January ii, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



13 



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, JANUARY 11, 1893. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PA(;p. 



Editorial Artici es :— Mr. Heintz's Boulevard 13 



A Chestnut liee in Llewellyn Park, New Jersey. (With figure.) 13 



Notes of a Summer Journey in Europe. — XXII J. G. Jack. 14 



The Coast Dune Flora of Lake Michigan.— I E. J. Hill. 15 



Botanical Notes from Texas E. N. Plank. 15 



New or Little-known Plants : — Aster turbinellus. (With figure.) »6 



Cultural Department :— Irises and their Cultivation. — IV y. AT. Gerard. 16 



Decorative Plants in Winter E. O. Orpet. 18 



Some Winter-flowering Plants . . . , Wm. Tricker. 18 



Mistakes of the Year A. A. Crazier. 20 



Heliotrope, Mannettia bicolor, Ruellia macranthra Wm. F, Bassett. 20 



Passiflora, Constance Elliott Lora S. La Mancc. 20 



The Forest: — Hard-wood Timber in the South Dr. Charles Mohr. 21 



Correspondence: — Christmas in London Louise Dodge. 22 



A New Year's Awakening J. N. G. 22 



The Rose of Jericho W. G. Farlom. 23 



Cedrela Sinensis John Saul. 23 



Recent Publications 23 



Notes 24 



Illustrations : — Aster turbinellus. Fig. 3 ; 17 



The Condit Chestnut, Llewellyn Park, New Jersey, Fig. 4 19 



Mr. Heintz's Boulevard. 



ON Christmas Day the late Mayor of this city revealed 

 to the public the outlines of a scheme for a drive- 

 way of unparalleled magnificence, and five or six miles 

 long, for the district north of the Harlem. This so-called 

 boulevard is, in fact, a cluster of vv^heel-ways and foot- 

 ways, with a possible bridle-path, one hundred and eighty- 

 two feet wide ; the two central ones areto be used as speed- 

 ways ; two other macadamized roads are for more stately 

 carriage procession and general traffic, besides which there 

 are broad outer sidewalks, with rows of trees separating 

 the tracks. Of course, in a work of this magnitude there 

 are arches and walls and bridges galore, with approaches, 

 viaducts and tunnels, so that the $6,000,000 which is 

 spoken of casually as about the sum of money needed to 

 complete it, is probably a very modest estimate of the ex- 

 pense. Altogether, this contemplated work is one of the 

 highest public importance both in magnitude and expense 

 as well as on account of its influence for good or ill upon 

 the city that is to be. 



We do not propose to discuss here the desirability of 

 broad and tree-bordered park-ways or of a road where 

 those who delight in fast trotters can put their horses to 

 speed. But, admitting that a city of the size and preten- 

 sions of New York should provide facilities of this sort, 

 what would be the natural, business-like way of going to 

 work to secure them } In the first place, the authorities of 

 an enlightened community would naturally look about for 

 men of expert ability to examine all the possible sites and 

 report upon them. After a large public discussion of the 

 matter, and the selection of a general site, the next step 

 would be to employ some landscape-architect of distinc- 

 tion, a man of well-known engineering ability, to make a 

 careful study of the grounds and give a report. Such a re- 

 port would not be an essay in elevated language on the 

 coming grandeur of the metropolis, with rhetorical flour- 

 ishes in the place of specific facts. It would give definite 

 reasons at every stage of the plan ; it would show how ad- 



vantage could be taken of every natural feature, and how 

 elements of use and beauty could be introduced which would 

 never be suggested to the untrained eye. This report 

 would also be subject to the closest scrutiny and the widest 

 discussion, and in this way it would be an education to the 

 people, and would help them to appreciate a work which 

 might be made an object of the noblest civic pride. 



What has happened in the present instance is that the 

 site for the boulevard has been privately selected and a 

 complete plan evolved by a gentleman named Heintz. 

 Mr. Heintz may be an estimable citizen, but as he was 

 bred to the business of brewing it is not likely that he has 

 any training which fits him specially for designing park- 

 ways. No person who wished to lay out and construct on 

 his private grounds a path fifty yards long would think of 

 taking counsel with Mr. Heintz, in the hope of receiving 

 advice of any value. Mr. Heintz himself may have taken 

 counsel, but the public has no information as to who was 

 consulted when these plans were developed. So far as tax- 

 payers have been informed, no person known to possess the 

 requisite taste or training, or experience for such work, has 

 given any advice in the matter, and yet leading organs of 

 public opinion in the city at once endorsed this scheme as 

 one which the city should rush through with all possible 

 haste. Some opposition has been manifested by persons 

 who look upon the proposed boulevard as a gigantic 

 scheme of public plunder, but no one seems surprised at 

 this method of conducting public business. Of coiirse, the 

 city wants the best road possible, and yet the chances are 

 a hundred to one that it would be improperly located and 

 badly constructed if the promoters of the scheme were 

 allowed to have their way. The one way to get the best 

 work is to secure the services of the men who know best 

 how to do it ; but we have so little regard for expert ability 

 that no one expresses surprise or indignation when a great 

 public work, which deserves the study of the foremost en- 

 gineers and landscape architects of the time, is planned off- 

 hand by Heintz, or Smith or Jones, or when their crude 

 opinions are at once accepted as the best solution of a great 

 municipal problem. 



It is asserted in the newspapers that a bill has been pre- 

 pared and will soon be laid before the legislature, to 

 authorize the construction of this grand drive-way, and if 

 such a measure is not enacted as promptly as the one for a 

 speed-road in Central Park was passed a year ago the failure 

 will not be due to any objection on the part of our law- 

 makers to this method of administering the affairs of the 

 city. It has been given out officially that the business men 

 of New York are incompetent to conduct the city's business, 

 and an architect is the last man whom a city official would 

 think of consulting in regard to a municipal building. All 

 the training now considered necessary to fit a man for 

 the general supervision of the city's public works is to run 

 of errands for a Mayor or his political creator. A com- 

 mission from the City Hall is a certificate of ability to de- 

 sign a parkway or park, and if it could be shown that the 

 designer, or his friends, had a personal and pecuniary 

 interest in the work, this would be counted an additional 

 guarantee of his fitness for the job. 



A Chestnut-tree in Llewellyn Park, New Jersey. 



AMONG deciduous trees of north-eastern America the 

 Chestnut is one of the few which take rank with the 

 White Oak in majesty and dignity of expression. It grows 

 rapidly when young, and although it does not attain its best 

 proportions until it is a hundred years old, still it wears a no- 

 ble expression long before it reaches that age, and long be- 

 fore the White Oak has assumed the grand air which finally 

 characterizes it. Its top is usually round and dome-like, 

 and is not quite so impressive as the broader top of the 

 Oaks, but its foliage breaks in heavy masses with pecu- 

 liarly deep and dark shadows, a result of the great hori- 

 zontal projection of its branches and the wide angles at 

 which they ramify. The foliage is not particularly dense, 



