352 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 2S7. 



quick and practical solution of the problem. The fact that 

 this scheme might be put into almost immediate operation 

 is a strong argument in its favor. Speedy action is essen- 

 tial, for every year witnesses serious encroachment upon 

 the forests and increases the demoralization of the people 

 of the western states and territories, in so far as concerns 

 their appreciation of the rights of the Government to pro- 

 tect its forest-property. 



A better plan, perhaps, can be suggested to accomplish 

 the purpose. It is a subject which requires the most care- 

 ful consideration and the fullest possible discussion ; and 

 the Government, before it can take any action, will require, 

 and should seek, the advice of the wisest counselors it is 

 able to command. 



From an article upon the American Ginseng, Aralia 

 quinquefolia, published in the April and May issue of the 

 Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous hiformation, it appears that 

 the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario has 

 enacted that "except for the purpose of clearing or bring- 

 ing land into cultivation, no person shall, between the first 

 day of January and the first day of September in any year, 

 cut, root up, gather or destroy the plant known by the 

 name of Ginseng, whenever such plant may be found 

 growing in a wild or uncultivated state." The penalty for 

 disobeying this act is not less than five dollars, or more 

 than twenty dollars, with the costs of prosecution, one- 

 half the penalty being paid to the prosecutor. Such a law 

 might wisely be enacted and enforced in all the states of 

 the Union where the Ginseng-plant abounds, and where 

 its utter extermination to supply the demands of the large 

 Chinese trade is imminent. 



The Ginseng, which was first made known to Europeans 

 through plants which Koempfer had found cultivated by 

 the Japanese, who for centuries have exported the roots to 

 China, was first discovered in the New World in Canada, 

 near Montreal, in 17 16, by the Jesuit missionary Lafitau, 

 who two years later published a description of it in Paris. 

 The French soon engaged in collecting and exporting the 

 roots to China, this trade giving a considerable impulse to 

 the commerce of Montreal for a number of years. "At 

 one time," we learn from Bulletin Ixv. of the Experiment 

 Station of the Ontario Agricultural College that "great 

 numbers of Indians were engaged in gathering it about 

 Montreal and Quebec, and large quantities of it were sent 

 to China. In 1832 shipments of Ginseng from the United 

 States amounted to 407,067 pounds, valued at $99,303. In 

 one county in Wisconsin the trade is reported to have 

 reached, in 1848, $40,000. Immense quantities have been 

 exported from Minnesota. At present the chief sources of 

 the plant in the United States are Ohio, West Virginia and 

 Minnesota. About the close of the eighteenth century it 

 was discovered also in Massachusetts, and its exportation 

 produced large returns." 



It is stated in the same bulletin that in 1890 Ginseng rep- 

 resenting a value of $100,000 was sent from Canada, the 

 price reaUzed for dried roots being from $3.00 to $3. 50 a 

 pound. Last year Mr. Stanton discussed in our columns 

 (vol. v., p. 223) the possibility of cultivating Ginseng, which 

 seems destined to become an important and profitable farm 

 crop in some parts of the country, as it has been for cen- 

 turies in Japan, and in Corea, where the greatest attention 

 is paid to producing the roots, for which the Chinese de- 

 mand seems inexhaustible. 



Economy in Decoration. 



"yHE illustration on page 355 of a group of Daisies and 

 -*- Grasses calls attention to the fact that the ornaments of 

 our drawing-rooms need not be expensive to be charming, 

 and that a handful of blossoms gathered by the way-side, if 

 arranged with skill and taste, may be as artistic as a vase' of 

 priceless orchids. 



It is too generally the custom to esteem a flower for its 

 money value or for its rarity, without reference to its own 

 merit of hue or form or graceful habit of growth. Although 



cultivation achieves wonderful results, we have but to look 

 about us to realize that Nature, unassisted, constantly achieves 

 masterpieces of delicacy and beauty, scattering her fine designs 

 abroad with so reckless a prodigality that we cease to estimate 

 them at their proper value until the hand of the artist empha- 

 sizes their worth and reveals it to our duller vision. This ar- 

 tistic recognition has made of the Lotus and the Acanthus, 

 both wild growths, the basis of two splendid architectures. It 

 has woven the volutes of the Vine into a third, and in the 

 Gothic age has made every leaf and blossom bear tribute to 

 the sculptor, and has stiffened the forest aisles into stone. To- 

 day there lie about us, on every hand, beauties which need 

 but the seeing eye to incorporate them in novel and perma- 

 nent forms. 



We live in an age of echoes and few dare to leave the well- 

 known airs to seek new harmonies. When such departures 

 occur, the results are often grotesque rather than beautiful, 

 and we relapse again into the restraint of precedent, so that 

 our architecture, our sculpture, our painting as well as our floral 

 decorations are at best but copies of the vigorous conceptions of 

 a simpler age, which at least possessed the gift of summariz- 

 ing. For, after all, the essence of the highest art, as of the 

 highest living, is wise economy, which, artistically interpreted, 

 means the expression of high conception by simple means. 

 Expensive detail may but weaken the massiveness of a result, 

 as a landscape-garden may be spoiled by its shrubs and flow- 

 ers, a fine prospect belittled by a confused foreground, a pic- 

 ture ruined by the spottiness of overwork. 



Few people know that large rooms may often be profitably 

 ornamented with great forest boughs. The exquisite green of 

 the leaves harmonizes agreeably with any background, while 

 their delicately cut forms throw charming shadows on wall or 

 screen. About such ornamentation there is a refinement and 

 restraint that appeal to the artistic eye, for the leaf is the broad 

 expression of the flower, and in the serrated curve of the foli- 

 age of the Beech, in the sharp indentations of that of the Oak and 

 Maple, in the attenuated grace of theW^illow branch are found the 

 charm of the petal without its color, but with its varying outline, 

 its waving edge, its clustered heart. Nor, indeed, can we say that 

 the leaf lacks variety of hue, since there is from the yellow of 

 Chestnut and English Walnut and the deep blue of Spruce, a 

 whole gamut of color to the dark autumnal red of Oak and 

 Maple ; a gamut on a lower key than that of flowers, but as dis- 

 tinct and beautiful, and even more restful. 



The decorative value of the Ox-eye Daisy, interspersed with 

 the herbage which naturally surrounds it, is generally acknowl- 

 edged and appreciated. The golden heart circled by inner 

 rays gives a peculiar brilliancy to a group of these flowers, 

 while the formal symmetry of their outline is agreeably con- 

 trasted with the sweeping curves of Grass leaves and the gray- 

 green fluffiness of its blossoms. Such an ornament is within 

 reach of every one, and is as appropriate to a drawing-room 

 as to an attic-chamber. It may adorn a Japanese vase, or con- 

 ceal the ugliness of a broken pitcher, and be in itself always 

 refined and elegant. 



There are other ornaments of the fields and highways that 

 form charming decorations. The blue of the Succory, with its 

 scraggy stems concealed by the foliagfe of a neighbor- 

 ing bush, has a beautiful note of color. The Rudbeckia, with 

 its golden rays and rich dark red heart, is always effective, and 

 the Fire Lily, on its slender stem, adapts itself to all sorts of 

 artistic uses. Most delightful compositions for winter use can 

 be made of the blossoms of the Golden-rod interspersed with 

 brown frost-touched leaves and Thistle-balls, while the little 

 group of leaves which springs from the root of the shorn Mul- 

 lein, if gathered late, turns white, and produces the effect of a 

 velvet camellia. 



The value of the grays and browns of a field in late autumn 

 to furnish material for vases is surprising. The Golden-rod 

 will preserve its color all winter if gathered before the frost 

 touches it, and a few red berrries of the Black Alder will still 

 further enliven the bouquet. The frost is an exquisite painter, 

 and furnishes a scale of grays to delight the heart of the most 

 sensitive artist. In the spring there are the nodding scarlet 

 Columbine, the shrinking Wind-flower trembling on its stem, 

 the burst of blossom on the tree-tips, the red of Maple-bloom, 

 the golden green of Alder and Willow tassels, the rich yellow 

 of the Chestnut at a later season. Nature plants a parterre for 

 man everywhere, so that his home need never lack an orna- 

 ment if he but have eyes to see and hand to cull the ever- 

 ready decoration. Even in snow-clad winter, a Fern-like 

 branch of Hemlock against a white wall is full of delicate 

 beauty, while a sprig of Holly, or a glossy group of Laurel- 

 leaves, will bring with it a memory of the green wood in whose 

 shelter it grew. 



