4i8 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 293. 



Horse-chestnut next to this one, nearly devoid of leaves, bears 

 two spikes of bloom. 



A friend reports that he saw in the Catskills this morning 

 three Apple-trees together covered with blossoms. 

 New York. 7- ^- Learjied. 



[The dry weather of the present summer has, without 

 doubt, hastened the ripening of the wood in many trees, and 

 they have prepared for winter earlier than usual. The re- 

 cent rains have encouraged the starting of a new growth, 

 and this accounts for the fact that the trees are behaving 

 as if it were spring. It is not unusual for Apple-trees to 

 blossom in the fall, but we have rarely seen the Horse- 

 chestnuts behaving as they are doing this year. One of 

 these trees in the City Hall Park has been bearing flowers 

 quite abundantly within a fortnight, and we hear similar 

 reports from various parts of the country. — Ed.] 



Hemlock in Minnesota. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — My return to this region recalls the reference made by 

 Mr. E. J. Hill in your issue of November 12th, 1890, to School- 

 craft's report of Hemlock along the portage from Fonddu Lac 

 to the St. Louis River above Knife Falls, and also between the 

 St. Louis and the head-waters of Kettle River. My work has 

 taken me over all this ground, and with the verification of tliat 

 report in mind, yet I have failed to find any Hemlock in the 

 region except that on Sec. 10, Trip. 48, Range 16. 



Much of the region has been burned over, and some of it is 

 covered by a growth of Poplar, Populus tremuloides, from 

 thirty to sixty years old ; but here and there much of the older 

 growth remains. If Mr. Schoolcraft mentioned the trees cor- 

 rectly in the order of their abundance he saw a very different 

 forest from that existing now, although many of the present 

 trees are a hundred years old. It is to be regretted that he did 

 not have more favorable weather and that the arrangements 

 of the party were not more to his liking, that he might have 

 had more patience with his notes ; also, that he was unable, 

 or did not record his courses and distances by compass and 

 pacing, that he might be followed exactly. It is also a matter 

 of regret that he made the error of reporting Kettle River as 

 flowing into the Mississippi above the falls of St. Anthony, and 

 later reported three lakelets on the Mississippi above Itasca, 

 while one of them is isolated from the stream ; for these mis- 

 takes make it seem probable that he might make mistakes in 

 other reports also. 



We have, however, a report of Hemlock by Archibald John- 

 son, C. E., August 27th, 1873 (see field-notes in office of Sur- 

 veyor-General), "trees six to fourteen inches in diameter on 

 theline between Sections 20 and 21, Trip. 51, Range 19," that can 

 be verified to-day. These trees are the farthest north and west 

 of any I have seen of this species. They do not, how- 

 ever, differ remarkably from the common Hemlock of Wis- 

 consin. Specimens from this locality, collected by Mr. W. B. 

 Kirkwood in 1890, are preserved in the herbarium of the Ar- 

 nold Arboretum, and also in that of the Forestry Division of 

 the United States Department of Agriculture. 



It should be said, perhaps, that along the old portage and 

 westward, where Mr. Schoolcraft traveled, the lower branches 

 of Picea alba, growing densely in damp ground, resembles 

 Hemlock somewhat, and I have often approached within thirty 

 feet of a shaded Fir, Abies balsamea, before discovering that it 

 was not a Hemlock. 



It can hardly be possible that Mr. Schoolcraft, by Hemlock, 

 meant Ground Hemlock (Taxus), yet he does not mention this 

 abundant shrub in his report. 



Carllon, Minn. H. B. Ayres. 



Recent Publications. 



Landscape-gardening in Japan. By Joseph Conder. Kelly 

 & Walsh, Yokohama, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore. 

 1893. 



Mr. Conder is an English architect who has made his home 

 in Japan, and who has already written a number of books and 

 papers on various phases of Japanese art, his best-known 

 book probably being The Flowers of Japan and the Art of 

 Floral Arrangement. The present work endeavors to give 

 the western world some idea of Japanese methods of garden- 

 design and decoration, and a short account of the history and 

 development of landscape-gardening in the Mikado's empire. 



Landscape-gardening, as Americans and Europeans under- 

 stand that term, hardly exists in Japan ; at least, the sort of 



landscape-gardening which Mr. Conder tries to explain, and 

 which he seeks to illustrate by means of a number of rude 

 drawings of the Japanese school, is not landscape-gardening 

 in any proper sense of the word, but only children's play at 

 gardening, which bears as much resemblance to the real 

 thing — the reproduction of real naturalistic effects in places 

 and positions where they may be available for the use and 

 enjoyment of the human race — as a Kakimono bears to a pic- 

 ture of one of the great masters of Italy or Holland. The 

 modern Japanese garden, or rather garden-enclosure, for 

 there are no modern Japanese gardens or parks in the broad 

 and true meaning of the term, is a confusion of ceremonial 

 and symbolic motives which, whatever they may mean to the 

 Japanese, are unintelligible to western intelligence, which 

 finds in their pettiness of detail and restlessness of motive 

 nothing dignified or satisfying to the mind seeking the repose 

 of a harmonious creation. 



Either the Japanese as a people are singularly inappreciative 

 of the beauties of nature and curiously devoid of the power 

 of enjoying scenery, or Mr. Conder's statement, that "Japanese 

 landscape-gardens may be described as a representation of 

 the natural scenery of the country as it appears to and im- 

 presses the Japanese themselves in a manner consistent with 

 the limitafion of this art," must be accepted with caution. To 

 the lover of nature few countries in the world present fairer 

 scenes of mountain and valley, rushing torrent and placid 

 wood-embowered lake; in no other country is the forest more 

 harmonious in composition, more varied or more beautiful 

 in its detail. In every direction pictures of exquisite beauty 

 meet the eye of the traveler; and certainly few people surpass 

 the Japanese in their apparent love and appreciation of natural 

 scenery. They possess the power of appreciation just as a 

 child loves the beauty and fragrance of a flower or delights in 

 the dash of a waterfall, while they are as helpless as children 

 to reproduce what they see or admire ; and their efforts at 

 gardening are like those of children who heap up piles of sand 

 in imitation of mountains, slick branches of trees in the ground 

 to imitate forests, and set about little stones because stones 

 seem to be a necessary part of the play. 



In other days there have been landscape-gardeners in Japan ; 

 but these were in the days when Japan was under the direct 

 influence of China, and reflected her art. The so-called Arsenal 

 Garden, of Tokyo, which has been described in this journal, is 

 certainly one of the greatest artistic creations of its kind, 

 worthy of any master and of any country or age. Perhaps 

 there is nowhere now so perfect an example of oriental land- 

 scape-gardening, for the wars which have swept over China 

 in the last fifty years have destroyed many of her best monu- 

 ments and most precious works of art. We naturally expected 

 to find in a work of this character, supposed to be exhaustive, 

 a plan and some detailed account of this marvelous creation ; 

 it is simply mentioned as being among the best-preserved of 

 the Daimio gardens of the capital. Nor do we find any men- 

 tion of the grounds which surround the temples and tombs at 

 Nikko, an omission from a book on Japanese landscape-garden- 

 ingwhichisdifficulttoexplain. Whenit was decided, now nearly 

 three centuries ago, to bury the remains of the greatest of the 

 Shoguns on the mountain-side above the little hamlet of 

 Nikko, a great arfist, whatever his name may have been, 

 selected the sites for the commemorative buildings, to receive 

 which he leveled the side of the mountain, planned the 

 approaches, built massive Cyclopean retaining-walls and 

 broad terraces, and planted that forest of sombre Conifers 

 which has made the burial-place of leyasu and of lemitsu one 

 of the most solemn and impressive spots in the world. No 

 one, whatever his feelings about Japanese architecture or 

 Japanese art may be, can visit the shrines of Nikko without 

 being impressed by the fact that he is in the presence of the 

 work of one of the greatest masters of art who have ever lived, 

 and to whom Japan owes its greatest monument. 



Mr. Conder labors to explain the mysteries and meanings of 

 the various stones with which the Japanese are so fond of 

 disfiguring their gardens. We confess that a careful perusal 

 of the chapter on this subject has not had the result of making 

 us understand or appreciate their value or importance, and 

 that this branch of Japanese gardening art is still as much of 

 an enigma to us as it was before. 



Mr. Conder very properly commends the Japanese for their 

 sobriety in the use of plants in the decoration of their gardens. 

 They cultivate, as compared with western nations, only the 

 plants of a few varieties. "It is contrary to their principles," 

 Mr. Conder tells us, "to admit into compositions exotic pro- 

 ductions with the conditions and surroundings of which they 

 are imperfectly acquainted." But this certainly is only partly 

 true. The Japanese cultivates in his garden the Pines of the 

 country, the Retinospora, the Iris, the Cherry, the Maple and 



