions 

 to taxonomy and morphology, especially of North American 



