140 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 266. 



to implant itself in the conscience of the people at 

 large. In these latter days should our people still need to 

 be told the same truths which Virgil needed to tell nearly 

 two thousand years ago? His words were spoken of ar- 

 tificially established young plantations, but they are just as 

 applicable to young plantations which Nature is establish- 

 ing, and to older ones where the undergrowth should be 

 preserved : 



Guard, too, from cattle, Hiy new planted ground, 



And infant vines that ill can bear a wound; 



For not alone by winter's chilling frost. 



Or summer's scorching beam the young are lost; 



But the wild butfaloes and greedy cows. 



And goats and sportive kids the branches browse ; 



Not piercing cold nor Sirius' beams that beat 



On the parched hills, and split their tops with heat, 



So deeply injure as the nibbling flocks, 



That wound with venomed teeth the tender, fearful stocks. 



Then, could any testimony be clearer than that which is 

 borne by John Evelyn in his Sy/va P "Our main planta- 

 tion," says this famous seventeenth-century authority on 

 silviculture, "is now finished and our forest adorned with 

 just variety. But what is yet all this labor, but loss of 

 time and irreparable expense, unless our young and (as yet) 

 tender plants be sufficiently guarded with munitions from 

 all external injuries ? For, as old Tusser, 



If cattle or coney may enter to crop, 

 Young Oak is in danger of losing his top. 



The reason that so many complain of the improsperous 

 condition of their woodlands and plantations of this kind 

 proceeds from this neglect . . . If through any accident 

 a beast shall break into his master's field, or the wicked 

 hunter make a gap for his dogs and horses, what a clamor 

 is there made for the disturbance of a year's crop, at most, 

 in a little corn ! whilst abandoning his young woods all 

 this time, and perhaps many years, to the venomous bit- 

 ings and treadings of cattle, and other like injuries. . . 

 the detriment is many times irreparable, young trees once 

 cropped hardly ever recovering. It is the bane of all 

 our most hopeful timber. But shall I provoke you by an 

 instance? A kinsman of mine has a wood of more than 

 sixty years' standing. It was, before he purchased it, ex- 

 posed and abandoned to the cattle for divers years. Some 

 of the outward skirts were nothing save shrubs and miser- 

 able starvelings ; yet still the place was disposed to grow 

 woody, but by this neglect continually suppressed. The 

 industrious gentleman fenced in some acres of this, and 

 cut all close to the ground ; and it is come in eight or 

 nine years to be better worth than the wood of sixty, and 

 will, in time, prove most imcomparable timber ; whilst the 

 other part, so many years advanced, shall never recover. 

 Judge then by this how our woods come to be so 

 decried ! Are five hundred sheep worthy the care of a 

 shepherd? And are not five thousand Oaks worth the 

 fencing and the inspection of a hay ward ?" 



And are not our great public forests in the west, where 

 we want the trees to grow well in order that they may 

 serve the interests of beauty as well as of utility, worth a 

 protection which does not mean a fence and a "hay ward," 

 but a systematic guarding against danger from fire and, 

 equally, against danger from the flocks and herds of un- 

 scrupulous individuals, intent upon private gain at the ex- 

 pense of the people's property ? 



I 



Notes of a Summer Journey in Europe. — XXIV. 



N spite of our knowledge of the modifying intluence of the 

 Gulf Stream on the climate of the v^^est coast of Europe, it 

 is often difficult for Americans to realize that places situated 

 geographically so much farther north enjoy a winter tempera- 

 ture which is in every way so much more moderate than pre- 

 vails in our New England and northern states. 



The Botanic Garden at Edinburgh, in Scotland, furnishes as 

 interesting an object for comparison as may generally be found 

 if we study climatic differences by the plants which it is possi- 

 ble to grow in any given region, and, as a rule, the ctiaracter 

 of the vegetation gives a pretty correct indication of the tem- 



per of the climate. Edinburgh is situated very nearly in lati- 

 tude fifty-six degrees, a position approximately equivalent to 

 the northern coast of Labrador, on our Atlantic seaboard ; to 

 a point not very far south of Sitka, on the Pacific coast, 

 and between thirteen and fourteen degrees farther north 

 than central Massachusetts. But so moderate is the win- 

 ter climate that many New Zealand, Tasmanian, Indian and 

 South American plants tlourish in the open air here which 

 we should not dream of leaving out-of-doors in winter if we 

 wished to keep them aliveand in^good health. 



The Botanic Garden at 'EdinbuVgh is generally considered 

 one of the best-kept and best-arraiiged in Europe, although it 

 may be surpassed in area; 'Its origin dates from 1670, when 

 it was founded by Sir Andrew Balfour, with assistance from 

 Sir Robert Sibbald. Thirteen years later, the first curator of 

 the garden, James Sutherland, published a catalogue of the 

 plants in it, which is said to have contained about 3,000 species. 

 In its history of over two hundred years the garden has occu- 

 pied three different sites, occupying the first for ninety-three 

 years, the second for fifty-six, and finally being removed to its 

 present location in 1819. The area included in this garden was 

 a little over twenty-seven acres, and this is what is called the 

 garden to-day. But within the last twenty years an area of 

 equal extent lias been added, which is called the arboretum, so 

 that the whole now comprises about fifty-five acres of diversi- 

 fied land with varied exposures. 



The area at command has been very well utilized, so that 

 there is little waste, and not much crowding, although the 

 number of species in this garden is by no means small. One 

 is likely to be impressed with the compactness and general 

 prettiness of the garden upon first entering the main gateway. 

 The arboretum, at the farther end of the garden, may not 

 seem so interesting and picturesque, because its trees are not 

 so old or so fully grown, and it has the aspect of comparative 

 newness ; but it contains much that is valuable to the student 

 of woody plants. The shrubs have generally reached the best 

 state of development, and some of those which we would con- 

 sider beyond question too tender for our gardens seem to 

 thrive here and lend a peculiar interest to the collection. 

 Some of the so-called "Prickly Heaths," Pernettya mucronata, 

 from the Straits of Magellan, seem quite at home. I noted 

 this species fruiting in great abundance, the ripe fruit be- 

 ing about the size of peas and of a pretty bluish color. The 

 most interesting point in connection with it I found in the 

 seed, which, while still in the mature fruit on the plants, had 

 germinated and formed perfect little plantlets. The leaves of 

 this shrub are small, shining, dark green and persistent. The 

 plant belongs to the Heath family, and the fleshy berries seem 

 quite as edible as those of some of our Huckleberries, although 

 they are somewhat drier. 



Another South American plant which appears to do fairly 

 well here is Buddleia globosa, which, while it may not reach 

 the size and height possible in warmer regions, is here repre- 

 sented by very broad-spreading specimens eight or ten feet high. 

 It bears orange or honey-colored flowers in large globose termi- 

 nal heads, and is also peculiar in the densely hoary tomentose 

 character of the branches and under-surfaces of the leaves. 

 Among other woody plants from the southern hemisphere, 

 those trom New Zealand and Tasmania are at once the most 

 conspicuous and the most numerous in species. The so-called 

 Daisy-tree, Olearia Haastii, is interesting as being a woody 

 Composite which, in New Zealand, attains the proportions of a 

 good-sized tree. Transplanted to the northern hemisphere, 

 it blossoms in August and September, the last of the numer- 

 ous heads of small white flowers, in corymb-like cymes, just 

 fading away when I saw the Edinburgh plants at the end of 

 September. It is not unknown in American gardens, but can- 

 not be grown in the north. Some of the shrubby New Zealand 

 Veronicas thrive fairly well in the open air here, although they 

 are liable to severe injury or destruction in unusually rigorous 

 winters. One of the best goes under the name of Veronica 

 Traversii, and here forms a smooth-branched bushy shrub 

 several feet high, with opposite leaves looking something like 

 those of Box. It is a very pretty object when covered by the 

 innumerable little white flowers which it bears. 



Several species of Fuchsia live here in the open air through- 

 out the year and bloom quite satisfactorily. Some Escallonias 

 survive the winters, especially if planted in the shelter of a 

 warm wall, and some small shrubby Polygonums are quite 

 effecfive in certain uses in gardening. There is quite an in- 

 teresting and rich collection of species of Fragaria and Poten- 

 tilla, and among the latter the long-known, but rare, shrubby 

 and white flowered Potentilla glabra of Loddiges was seen. 

 Although a nafive inhabitant of a cold northern region, and 

 quite hardy, this species seems to be almost lost to cultivation. 



