November 25, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



47i 



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. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1$ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles : — Unnatural Colors in Foliage 471 



Protection of Forest Reservations against Sheep-herders 472 



Entomological: — Lawn and Grass Infesting Insects. — II. (With figures.) 



Professor J. B. Smith. 472 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter. . W. Watson. 473 



Plant Notes : — Notes from the Santa Monica Forestry Station. . John H. Barber. 474 

 New or Little-known Plants: — Nymphrea stellata, var. Eastoniensis. (With 



figure.) 474 



Cultural Department: — A Fungous Disease of the Apple. . . G. Harold Powell. 474 



The Protection of Strawberries S. C. 475 



Chrysanthemums T. D. Hatfield. 476 



Broad-leaved Evergreens Dar.ske Dandridge. 476 



Correspondence: — Notes from the Arnold Arboretum Jackson Dawson. 476 



Lemons in California William M. Tisdale. \j-j 



Exhibitions : — The Fall Exhibition of the Horticultural Society of Chicago, 



E. J. H. 478 



The St. Louis Flower Show F. C. S. 479 



Recent Publications 497 



Notes. - 4S0 



Iliustrations : — Lawn and Grass Infesting Insects 472 



Nymphaaa stellata, var. Eastoniensis, Fig 68 475 



Unnatural Colors in Foliage. 



A CORRESPONDENT writes us that he was never so 

 impressed with the beauties of our autumn foliage as 

 he has been during the present year, and it occurs to him 

 that if masses of gold and crimson leaves are beautiful in 

 autumn they must be quite as beautiful at any other sea- 

 son. He adds, that in view of what nature can do and 

 what nature actually does, our objection to trees with vivid 

 foliage seems like an affectation of severe taste. To this it 

 may be replied that we have no objection to Negundos 

 with pale leaves, or to Elders with yellow ones, or to Pru- 

 nus Pissardi with its so-called purple foliage, if such trees 

 are kept in their proper place. Nature is a good guide in 

 this as in other matters, and we do not see forest borders 

 in which a large portion of the trees have streaked or 

 spotted leaves or deep wine-colored ones like the Copper 

 Beech. This does not mean that our woods and shrub- 

 beries are a monotone of vapid green. From the dark green 

 of the Spruces and Pines to the light green of some of the 

 Willows, the Lead-plant and the Buffalo-berries there is 

 range of color enough to give an almost infinite variety, 

 and yet there is nothing like what is called "striking color- 

 effects" by some park-makers; nothing like the large 

 masses of Prunus Pissardi which we sometimes see in 

 private grounds about American villas, or nothing like the 

 patches of pallor on the landscape that is so often pro- 

 duced in European parks by masses of white-leaved 

 Negundos. Any one with a sense of appropriateness can 

 feel the difference between a natural landscape which 

 catches its tone, and, indeed, its highest charm, from the 

 gray old Olive-trees on every hand, and an artificial park 

 made up of sports such as nurserymen delight to call 

 Atropurpurea and Aureo-marginata. 



Of course, when we speak of a natural landscape as dis- 

 tinct from one in which the color-effects are in a sense 

 artificial, we remember that nature is responsible for all 

 these strong colors. Indeed, our correspondent's argument 

 is based on the fact that at one season of the. year our 

 woods glow with tints that cannot be matched in splendor 



by the odd colors of sports which have been preserved and 

 propagated by gardeners. He might have added that our 

 trees in early spring are almost as striking for their colors 

 as they are in autumn. It is true, they range through a 

 different scale, but the delicate pinks, soft grays and yel- 

 lows of the opening year are quite as distinct and quite as 

 beautiful as the crimson and gold of its close. But it must 

 be remembered that in spring as well as in autumn these 

 effects vary with every day and almost with every hour. 

 There is that constant change which is the very life of beauty 

 in the landscape. We do not object to a pattern-bed, for 

 example, when the colors are harmoniously blended, 

 because it is bright and striking, nor yet because it is for- 

 mal, but primarily because it is invariable, and, therefore, 

 in time becomes wearisome to the eye. A mass of scarlet 

 Alternanthera and yellow Coleus on a lawn may have the 

 same colors as the autumn forest leaves, but it glitters 

 there day after day, from morning till night, in rigid same- 

 ness, without growth or development or change, the one 

 stationary spot in all the picture, while all about it is con- 

 stant transformation. Again, oddly-colored trees, especially 

 if obtrusively planted, catch -the eye at once and invite 

 attention to themselves instead of mingling in with the 

 general effect in the landscape. All summer long they 

 stand to distract the mind from the beauty of the scenery 

 with which they do not harmonize, and grow more and 

 more tiresome with their monotonous appeal for special 

 notice. A great part of the beauty of the foliage of trees 

 in early spring is due to its evanescence, and a forest- 

 covered hillside, which is glorious in the sunshine of an 

 October day would become wearisome rather than impres- 

 sive if it glowed with the same colors all summer through. 



There ought to be no need of repeating that we never 

 object to bright colors as such in the planting of parks or 

 public grounds. There are few people who are not at- 

 tracted by a mass of Rhododendrons in bloom, and cer- 

 tainly nothing can be brighter, but the flowers fade and fall 

 before they become a weariness. In spring, when our 

 wood borders are white with Dogwood or pink with the 

 blossoms of the Judas-tree, they have a special charm 

 which delights every beholder. But this is the beauty of a 

 day. The planting in parks of shrubs which are covered 

 with abundant flowers, like Japan Quinces and Forsythias 

 and Spira?as, is only to be commended. But it must be 

 observed that in every case the flowers vanish so quickly 

 that we have a feeling of sadness at losing them, and this 

 makes their reappearance another year a delight for which 

 we long. If they stared at us all summer long we would 

 feel grateful to the frost which came to kill them. True, 

 there are some shrubs and plants which flower all summer 

 through, and delightful ones they are. On a good plant of 

 Clematis crispa, for example, we can find some of its beau- 

 tiful bell-shaped flowers every morning, but there are only 

 a few of them, and they are never in sufficient abundance 

 to make a conspicuous display. Clematis paniculata, on 

 the other hand, which flowers but once, delights us with 

 the abundance of its bloom, which quite hides the foliage 

 and then disappears and leaves behind another form of 

 beauty. 



The sum of the whole matter is that the great floral dis- 

 plays which we appreciate are transitory, and we naturally 

 provide for one to follow the other, so that no season will 

 lack its special beauty of color. There an- times when rich 

 and striking color appeals to every eye, but we do not think 

 that good taste will commend the perpetuation of every 

 freak of nature or the multiplication of oddities of form or 

 color. These have no real place in the quiet harmonies of 

 the landscapes of our temperate climate. if they are used 

 at all they should be introduced very cautiously to empha- 

 size some point, and not in such abundance that they will 

 make war upon the general landscape-effect of this region. 

 Bright-hued and transitory flowers wo haw in abundance, 

 but plants with variegated and highly colored leaves are 

 very rare in our woods ami Gelds. Therefore, not only to 

 avoid sameness, but to preserve the essential quality ot 



