July 12, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



291 



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, JULY 12, 1893. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — Art Societies and City Parks 291 



The Photograph Monopoly at the Columbian Exposition 292 



Notes on the Forest Flora of Japan.— XVII. (With figure.) C. S. S. 292 



A Glorified Park Mrs. J. H. Robbins. 293 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 29^ 



Cultural Department: — Hardy Bulbous Plants F. H. Horsford. ■2<j(i 



Bulbous Plants for Conservatories W. H. Tapbn. 296 



The Water-garden J. N. Gerard. 296 



A Test of Fungicides upon Potatoes. (With illustrations.) 



Professor L. R. Jones. 297 



The Vegetable Garden T. D. H. 2g?, 



Correspondence : — Rockport, Texas J. Reverchon. 298 



The Flowering of tlie Virgilia, 



C. B. IValdron, Wm. F. Basseti, y. R. Tru7npy, Ellwanger &= Barry. 299 



The Columbian Exposition : — Roses Professor L. H. Bailey. 299 



Notes Tpa 



Illustrations :— Lindera obtusiloba. Fig. 42 295 



Potato-field in Vermont. The plot on the left treated with Bordeaux mix- 

 ture, the plot on the right untreated, Fig. 43. Yield of marketable 

 potatoes trom plot treated with Bordeaux mixture. Fig. 44. Yield 

 from untreated plot of the same size, Fig. 45 297 



Art Societies and City Parks. 



SOME years ago, after it had been proposed to seize a 

 portion of Central Park as a site for the exhibition build- 

 ings of a World's Fair, it was suggested that some organ- 

 ized protection for parks be made in the various cities 

 of the country. The pressure of growing cities is con- 

 stantly felt upon every open space within their limits, at- 

 tacks upon their integrity will be repeated year after year, 

 and, unless resistance is constant and determined, many 

 of the parks will share the fate which seems to threaten our 

 City Hall Park, and will gradually disappear, or will be per- 

 verted to purposes foreign to the plans of their originators 

 anddestructiveof their highest usefulness. Something like an 

 impromptu organization of the character suggested was 

 made when Central Park was threatened by the Speedway, 

 and since that time the same organization made itself useful 

 when the Seventh Regiment was invited to parade on the 

 green before the Infanta of Spain. We still hope to see 

 such an association with a permanent secretary and a staff 

 prepared to keep strict watch upon our Park Boards, to give 

 timely warning of coming danger and to give an opportu- 

 nity for public opinion to find effective expression. 



But besides this danger of confiscation, our parks fail of 

 their highest usefulness by crude designs, bad planting 

 and inartistic decoration. When public grounds are dis- 

 figured by garish flower-beds any criticism of the planting 

 is answered by the rejoinder that this is what the people 

 like. The fact is that people enjoy everything green and 

 fresh, flowery and bright. What they do not know is that 

 there are other things more enjoyable than those set before 

 them. Just here is the point upon which it is the duty of 

 some one to instruct them, and the only effective way to 

 teach this lesson is to furnish the public with examples of 

 what is best for their study and enjoyment. Of course, the 

 aspect which our parks wear will depend directly on the 

 good sense and good taste of the Park Commissioners and 

 the executives whom they appoint. If these are trained 

 as they should be they would not content themselves with 

 gratifying the taste of the public of to-day, but they would 



feel it their duty to create a more intelligent public to-mor- 

 row, a public with more keen and critical taste, and there- 

 fore more fertile powers of enjoyment. If parks were 

 made thoroughly artistic in every detail the people would 

 quickly learn to appreciate them and to look back with sur- 

 prise upon the time when they enjoyed a barbarous pro- 

 fusion of ugly forms and heterogeneous colors. Unfortu- 

 nately, neither park commissioners nor superintendents 

 can always be trusted to work upon so high a plane, and 

 here is the point where much might be done by some body 

 of citizens A'ersed in artistic matters who could stand be- 

 tween these officials and the general public to help them 

 when they are in the right, and to check them when they 

 are in error. 



All persons who take an intelligent interest in public 

 parks will, therefore, find something of promise in the re- 

 cent establishment in this city of two artistic societies, the 

 Municipal Art Association and the Sculpture Society. Each 

 of them consists of artists and of laymen interested in art ; 

 each is officered chiefly by artists of established repute, 

 and each has been founded with the avowed purpose of 

 serving the community and not any special class. The 

 desire to advance the arts for their own sake was, of 

 course, prominent in the minds of the organizers of these 

 societies, but they recognize the truth that this can only be 

 accomplished by an advance in the critical and apprecia- 

 tive powers of the people. They know, too, that progress 

 in art and in the capacity to enjoy it will both depend 

 largely upon the successful result of efforts to enhance the 

 beauty of our public possessions. It is the practical recog- 

 nition of these fundamental truths which makes the estab- 

 lishment of these societies a sign of hope. There certainly 

 is encouragement in the fact that the founders of these so- 

 cieties declare, not in words only, but by their very act of 

 organizing, that art is not for the isolated amateur, but for 

 the whole people ; that the people must understand and 

 cherish it if it is to prosper ; that it is a thing of municipal 

 value, of national significance, of general and all-embracing 

 interest. 



The programme of the Municipal Art Association men- 

 tions public parks among the things which it will strive to 

 benefit, and certainly these pleasure-grounds deserve such 

 service, because they are of more interest and importance 

 to the great bulk of the people in a city like ours than even 

 the museums or municipal buildings. For one person who 

 sees the inside of the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the 

 pictures and statues which may be placed in our new City 

 Hall, for one even who will definitely notice the outward 

 aspect of this or any other good building, there are 

 hundreds who will look with delight upon the beauties of 

 Central Park. Moreover, people, when in a park, especially 

 if they are laboring people, are in just the mood to receive 

 refreshing and inspiring ideas and to develop their love of 

 beauty. In the streets and in the public buildings their 

 minds are filled with business. They may frequent mu- 

 seums and galleries out of mere curiosity. In a park they 

 are neither busy nor curious, but in a receptive mood and 

 eager in their enjoyment to drink in the quiet beauty of the 

 scene before them. ♦ 



If, therefore, the Municipal Art Association will consci- 

 entiously study the words and deeds of the Park Commis- 

 sioners and officers, taking note of mistakes when made 

 and explaining them, encouraging every good intention, 

 supporting them against unintelligent criticism and mis- 

 taken public demands, and joining heartily with the people 

 whenever their demands seem warranted by good sense 

 and artistic fitness, its work is sure to be effective. Unfor- 

 tunately, what artistic fitness means is as yet less generally 

 understood with regard to landscape-art than any other 

 branch of art. This fact not only renders the services of 

 the new association needful, but it implies that the mem- 

 bers should first of all make sure that they understand it 

 themselves. We have known painters, sculptors and archi- 

 tects, professional art critics and passionate lovers of 

 nature to be as ignorant with regard to the aims and pro- 



