August 9, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



331 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducled by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1893. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles : — The Design of Central Park 331 



The Height of Ignominy 332 



Botanical Notes from Texas. — X E. N. Plank. 332 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter JV. Watson. 333 



New or Little-known Plants: — Iris Caroliniana. (With figure.) 334 



A New Hybrid Rose. (With figure.) 334 



Cultural Department: — The Best of the New Strawberries L. R, Taft, 334 



Two Unappreciated Fruits Fred. W. Card. 336 



Orchid Notes W. 336 



Garden Notes T. D. H. zzi 



Grasses J. N. Gerard. 338 



Correspondence : — The Russian and other Apricots Professor L. H. Bailey. 338 



A Twin Tree Mrs. Schuyler V.an Rensselaer. 339 



Recent Publications 339 



Notes 340 



Illustrations: — Iris Caroliniana, Fig. 51 335 



A Hybrid of Rosa Wichuraiana, Fig. 52 337 



The Design of Central Park. 



IN the course of a very good, though necessarily brief, 

 description of the Central Park in the recently published 

 Baedeker's Handbook of the United States it is stated that 

 this park differs from most English parks in substituting a 

 multiplicity of small picturesque scenes for broad expanses 

 of turf and simple groves of great trees. This is practically 

 true, but it ought not to be forgotten that the park has the 

 same pastoral charm of simple natural scenery which is 

 found in landscapes where the features are broader. When 

 the site was selected not the slightest attention was given 

 to its landscape possibilities, and the fact seemed only to 

 be considered that it was in the centre of the island and 

 that the ground was so broken and intractable that it would 

 cost as much to construct streets throughout it on the 

 estabUshed rectangular system as it would to transform it 

 into a pleasure-ground. South of the reservoir the surface 

 was so rugged and heterogeneous, traversed as it was 

 diagonally by ridges of outcropping gneiss, with marshy 

 hollows between them, that no opportunity for making any 

 spacious meadow-like expanse wa3 offered. The upper 

 half of the park could be treated in a somewhat broader 

 way, as its natural features were larger, its slopes had a 

 grander sweep and its horizon lines were nobler. 



The only landscape effects which could be produced 

 under these restrictions were such as could be controlled 

 between the boundaries of a long, narrow rocky terri- 

 tory with no prominent points commanding extensive 

 views. No doubt, if the same intelligent study could have 

 been applied to the selection of a site which was given 

 later to devising contrivances to remedy its defects, the 

 park could have been made still more satisfying. Never- 

 theless, it was the primary effort of the designers to make 

 as large open spaces as were practicable. Two considera- 

 ble stretches of greensward were secured in the lower part 

 at great expense by blasting out protruding rock and filling 

 the space with earth and mold. As it is, the green con- 

 tains but sixteen acres, and the ball-ground but ten acres, 



although they both seem much larger. The rolling surface 

 of the green and its obscure borders, where the limits of 

 the grass are lost in the shady recesses among the trees, 

 through which glimpses of grassy slopes are seen at inter- 

 vals beyond, all suggest indefinite distances to the imagina- 

 tion. All the roads, too, are arranged so as to bring these 

 spaces into view several times from different points with 

 varying effect. Of course, there is a greater sense of en- 

 largement and freedom experienced in the north meadows, 

 but even here only nineteen acres of open space could pos- 

 sibly be secured. 



These small picturesque scenes, therefore, were not used 

 because the designers considered them preferable to larger 

 expanses and simple groves, but because this was the only 

 possible method of treating the ground. They were so 

 used, however, as to produce the same effect upon the 

 imagination as broad pastoral scenes. The small spaces 

 are distributed through the park in such a way that they 

 carry forward and emphasize the softness and simplicity 

 of the meadow scenery. Even in the Ramble, which is 

 characterized by intricacy and picturesqueness, and where 

 there are places which have all the mysterious charm of a 

 natural wildwood, there are many little grassy openings 

 bordered with trees which repeat the meadows in a small 

 way and carry the idea of pastoral quiet throughout the 

 work. Indeed, the great value of Central Park is that it is 

 a work wuth unity of design and that it is consistent through- 

 out, and it still remains the best, as it was the first, exam- 

 ple of a public pleasure-ground designed to have the rest- 

 ful charm of simple natural scenery and yet completely 

 enclosed by a compactly built city. 



Of course, in every instance the most is made of green- 

 sward, and any encroachment upon it by enlarging the 

 pathways or roadways, that is, by increasing the proportion 

 of gravel to grass, is in the line of defacement and ruin. In 

 order to reduce the walks to the narrowest possible limit, 

 so that these wide stretches of gravel should not weaken 

 and divide the essential features of the scener)'', the roads 

 have been adjusted so as to withhold from people on foot 

 any inducement to cross the ground set apart for carriages. 

 The paths and drives are made to cross at different levels, 

 so that a visitor on foot can reach any point in the park 

 without stepping on a carriage-road. Indeed, the system 

 of arched passage-ways is a distinguishing feature of the 

 design of Central Park. These archways practically en- 

 large the verdurous elements of the park, because without 

 them the roads and paths would need to be much wider ; 

 and, as it is, the total area of graveled ways for riding, driv- 

 ing and walking amounts to more than io6 acres. 



These considerations alone ought to condemn the project 

 which has lately been set on foot for making a new car- 

 riage-entrance in the southern side of the park at the head 

 of Seventh Avenue. The people who drive to the park in 

 carriages have ample facilities for entering at the begin- 

 ning of both the east and the west drives. The new road 

 proposed would cut through a hill at the outset, where 

 an excavation of at least ten feet deep would be required, and 

 before it united with the cross-drives many well-grown 

 trees and much beautiful shrubbery would be sacrificed, and 

 it would entirely change the character of the lower portion 

 of the park. As it is, visitors can step at once from the city 

 into sylvan scenery and walk through vales which now are 

 utterly secluded. The path-way which extends entirely 

 across the southern end of the park would be interrupted 

 by a constant stream of carriages, so that the principal 

 walk in that portion of the park would be ruined for 

 pedestrians. Another essential feature of the park is the 

 broad tree-shaded promenade on the north side of Fifty- 

 ninth Street, which extends in an unbroken stretch from 

 Eighth Avenue to Fifth Avenue, just outside of the park 

 boundary. This broad walk would entirely lose its char- 

 acter and value if a carriage-road were laid across it. 



In the book mentioned at the beginning of this article it is 

 stated that the transformation of a tract of swamp and rock 

 into one of the most beautiful parks in the world is a strik- 



