January it, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



23 



The Rose of Jericho. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — Thie account of Jericho Roses in Garden and Forest 

 of October 26tli reminds me that, wiiile passing along Oxford 

 Street, in London, last June, my attention was attracted by a 

 large heap of plants marked " Rose of Jericho," in the shop- 

 window of a seedsman. The plant was, however, not the 

 Anastatica Hierochuntica, usually called by that name, but a 

 Selaginella. I entered the shop and found that what, on closer 

 examination, proved to be Selaginella Pringlei, was done up in 

 boxes with a descriptive ciicular, as enthusiastic as it was 

 botanically inaccurate, and sold at a shilling each. On sug- 

 gesting to the dealer that his much-lauded plant did not come 

 from Palestine, but probably from America, he admitted that 

 " it might have come from Mexico." It appears that the sale 

 of the Selaginella was large. 



Cambridge, Mass. ^V. G. FarlOIU. 



Cedrela Sinensis. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — In your issue of November 15th (page 543) Mr. Jack 

 writes about Cedrela Sinensis in France. I have grown these 

 trees a dozen years or more and distributed them in consider- 

 able quantity, so that it must have been tested in many parts 

 of the United States. 



The Cedrela is a very beautiful tree, and succeeds admirably 

 in Washington. It has somewhat the appearance of an Ailan- 

 thus ; it is exceedingly vigorous in growth, giving luxuriant 

 shoots with fine, large, clean, pinnated leaves. I have never 

 known the foliage to be infested with insects or injured in any 

 way. The tree grows rapidly and transplants easily. Some 

 specimens have been planted in one of our Washington 

 streets, where they succeed well ; and the intention is at an 

 early day to plant a street with this species, and I have no 

 doubt in the near future it will be largely used for this purpose. 



Washington, D. c. John Saul. 



Recent Publications. 



Along New England Roads. By W. C. Prime. New York : 

 Harper & Brothers. 



This neat little volume is a reprint of letters written to the 

 New York Journal of Commerce in the course of a correspon- 

 dence which has extended over more than forty years. They 

 'are, for the most part, casual records of vacation journeys 

 among New England hills, and, in the author's judgment, 

 ought to have been left in oblivion. Finding, however, that 

 they had been preserved by admiring strangers who threat- 

 ened to publish them if he did not, he has gathered together 

 the long-buried sketches and made them into a book "simply 

 because he did not wish that such a book should be made." 



This preface disarms criticism and leaves to the reviewer 

 only words of praise ; and yet the sketches hardly need any 

 such protection, for slight as they are they furnish pleasant 

 reading for a leisure hour, and, in addition to heir restful vaca- 

 tion air, they have a charm of ten lacking in a more ambitious 

 work — the crowning charm of spontaneity. Mr. Prime has 

 that love of country life which only attains its best develop- 

 ment when implanted in childhood. If genuine, it never fails, 

 but grows stronger and sweeter with advancing years. In his 

 journeys over the familiar ground, Mr. Prime's eye rests with 

 delight upon the little homely details which would escape the 

 notice of the careless traveler, and his delight we cannot help 

 but share. Only one to the manner born could have written 

 this : "Nearly a half-a-mile ahead stood a farm-house with its 

 barns and outbuildings. The house stood back from the road 

 among fruit-trees, some of which were in blossom. But 

 what especially attracted attention was a large number of 

 horses and wagons, vehicles of various descriptions, which 

 made the front yard and the road near the house look black. 

 Only two events in the country are likely to cause such a gath- 

 ering around a house. When you see it you are quite safe in 

 thinking that there is a funeral or an auction sale. Either is 

 sure to bring together all the wagons of a very widespread 

 population. There is this difference, however, that to the funeral 

 men and women and children come, but to the ' vandue ' only 

 men." The words are simple, the scene is homely, but every 

 reader whose childhood has been passed amid rural surround- 

 ings will feel the chords of memory touched, and be trans- 

 ported at once into the happy past, to smell the earthy fra- 

 grance of the trampled grass, and hear the merry jests of the 

 auctioneer, while friends and neighbors, unthought of for 

 years, come trooping into the chambers of memory. 



This, too, is genuine : "Deserted farm-houses in New Eng- 

 land are all alike in the most prominent features and generally 

 resemble each other in many minute details, for the life in 

 them was very much the same, and the life in the house gives 

 specific character to the surroundings. The worn spot on the 

 little piazza of the kitchen end, or L, is again and again vis- 

 ible ; the spot where the farmer sat down daily for a little while 

 when he took the very short rest the farmer can afford to give 

 himself in daylight. The marks on the inside of the window- 

 seat are almost always there, made by the broken mugs and 

 teapots, and the cans and boxes in which his wife kept her 

 flowers growing when frost drove them indoors for the win- 

 ter. Her garden is always there, and I know a place where I 

 go and gather roses, sometimes, from bushes in a dense tan- 

 gle, which were the garden Roses of a farm-house that 

 utterly vanished more than fifty years ago." 



Combined with this simplicity of thought and feeling is an 

 old-time flavor, a subdued and softened Puritanism, very re- 

 freshing in these days of enervating luxury. No matter how 

 far afield Mr. Prime may wander, either literally or metaphor- 

 ically, in his search for recreation or adventure, he travels 

 always "along New England roads." He is at one with Mr. 

 Ruskin in his detestation of railroads, which he says have 

 "cursed and depopulated northern New England. Carriage- 

 travel has been abandoned, intercommunication between out- 

 lying farms and villages is nearly at an end. The old social 

 intercourse and mutual dependence of the country-folk is 

 mostly gone." With this loss of the old-fashioned "neighbor- 

 liness " has died much of the charm of country life, and what 

 is true of New England is equally true of other sections of the 

 country. 



" Seeking a Better Country" is an attempt to show how order 

 and beauty may be wrought out of ruin and desolation in the 

 many abandoned farms if only the inhabitants will give up 

 their thirst for riches and cultivate once more the almost for- 

 gotten virtues of their forefathers, for now, as in the olden 

 time, it is only by patient, loving labor, both of hand and brain, 

 that the waste places of the earth can be made to rejoice or 

 the wilderness to blossom as the rose. 



Many of the papers contain slight sketches of New England 

 village-life, but the best are those which treat of the beauty of 

 the hills. Much of the modern love of natural scenery is only 

 another form of dissipation — an effort to escape from the 

 heart-weariness of our artificial city-life — but Mr. Prime's en- 

 joyment of his spring and autumn drives is deep and genuine. 

 The letters were written in the days before the love of nature 

 had become the fashion ; when only those in whom the love 

 of her beauty was an unconscious passion sought her soli- 

 tudes to gain refreshment after vigorous toil, or strength for 

 fresh endeavor ; hence the slight descriptive touches, scattered 

 at random throughout the volume, have a freshness of feeling 

 in marked contrast to the work of those observers of nature 

 who have a conscience on the subject, and seem always seek- 

 ing for effects. What can show more delicate appreciation 

 than this ? 



"Snow is a wonderful beautifier. It packs down the dead 

 growth of the past, so that the first show of the new growth is 

 visible and colors the earth and the landscape. There is a day 

 when all the country looks wintry ; the next day soft green 

 tints show in the damp hollows or on the southern slopes ; then 

 in one or two or three days the whole landscape has become 

 brilliantly green ; the forests have begun to color. We all 

 know the gorgeous autumnal colors, but little has been written 

 of the exquisite tints of the spring forests in New England. 

 They are often quite as beautiful as the autumn glories. They 

 are softer tints, but more varied — pink, mauve, purple and 

 gray, in broad and gentle gradations, broken now and then by 

 deep tints when the Maple is budding. Sometimes in valleys 

 where Willows are plenty, and when sunlight falls richly after 

 a shower, there are patches of golden-yellow stretching across 

 green fields which are as beautiful as one's golden dreams." 



This, too, is exquisite in a different way : " As we began the 

 up-hill journey we came slowly into thinner mist, and after 

 a while into that most weird and solemn of all lights, thegolden 

 atmosphere of the October sun in fog among autumn forests. 

 Stopping the horses on a water-bar for a little breath, we lis- 

 tened to the silence. Do you know what that means ? It is 

 not listening to nothing. There are sounds, and many of 

 them, but in the stillness of a foggy morning these sounds 

 seem to cut sharply into the silence, and thus make you aware 

 of the excessive stillness and calm which reign around you. 

 The fall of a single leaf, broken off by the weight of moisture, 

 is distinctly audible as it flutters to the ground. The voice of 

 a crow, far away in the fog, comes through the yellow 

 air with a metallic ring. You start along, and the crush 



