September i6, 1S96.] 



Garden and Forest. 



37 ! 



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-CL.ASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1896. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Article : — The Garden in Autumn 371 



The Alpinum in the Botanic Garden of Tubingen D. T. MacDougal. 372 



The Sand Dunes of Northern Indiana and their Flora. — II.. Rev. £. J. Hill. 372 

 Nelumbo lutea, the Water Chinquapin. (With figure.) 



J. Woodward Manning. 373 

 Foreign Correspondence: — Autumn-flowering Hards- Bulbous Plants, 



W. Watson. 374 



Plant Notes 375 



Cultural Department : — Fall and Winter Care of the Vegetable Garden, 



Will. /J". Tracy. 376 



Small Fruits William Scott. 376 



Late-flowering Shrubs G. IV. Oliver. 377 



An Autnnin Garden T. D. Hatfield. 377 



Some Good Autumn-flowering Plants J.N.Gerard. 37S 



The Forest: — The Burma Teak Forests. — VII Sir Dietrich Brandts. 378 



Exhibitions : — Autumn Flower Show at Boston. — II 379 



Notes.. 370 



Illustration : — Nelumbo lutea, the Water Chinquapin, in a Massachusetts 



pond, Fig. 50 375 



The Garden in Autumn. 



IT is constant change which gives to a good garden its 

 unfailing freshness. It is not repeated over and 

 over from day to day, but transformed from one beauty to 

 another as the year progresses, so that its attractions never 

 become stale or wearisome. One of the fundamental ob- 

 jections against carpet-bedding is its uniformity ; all summer 

 long it presents the same figures and the same colors, the 

 same unvarying expression. Flowers bloom and fade, leaves 

 expand and the tender tints of spring pass through the deep 

 greens of summer to the rich glow of autumn, but clipped 

 Coleus and Alternantheras show the same long lines of 

 scarlet and yellow until one tires of looking at the monoto- 

 nous pattern, while all about it is progression and vicissi- 

 tude. The part of the garden given over to one of these 

 invariable designs takes no account of the wondrous pro- 

 cession which keeps moving all about it to the close of the 

 year, but where planting has been well considered the 

 garden has a special charm for every season, and a vital 

 relation with all the processes and appearances of nature 

 which environ it. 



As the year ripens in early autumn the garden can be 

 made to glow with a richer color than at any other season. 

 But as the season closes there comes a time when all the 

 landscape is purpled with wild Asters or aflame with Golden- 

 rod, when every strip of woodland and the shrubs in every 

 thicket, and even the weeds of the fields and waysides, 

 glow with colors with which no garden can hope to com- 

 pete. Then at last conies a day when many of us feel 

 inclined to let our gardens go the natural way of all vege- 

 tation. Some efforts may be put forth to save a few of our 

 tender plants from approaching frost, and in this way our 

 sympathies may be stirred to a renewal of our interest, but 

 usually we let the garden alone to die as gracefully as it 

 may. Alfred Austin, the British laureate, states the case 

 with more poetry than is found in many of his verses, 

 when he writes : 



There is an orderly negligence, a well-thought out untidi- 

 ness, a secret of careless grace about autumnal forms and 

 colors which no other season can match. Even to the garden 

 proper, autumn adds such wonderful touches of happy acci- 

 dent that when it really comes a wise man leaves his garden 

 alone and allows it to lade and wane and slowly and pathetic- 



ally pass away without any effort to hinder or conceal the 

 decay. Indeed, it would be worth while having a cultivated 

 garden if only to see what autumn does with it. 



It is November, however, before this time comes here- 

 about, and, as a matter of fact, one who really knows his 

 garden sees growth and beauty until the ground is frozen 

 hard, and, indeed, all winter long whenever the surface is 

 bare, on a sunshiny day he will be watching the move- 

 ments of those sturdy things which are getting ready to 

 flower as soon as the days begin to lengthen. Certainly 

 there is no season when material for giving true beauty to 

 our grounds is more abundant than that which is available 

 just now ; and yet, it must be admitted, we do not make as 

 much of our gardens at this season as we might. One 

 reason may be that the best of the herbaceous plants which 

 flower at this season require to.be cared for all summer 

 long. The early spring-flowering bulbs are planted in 

 autumn ami left alone all winter, and then they bloom 

 without exacting any mor ( e attention ; while, if we are to 

 have flowering Chrysanthemums, or Cosmos, or Japanese 

 Anemones and many more, we must keep them watered 

 and hoed and staked and tied and sprayed for months. But 

 certainly the results of such care will repay all the outlay, 

 and the notes of Mr. Watson, Mr. Gerard and Mr. Hatfield in 

 this number invite attention to the wonderful display which 

 we may have if we are willing to take the pains. 



Already the leaves of some of the shrubs and trees have 

 begun to change, and if we have studied the subject we 

 know that individual trees have special beauties in this 

 direction which can be propagated, and we can make bril- 

 liant pictures now and for the weeks to come by harmo- 

 niously grouping those which have striking features. There 

 is no need to speak of our Oaks and Maples and Tupelos 

 and Liquidambers, nor of the smaller trees like Sassafras 

 and Sorrel and Dogwood, or of the shrubs like our Y'ellow 

 Root with its scarlet and orange, our high Blueberries and 

 other Vacciniums, Leucothoes, Viburnums, Sumachs, Rho- 

 dodendron Vaseyi and many of the Asiatic Spiraeas, all of 

 which have been described over and over again in these 

 columns ; and then there are the shrubs like the Hollies 

 and Winter Berries, Thorns, Barberries, Viburnums, Cor- 

 nels, Honeysuckles, Roses, Climbing Bitter Sweet and its 

 Asiatic relative Celastrus articulata and many more, whose 

 fruits are as bright as their blossoms. With proper care it 

 is plainly possible to make selections from these trees and 

 shrubs and group them so as to form masses of richly 

 colored fruit and foliage in autumn. Of flowering plants 

 in early autumn, we have our native Lobelias, Hibiscus 

 and Asclepias, with at least a dozen Sunflowers, the Sil- 

 phiums, Boltonias, Rudbeckias and Asters, Vernonias, 

 and with them the great Groundsel (Senecio pulcher), the 

 Mountain Fleece, Trycirtus, the autumn-flowering Monks- 

 hood, the pyramidal Bellflower, and climbers like the late 

 Clematises. Mr. Gerard and Mr. Watson call attention to 

 the singular charm of certain autumn-flowering bulbous 

 plants. We may add that many biennials and perennials like 

 Delphiniums, Gaillardias, Pentstemons and Iceland Poppies, 

 if the seeds are sown in January and planted out in spring, 

 can be had to bloom in autumn. 



Naturally, these autumn-flowering plants are taller than 

 those of spring, having had all the summer to grow in. 

 Some make great masses from six to ten feet high and of 

 corresponding girth. No one, for example, who has not 

 seen a well-grown Boltonia can appreciate how effec- 

 tive a full-sized specimen becomes when set in rich deep 

 soil and properly cared for. The spring garden, it is true, 

 has all the charm of a new creation. The flowers. have a 

 delicacy and dainty grace which make them especially 

 delightful in the wild weather which they brave, and our 

 senses have not been sated with a long season of familiarity 

 with all the treasures which the garden has had to display. 

 They have no rivals, but gather an additional interest from 

 the fact that they are a promise of what is to come. Still, 

 our autumn flowers have a stateliness which is theirs 

 alone. They harmonize with the rich, mature beauty of 



