October 14, 



Garden and Forest. 



411 



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 YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, if 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



E MTORiAL Articles — The Artistic Element in Engineering 



Forest Studies in Minnesota 



Cedrus Atlantica. (With figure.) 



Early Autumn in the Pines Mrs. Mary Treat. 



Changing Fashions in Flowers M. B. C. 



Fjreign Correspondence: — London Letter IV. IVatson. 



New or "Little-known Plants: — Berberis Nevinii. (With figure.) 



Plant Notes 



Cultural Department : — Notes on New Roses IV. N. Craig. 



Flower Garden Notes ...E. O. Orpet. 



Some Little-known Plants Edward J, Canning. 



Asplenium ebeneurn G. A. WooUon. 



Correspondence: — Fertilizers tor Orchards A. R. B. 



Two Rare Ferns — Asplenium Brjdleyi and Trichomanes radicans, 



Sadie F. Price. 



The Forest: — The Burma Teak Forests. — XI Sir Dietrich Brandis. 



Exhibitions : — Flowers and Fruits at the American Institute Fair 



Not Ha 



I li ustrations : — Berberis Nevinii, Fig. 54 



Cedrus Atlantica. Fig. 55 



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4'5 



The Artistic Element in Engineering. 



AT the Buffalo meeting of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, Professor Frank O. 

 Marvin, of the University of Kansas, and Vice-President of 

 the Section of Mechanical Science and Engineering, read a 

 paper on the subject which we have used as the title of 

 this article. It might be considered impertinent for one 

 who did not belong to the engineering fraternity to state 

 that there is little or no attention paid by that profession in 

 America to considerations of beauty ; but this is precisely 

 what Professor Marvin declares, and his paper is a plea for 

 the recognition of the artistic element in engineering and 

 mechanics. In the swift development of our country, the 

 economic efforts of the engineer to "direct the great 

 sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of 

 man " have been devoted so persistently to the attainment 

 of quick profits as to cloud that broader view which looks 

 toward the higher and fuller life of the people. Of course, 

 when engineering practice is based on immediate results in 

 dollars and cents, the aesthetic element holds a secondary 

 place, although, even from this standpoint, beauty often 

 pays. But, after all, the engineer is primarily a designer, 

 and if the design ignores the artistic element the thing 

 created falls short of its highest possible good and fails to 

 furnish that indefinable something which helps man to a 

 richer and more refined existence. This results in manifest 

 loss to the community, for all the useful works of the engi- 

 neer may also satisfy the natural craving for beauty and 

 there may be as much fine art in a well-planned machine for 

 making some article of daily use as there is in a good pic- 

 ture or statue. There is no antagonism between what is 

 useful and what is artistic. Good taste may be displayed 

 in constructing a bridge or a reservoir without ex- 

 pending an extra dollar of money or disregarding its 

 requirements for strength and convenience; but while 

 American engineers are courageous and original designers, 

 and while they have shown themselves capable of fulfilling 

 the scientific and financial demands on their profession, 

 Professor Marvin argues that they have paid little or no 

 attention to artistic possibilities in their practice. For ex- 

 ample, the American bridge satisfies the considerations of 



stability and least cost, but it has little of the beauty of 

 line and balanced proportion which makes it harmonize 

 with the landscape or makes it attractive when considered 

 by itself. It is true that a truss with parallel chords does 

 not lend itself readily to artistic treatment, and added orna- 

 ment fur its own sake is never helpful. But in the proper 

 treatment of the organic lines, the length of spans, the rela- 

 tion of the length of panel to height of truss and the location 

 of piers and their forms, very much can In- done and has 

 been accomplished in such examples as tin; Brooklyn and 

 Washington bridges of this city. 



Professor Marvin goes on to say that in all the intricate 

 problems connected with municipal engineering there is an 

 almost absolute failure to give expression to any artistic 

 idea in public works of this sort, and although in some 

 water-supply plants the idea of beauty has not been en- 

 tirely neglected, the ugly stand-pipe with a conical cap, so 

 often seen in smaller towns, gives evidence that the 

 designer never had a single thought of mitigating its un- 

 sightliness, while the people whom it ought to offend daily 

 have never uttered a word of protest, and, indeed, have 

 never dreamed that there is another and a Letter way of 

 treating such works. Professor Marvin seems hopeful that 

 a change in public and professional sentiment will come in 

 time, but he declares that the schools of engineering are 

 doing little or nothing to help the student in this direction, 

 and that so far as he knows there is but one American text- 

 book — Professor Johnson's book on Bridges — which includes 

 any discussion whatever of the principles of aesthetic design. 



We have presented only an outline of Professor Marvin's 

 address, but few persons will dispute his thesis that in the 

 industrial and constructive arts we pay no heed to consid- 

 erations of beauty. The eminent German who visited this 

 country as a commissioner did not state the case too 

 strongly, perhaps, when he reported that "in America 

 public works are executed without reference to art." For 

 many months the work of enlarging the approach to the 

 New York terminus of Brooklyn Bridge has been going on 

 and a structure has been about completed in one of the 

 most conspicuous points of the city, and through which 

 thousands of civilized men and women pass every day. 

 Most surely the vestibule to such a work as the bridge 

 ought to have some dignity of its own, or, at least, it 

 should have some harmonious relation with the bridge. 

 The commissioners in charge of this work are gentlemen 

 of distinction and public spirit, and yet no one who looks 

 at it would ever infer that they felt the slightest responsi- 

 bility to satisfy man's natural longing for fitness and propor- 

 tion and his natural preference for beauty over deformity. 

 If they have any feeling for the claims of art themselves, it 

 never has occurred to them, apparently, that the people 

 have sensibilities which are to be respected, and this is 

 a single example of what is almost the universal rule. 

 This contempt for every canon of good taste begins 

 with the very ground plan of our cities, where the 

 rectangular street system, usually adopted, is not only 

 inconvenient but destructive of every attempt at a com- 

 prehensive scheme of urban decoration in the way of 

 public buildings or works of art. Monotony in the direction 

 and width of streets becomes a weariness to the eye. 

 There is no relief afforded by open spaces.no respect lot 

 the original contours of the land, no opportunity to give 

 importance or impressiveness of situation to any great 

 public building. As New York spreads northward we are 

 losing a priceless opportunity to take advantage of the 

 variety of surface and outlook and make the annexed dis- 

 trict the most picturesque city in the world. We build 

 miles of piers and wharves without considering that the 

 treatment of the water-front is full of artistic possibilities 

 Our railroads gash their way across beautiful scenery, and 

 no one so much as asks the question whether these struc- 

 tures could not be made so as to leave fewer scars upon 

 the landscape. In this way we obliterate the beauty of the 

 natural world and pile up constructions of our own which 

 seem to rejoice in their naked .aid obtrusive Ugliness. 



