208 



Garden and Forest 



[Number 272, 



fish. Healthy progress is being made in water gardens, and 

 their number is constantly increasing. 

 Elizabeth, N.J. 



J. N. G. 



Pansies.— No florist's flower has been more improved 

 during recent years than the Pansy. As with Carnations. Tuber- 

 ous Begonias and Cannas, the effect of the work of the spe- 

 cialist is distinctly seen. The introduction of the giant Tri- 

 niardeau strain, by Mr. Denys Zirngiebel, of Needham, Massa- 

 chusetts, some eight years ago, created almost a sensation, 

 and the popularity of the Pansy as a florist's flower may be 

 said to date from that time. Pansies are offered for sale in all 

 the leading cities of the country, from December until June, 

 and no florist of any standing can afford to be without them. 

 There are few flowers, especially in winter, which can be used 

 in the same way, for dishes or shallow vases, and with a little 

 green intermixed there can be nothing more appropriate for 

 dinner-table decoration. 



For mixed spring bedding the Trimardeau strain is rapidly 

 displacing the once popular Odiers' International Prize. Ex- 

 cept for lines and massing, where the bedding Violas are par- 

 ticularly effective, these Pansies are rapidly gaining favor in 

 England. The hardiness of this new type had a thorough test 

 last winter and came through in splendid condition. Cassier's 

 strain, a more recent introduction, is scarcely as robust as the 

 Trimardeaus, but affords a greater variety of colors, with 

 smooth, rounded form and finer lines. While the shades in 

 the latter are mostly blue, those of the Cassier's strain are 

 principally yellow and white, in some respects resembling the 

 white and yellow ground Pansies so common in England and 

 Scotland. 



Biignot's, yet another novelty, in constitution and general 

 characteristics resembles Cassier's, except that the red shades 

 mostly predominate. This is the most popular Pansy on the 

 market in Boston. The fine rounded form and distinct mark- 

 ings of the English and Scotch Pansies, unfortunately, find no 

 favor here. In the show varieties, having mostly white and 

 yellow grounds, the markings are sometimes most beautiful, 

 and so clear and distinct that not a stain is visible on the ground 

 color. 



For winter blooming, seed may be sown any time in Augxist 

 in the open borders, and in September in a cool greenhouse, 

 such as one would grow Violets in. I would not advise spring 

 sowing, except in an emergency. Plants which have been 

 raised in the autumn and wintered with the protection of light 

 litter, are much to be preferred for spring blooming. 



Wellesley, Mass. T- D. H, 



Correspondence. 



Spring in Virginia. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — Taken as a whole, and compared with more inland re- 

 gions, this shore-country is not beautiful. It is flat, and its 

 vegetation is less varied and luxuriant. But its greatest lack 

 is of green fields. I never realized before how largely the 

 beauty of the spring is due to the verdure of pasture-lands, 

 meadows or grain-fields. Here no cereals are grown.' The 

 meadows are still dry and yellowish, covered with the remains 

 of last year's grasses. Some of the Corn-fields are being 

 plowed ; others still are unsightly with last year's stalks ; and 

 all of them, as well as the roadways, are of a doleful grayish 

 white clay-color, quite disagreeable to an eye accustomed to 

 the yellower color of New England's soil or the ruddiness of 

 New Jersey's. Even a beautiful stretch of budding and blos- 

 soming woodland beyond such a foreground as is made by 

 one of these fields loses much of its charm ; and to see this 

 country at its best one should undoubtedly see it when mid- 

 summer shall have persuaded tall tasseled crops out of the 

 unpromising-looking soil. 



Nevertheless, every region which is largely covered with 

 woods must have charm ; and here, in addition to wide 

 stretches of woodland, we find some spots of peculiar and en- 

 chanting beauty. Just back of the long wide beaches the 

 ground is often covered with monotonous groves of Pine. 

 But in other places small fresh-water lakes lie not far away 

 from the sea, encircled by forest, and between them and the 

 beach are rolling expanses of pure white sand — of sand which 

 looks exactly like the beach-sand, yet is partly carpeted with 

 broad gray patches of Hudsonia, and here and there bears a 

 group of ancient Hollies, all their branches bent sharply 

 toward the south-west by the prevailing winter winds, and 

 even flourishing masses of shrubs and creepers, overgrown 

 with the Yellow Jessamine blossoms. Diversified by these 



green oases and sentinel Hollies, and flanked by stretches of 

 verdurous woods, these shining white miniature hills and val- 

 leys are extraordinarily picturesque, especially when looking 

 eastward, one gets, above their billowings, a glimpse of the 

 sapphire sea. 



A little farther inland the roads often run through richer 

 woodlands, and it is here that the varying, contrasting colors 

 of spring foliage may best be studied. The prevailing tree is 

 the Loblolly Pine, whose deep dull green makes an excellent 

 foil, as background or canopy, to the brighter tones of the de- 

 ciduous trees. Much could be written about the beauty of the 

 conspicuous flowering plants which are scattered through these 

 woods — the Dogwoods with their layers of snowy white, clouding 

 wide stretches in the open woods as though a little snow-storm 

 had been arrested in its descent ; the Red Buds, which two 

 weeks ago spread clouds of deep pink against the clouds of 

 white ; the wild Crab-apples, which have now replaced the 

 Red Buds with wreaths and streamers of paler pink ; the Vi- 

 burnums, sprinkled with white clusters, and the Yellow Jessa- 

 mines, blossoming lowly on the bosom of the sand down to 

 the very edge of the beaches, but, when they get a better 

 chance, slinging themselves up tn bright yellow garlands to the 

 tops of good-sized trees. But any eye could appreciate the 

 charms of these. It is the less conspicuous charms of the em- 

 bracing leafage which are less commonly noted. 



The brightest green is-supplied to these April woods by the 

 leaves, now nearly full grown, of the Swamp Maples. These 

 are green with a vivid yellow greenness impossible to describe, 

 yet here and there, at the ends of the branches, they shade into 

 pinkish or russet tones, and the new shoots at the foot of the 

 trees are sometimes bright bronze, sometimes bright pink, and 

 sometimes a very bright scarlet. Next in the scale of color 

 come the starry leaves of the Sweet Gum, which, after the 

 Loblolly Pine, is our most common tree. As they first unfold, 

 in little pointed bunches, they make an infinitude of bright 

 spots on the gray branches, specially noticeable in the small 

 plants which compose so large a part of the shrub borders of 

 the road. But when they are a little older, so that they clothe 

 instead of spotting the tree, they are just as bright a green, of 

 a tone somewhat deeper and a quality more shining than the 

 Maple-leaves. 



Next in abundance come the Oaks. But there are several 

 kinds of Oaks, and one kind is not like unto the other in glory, 

 especially at this time of the year. Conspicuously different 

 are the White Oaks and the Willow Oaks. The former bud, 

 as every one knows, into little hanging clusters of grayish 

 pinkish leaves, "squirrels' paws" for size and color and soft- 

 ness and fingery-ness. Seen close at hand on young plants or 

 shoots, they are enchantingly pretty ; and they make the most 

 conspicuous effect of all when, in a more distant stretch of 

 woodland, they are borne by large trees, then showing like a 

 pale gray-green feathery mass against the dark rigidity of the 

 Pines and the keen emerald greens of the Maples and Sweet 

 Gums. The Willow Oaks, on the other hand, bud into leaves 

 of almost needle-like narrowness and sharpness and of a 

 bronzy hue ; and as these develop they become greener, and, 

 until a tree filled with half-grown leaves, wear a lively, twink- 

 ling, light and yet dignified air. On the borders of the ponds, 

 and even along quite dry road-sides, there stands now and then 

 a group of Bald Cypresses, their brilliant light green needles, 

 not as yet more than half an inc'n long, and in vivid contrast 

 with the yellowish brown bark. In certain places there are 

 many Beeches, whose smooth pale gray mottled trunks add 

 another conspicuous note of color, while their half-grown 

 leaves are as vividly green as those of the Sweet Gum, but 

 differ from them in quality as having a less shining surface. 

 Hickories and Walnuts also increase the variety of the spring- 

 time pageant. Here and there a small Willow is pale green 

 as to leaf, bright yellow as to its multitudinous catkins ; Alders 

 are richly emerald green along the road-side ditches ; and 

 Roses, although they give no sign of blossoming yet, spread 

 their delicate leafage dark near the stem, much paler toward 

 the tips of the branches. 



It is in the large-leaved shoots of these trees that varieties of 

 color are most conspicuous. They fringe the road-ways, or 

 cover abandoned fields, mingling liere with the blossoms of 

 wild Azalea. Between the scarlet of the Maple shoots, the 

 soft pinky gray of the White Oak leaves and the vivid stars of 

 the Sweet Gum, many intermediate tones of color may be 

 lioted ; and the lovely harmony is increased again by the pro- 

 fuseness with which two vines clamber about. "These are 

 Grape-vines and Cat-briers. Neither as yet bears leaves more 

 than an inch in diameter ; but the Grape-leaves are so exquisitely 

 shaped and show such marvelous shades of green and gray 

 and pink, and are so deliciously downy to the eye and touch, 



