482 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 300. 



The condition of the country verities the statement. From 

 El Djem to L'Oued Rann, in a distance of not more than 

 fifty miles, may be seen on every side the indications of 

 the existence of an ancient forest of Olive-trees. Trees 

 sometimes gathered in little groups, sometimes scattered 

 one by one, have survived neglect and systematic destruc- 

 tion. Deprived of all care since the Arab invasion, dis- 

 figured by the growth of parasites, mutilated by the teeth 

 of animals, they still live, and in rainy seasons produce 

 fruit. After eight centuries of neglect, the crop in 1890, a 

 year of heavy rainfall, M^as sold for one hundred and seventy 

 thousand francs. These trees are not wild Olive-trees, 

 Zeboudj, as the Arabs say, but Zeitoun — that is, Olive- 

 trees of cultivated varieties ; they belong to plantations 

 which evidently once formed a continuous forest in this re- 

 gion. The ruins of the oil-mills show that the Roman 

 forest must have continued almost indefinitely. The stone 

 bowls, where the pulp of the olives was removed, the stone 

 uprights between which the bar of the press v^'as inserted, 

 and the stone tables upon which the olives were pressed, 

 all remain to testify the importance of the oil industry of 

 this region ; and, finding these presses so near together. 

 Monsieur Bourde was impressed with the fact that the cul- 

 tivation of the Olive was the principal industry of the re- 

 gion of whose appearance in the time of the Romans it is 

 easy to form an idea by comparing it with the orchard- 

 covered SaViCl of Soussa as it looks to-day. 



The error which has, no doubt, given rise to the myth 

 that Tunis was formerly a well-wooded country, is due to 

 the fact that there has long existed a misunderstanding as 

 to the word forest, as used by Arab historians. When the 

 first Musselmen arrived in northern Africa they found a 

 country so green that they called it El Khadra, "The 

 Green." All the historians of the invasion — Ibn Assam, 

 Ibn Chabat, En Noueri and El Kairouassi — declare that it 

 was possible to travel from Tripoli to Tangiers under the 

 shade of trees through an unbroken line of villages. The 

 country was covered with a forest at that time, but it was 

 not a forest of uncultivated trees. Sallust had not seen 

 these forests ; they had been planted two centuries after his 

 time by the hand of man ; they were orchards of fruit-trees. 

 Planted by man, they were destroyed by man also. The 

 Arab shepherds, who had taken possession of Tunis, de- 

 stroyed the orchards to procure the pasturage which they 

 needed for their flocks. This destruction, begun in the 

 seventh century, was finished in the thirteenth. The docu- 

 ments brought together by Monsieur Bourde allow us to 

 follow its progress from century to century. The substitu- 

 tion of a nomad and pastoral population for a stationary 

 and fruit-growing population was only effected at the cost 

 of immense disasters. The conclusion reached by the 

 author of the report is that to restore the ancient pros- 

 perity to central Tunis the administration of the protecto- 

 rate need only do what succeeded so well with the 

 Romans — plant Olive-trees. Whether this operation can 

 be made personally profitable to the settlers who under- 

 take it, will depend, of course, upon the amount of skill 

 and intelligence they are able to devote to it. The de- 

 mands for the product of the Olive-tree are fast increasing, 

 and its cultivation under the most favorable conditions 

 must always remain profitable. 



Monsieur Bourde's report, which has been printed in 

 pamphlet form by order of the commanding officer of the 

 French protectorate in Tunis, for free distribution among 

 all persons interested in the subject, contains also esti- 

 mates of the profits of Olive-tree plantations and direc- 

 tions for making them. These, however, will be of little 

 practical value in America, where all conditions of labor 

 are entirely different from those which prevail in the 

 French colonies in Africa, and it is in its general conclu- 

 sion and historical studies that this remarkable paper com- 

 mends itself to American readers, who will find here, per- 

 haps, the true solution of the problem of the most profit- 

 able employment of some thousands of square miles of 

 their country. 



Fences. — I. 



THE word fence, in its broad significance as a term for 

 protecting enclosures in general, whether made of 

 brick or stone, of wood or metal, or closely set plants, em- 

 braces a great variety of forms. In most European coun- 

 tries one or two kinds of fences are almost exclusively 

 used : in England, for instance, we perpetually see hedges 

 and red brick walls, in Italy stuccoed and tile-capped walls 

 of brick or rubble, and in the suburbs of German towns 

 tall iron railings borne on stone plinths and supported by 

 stone posts. But, with the exception of the tile-capped 

 stuccoed wall, almost every foreign form offence has been 

 imitated here, while many new types have originated in 

 consequence of the cheapness of wood and the profusion 

 of stone in certain sections. 



But the variety of expedient at the command of the 

 American builders has not yet resulted in diversity of 

 beauty. Indeed, less attention is given to the appearance 

 of any other surroundings of country homes. Even when 

 protecting a luxurious surburban villa or a stately country 

 house, an American fence seldom excites admiration ; 

 usually its owner is content if it does not actually offend 

 the eye ; and in many cases it does offend every cultivated 

 eye. 



The first sin in the average American fence is that of 

 intrinsic ugliness. Nothing could be worse, for instance, 

 than most of the iron fences in our suburban districts and 

 villa colonies. This is not because our artisans cannot 

 produce good work in metal. Their skill has so greatly 

 improved during recent years that they can now rival the 

 best products of the old French and German forgers. But 

 only the very rich can command their highest skill, and 

 only when special designs are prepared by an architect. 

 Some of the designs kept in stock by metal-working firms 

 show improvement; yet a careful search through many 

 illustrated catalogues shows only a few excellent fence- 

 patterns amid many scores — varying from very simple to 

 very elaborate — which are distinctly bad. Better fence- 

 patterns would be at the client's service if he were more 

 apt to know the difference between good and poor. But 

 too often he wants elaborateness without being willing to 

 pay for it, and thus accepts an imitation of a wrought-iron 

 fence coarsely executed in cast-iron. He should realize 

 that wrought-iron work, unless very simple, must be expen- 

 sive, and that its effect cannot rightly be reproduced in cast- 

 iron. On the other hand, if rightly designed, a severely 

 plain wrought-iron fence, or even a simple one of cast-iron, 

 need not be offensive, and the dignity and effectiveness of 

 the plainest line of iron-pickets may be greatly increased if 

 it is supported by well-built plinths of brick or stone. But 

 one who does not want to buy showiness at an unduly 

 small price is prone to fall into the opposite extreme and 

 think that the cheapest possible fence will be good enough. 

 The introduction of such economical expedients for fencing 

 as gas-pipe and corrugated galvanized wire has greatly 

 injured the beauty of countless suburban gardens and coun- 

 try places whose other features reveal no similar wish to 

 make shift with the cheapest thing that the market affords. 



In New England, loose stones and surface ledges or 

 large boulders, which can be cheaply quarried, are so plen- 

 tiful that stone-walls are more common than fences of any 

 other kind, the mere need that the soil shall be freed from 

 these encumbrances often dictating that they shall be built 

 where no fence at all is really required. The forms they 

 assume, according to the form of the boulders and the care 

 of the builders ; but collectively they give a landscape 

 great picturesqueness and a certain rustic dignity, as we 

 realize if we compare any typical New England scene with 

 a stretch of Virginian country, bisected by "snake" fences 

 of wood. And each type has a beauty of its own appro- 

 priate to special situations. Even the roughest wall of 

 small round stones gives all needful protection to pastures 

 and outlying fields, while it blends better than would a 

 more architectural wall with the occasional Pine-tree or 



