January 4, 189J.] 



Garden and Forest. 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Teidune Building, New York. 



C;oiiducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1893. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Artici es :— The Effect of Country Life upon Women i 



An Avenue of Live Oaks. (With figure.) 2 



Why do some Promising; Varieties Fail ? Professor L. H. Bailey. 2 



Notes of a Summer Journey in Europe. — XXI y. G. Jack. 4 



New or Little-known Plants : — Agave angustissima. (With figure.) 



Professor f. N. Rose. 5 



Cultural Department :— Onion Culture in the South — Professor W. F. Massey. 6 



Cape Oxalis.— IV W. E. Endicott. 6 



Woody Plants for Winter Flowering W. 11. Taplin. 8 



Diseases of Gloxinias E. G. Lodeman. 9 



Irises and their Cultivation. — III J. N. Gerard. 9 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 9 



Correspondence :— Grapes in Winter E. P. Powell, jo 



Among the White Pines '. Cecilia Waern. 1 1 



Recent Publications 11 



Notes 11 



Illustrations : — Agave angustissima. Fig i 5 



Avenue of Live Oalcs (Quercus Virginiana), Chelsea Plantation, Beaufort 



County, South Carolina, Fig. 2 7 



The Effect of Country Life upon Women. 



THE growing interest in their country homes shown 

 by people who can afford to spend their winters in 

 the city is manifested in the long sojourn that they make 

 in them, and in the springing up all through the country of 

 small estates, which are a refuge for the city-dweller to 

 fly to in the summer. In the adornment of these homes 

 great interest is taken, the problems of horticulture are 

 present to the small cultivator as to the great proprietor, 

 and add interest to his hours of recreation. As has been 

 shown in these columns before, the country gentleman of 

 the days of our forefathers has almost departed from the 

 face of the earth. As a nation our leisure class now con- 

 sists of women only. In them there can be seen to de- 

 velop all the vices and virtues inherent to a leisure class. 

 Indolence, luxury, triviality, narrowness, we find among 

 them, with compensating reactions in the way of activity, 

 prudence, seriousness and an endeavor for larger sympa- 

 thy with all sorts and conditions of human beings. 



Our men tind their leading interests in the active life of 

 towns. In professions, in business, in politics, in stirring 

 careers of all kinds they utilize the restless energy of the 

 true American, to whom repose is stagnation and rest a 

 bore. Whether it is our stimulatnig climate, or the admix- 

 ture of blood, that affects the male inhabitant of this country, 

 certain it is that his nature demands occupation of an ex- 

 citing kind. The man who loafs, the tramp, and the 

 flaneur, who is the fashionable variety of the species, are 

 all anomalies in our civilization ; they exist, but under pro- 

 test ; they are freaks, not types ; sports, and not the natural 

 growth of our soil. 



The general opinion is that the country is the place to be 

 born in, but also a place to go away from as soon as one is 

 old enough and big enough to know better what is worth 

 while. Hence the country becomes merely a dormitory 

 for young men, as our increased facilities for transportation 



make cities and great towns accessible to larger and larger 

 regions of suburbs. The friction of their kind, the stir of 

 multitudes, the thrill of competition, the struggle for suc- 

 cess, prove irresistible to the young, and once inured to it 

 the mature man rarely desires to leave it for a more health- 

 ful and quiet existence. The philosophical and contem- 

 plative temperament alone finds in the country that serene 

 atmosphere where it can breathe most freely, but philoso- 

 phers are rare birds. 



Since, then, to most men of means their rural retreat 

 rarely amounts to more than a place to smoke their cigars 

 of an evening, or to drive or ride their well-groomed horses 

 over pleasant roads of a Sunday, there remains to be con- 

 sidered what effect a prolonged residence in the country 

 may have upon the mind of the woman who really bears 

 the brunt of it, so to speak ; whose life is molded by its re- 

 strictions, and whose character must receive from it a cer- 

 tain impression. To some of them, it must be confessed, 

 their country life is but an interruption to their occupations 

 and amusements ; to others it is but a variety of social en- 

 tertainment, while to a third and larger class it opens a new 

 set of possibilities and affords a fresh field for their ener- 

 gies and tastes. To this latter class it becomes valuable, 

 as every healthful experience is valuable, by showing the 

 resources of one's own spirit. 



American country life for the rich differs widely from 

 English country life, in that it carries with it no exacting 

 duties — no traditional customs to be followed out. The 

 ■ life of an English country gentleman is quite a business in 

 itself. He has tenants to look after, he is apt to be a 

 magistrate, he has a personal concern in the people of his 

 village, who are often his political constituents, he has 

 social relations all over his county ; his wife and daugh- 

 ters are equally responsible, and held to strict account in 

 that conservative land, in which people do not find it 

 so easy to escape from obligations as they do with us. 

 The country life is the real life there, the town life the rec- 

 reation of a few weeks or months ; whereas, Americans 

 may be said to live in the city, and to go to the country 

 for a little change. Their real social relations are all with 

 the city; the natives of the villages near which they spend 

 their summers, not being objects of charity, are practically 

 outside the current of their existence, which is, on the 

 whole, charming, luxurious, indolent, but largely selfish in 

 its enjoyments. 



But that there is both entertainment and profit for women 

 in a country life for months at a time is undeniable. The 

 most inaportant lesson of a prolonged country sojourn is 

 the discovery that amusement is not the rule of life, but its 

 exception. Instead of being hurried from one thing to 

 another, with days crammed full of distractions of all 

 kinds, there is time for serious pursuits, reading, drawing, 

 needlework, and, above all, gardening. One learns to be 

 content with simple pleasures, interested in natural objects, 

 in quiet details. That critical sense, over-stimulated by 

 city life, which finds fault with all amusements because 

 they are not ideally perfect, gets supplanted by a healthy 

 satisfaction in such diversions as fall to one's lot without 

 exceeding effort. A drive, a woodland walk, the planning 

 of a parterre, the thoughtful study of a bit of landscape- 

 gardening, a sketch, a new book, suffice to lend interest to 

 the day, and afford subjects for conversation. What one 

 does, gets a new significance from not being smothered 

 by things one wants to do and cannot ; a steadier habit of 

 mind results, a greater power of concentration. There are 

 fewer interruptions, therefore more can be accomplished. 

 There is time for reflection — for reconsideration. What- 

 ever work is done, one learns to depend, not on others, 

 but on one's own judgment, one's own taste ; hence ensues 

 greater individuality, less imitation, a temporary emancipa- 

 tion from the effort to follow the crowd, which is the 

 special temptation of city life. 



The tendency of women being to nervous excitement, 

 the greatest benefit to them arises ftom a suspension of 

 many of the causes of undue stimulation, such as late 



