December 6, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



501 



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. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1893. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — Landscape-gardening at the Columbian Fair 501 



Fences. — II 502 



Notes on some of the Texas Trees y. Reverchon. 503 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter IV, Watson. 503 



Plant Notes: — Pueiaria Thunbergiana. (With figure.) 504 



Cultural Department : — Greenhouse Work E. O. Orfet. 506 



Flowers for Cutting in Winter VV. H. Taplm. 506 



Cyi^ripedium insigne E. O. Orpet. 506 



Lnte Ornamental Fruits J. G. Jack. 507 



Primula Forbesii, Ostrowskia magnifica J. N. Gerard. 508 



Correspondence : — The Rust of Mountain Ash B. J. 508 



The Chrysanthemum Shows T. D. H. 508 



Farms and Forests on the Carolina Foot-hills . . . .Professor IV. F. Massey. 509 



Recent Publications 509 



Notes 510 



Illustration : — Pueraria Thunbergiana, in Germantown, Pennsylvania, Fig. 74, . 506 



Landscape-gardening at the Columbian Fair. 



IN a late number of The Engineering Magazine the editor 

 of the department devoted to architecture, in some final 

 criticisms on the design of the Columbian Exposition, says ; 



While the landscape-gardening is unquestionably very fine 

 to look at and adds immensely to the appearance of the build- 

 ings, it is totally unsuited for practical purposes. Everywhere 

 there was walking, walking, walking; short cuts were impossi- 

 ble, because you were invariably shut off by a lagoon or a lake. 

 People who do not know what landscape-gardening is, must, 

 after the Fair, think it something very dreadful, based on the 

 idea, if possible, of making people go twice the distance to reach 

 a certain point when they might only go half by going another 

 way. It is very beautiful, we admit, but very horrible to the sight- 

 seer. An architect does not make a design irrespective of the uses 

 to which his building is to be put ; that must determine its ulti- 

 mate form. By neglecting this elementary idea in the laying 

 out of the Columbian Exposition the art of landscape-garden- 

 ing has been degraded in the public estimation, and from a 

 noble art for a noble purpose has shown itself incapable of 

 realizing the fundamental elements of all work of practical 

 utiUty. 



Now, it is true that the test of any work is its utility, and 

 if the design of the Exposition failed in this critical point 

 some one is reprehensible. Mr. Burnham's report as Direc- 

 tor of Works, which was published more than a year ago, 

 and Mr. Olmsted's report to the American Institute of 

 Architects, have been very generally read and commented 

 upon. From these and other accessible documents it is a 

 matter of public knowledge that Messrs. Olmsted & Co. 

 were officially employed before the architects or any other 

 artists were called in, and when consulted as to a site they 

 recommended one north of the city, along the lake shore, 

 where it would have required a smaller outlay to prepare 

 the ground and means of interior transportation, where a 

 simpler arrangement of the buildings could have been made, 

 and where they would have had a more agreeable setting 

 in foliage, already provided by standing woods. The Com- 

 mittee of the Directory, however, found that the railroad 

 companies concerned would not subscribe a sufficient 



amount to provide adequate transportation between the 

 city and the Fair grounds. Tiiercupon, Jackson Park was 

 taken as the only available place left on the lake-front, and 

 Jackson Park was only to be had on condition that after 

 the exposition it should be returned to the Park Commis- 

 sion in as good condition for their purpose as it was when 

 taken from them. 



Twenty years before, this site had been reserved as a 

 park, and was probably one of the most forbidding spots 

 in the United States. Messrs. Olmsted & Vaux, who were 

 not consulted in selecting this site, were afterward called 

 in to devise a plan to make it available for a pubhc 

 pleasure-ground. Part of their design was to begin at 

 the lake and re-open certain old lagoons, taking the 

 excavated material lifted out of their bottoms to form 

 undulating banks, and these were afterward to be cov- 

 ered with soil and masses of vegetation. This scheme 

 had not been carried out to the full in accordance 

 with the intention of the designers, but a good deal 

 of work had been done. The excavation for the 

 lagoons, and for what afterward became the main 

 basin in the Court of Honor, had already been made, 

 and the wooded island and other prominent features 

 already existed. It will be seen, therefore, that the 

 problem was very different from the one which the critic 

 above quoted assumes that the landscape-gardeners had 

 before them. The lagoons of which he complains, with 

 the other general features of the park, were not only there, 

 but they had to be maintained without any serious modifi- 

 cation. Now that the Fair is over, we can judge whether 

 the interruptions to direct communication between the 

 buildings caused by the lagoons had any adequate com- 

 pensation. Did the added beauty which these waters gave 

 the scenery, and the restful, convenient and delightful 

 mode of transportation to different parts of the grounds 

 which they furnished by means of sixty boats — not to men- 

 tion the fifteen bridges — did these outweigh the disadvan- 

 tage caused by these separating water channels.' This is 

 a question upon which intelligent men might differ, 

 although the single dissenting voice we have yet heard 

 is that of the critic above quoted, and the practi-^ 

 cally unanimous verdict of the cultivated public has 

 been that the compensation was complete. There was 

 nothing in the whole Exposition by which visitors were 

 more fascinated, or which they remember with more 

 vivid pleasure, than the use of the boats and the enjoy- 

 ment of the general panorama which the boats and the 

 shore-walk opened. A large proportion of those to whom 

 we have put the question have said that the enjoyment of 

 the scenes near and distant, the foregrounds and perspec- 

 tives which were made available by the boats and the 

 walks along the shore, exceeded every other pleasure en- 

 joyed at the Fair. 



Should we ever have another exposition we shall, no 

 doubt, construct it on a smaller base. We shall set higher 

 standards, which will exclude, perhaps, one-third of all 

 that was exhibited in Chicago, and in this way we shall 

 lessen the space occupied and the amount of ground and 

 floor to be walked over. We shall have fewer and larger 

 buildings, with restaurants and refreshment-stands within 

 them, instead of multiplying small ones outside. This will 

 obviously be more economical, and the general result will 

 be grander and more convenient. This, it may be well to 

 repeat, could have been accomplished on the site preferred 

 by Messrs. Olmsted & Co. ; but, taking Jackson Park as it 

 was, experience has proved that the designers skillfully 

 overcame the disadvantages growing out of the devious 

 courses of the walks as compelled by the lagoon features, 

 and that the losses were more than met by the gains in 

 other respects. Our own judgment is that, besides the in- 

 comparable addition to the beauty of the scene which 

 these interior waters furnished, they afforded facilities for 

 carriage from building to building which it would have 

 been hard to excel on any other plan. 



We have seen no evidence that "the art of landscape- 



