January i, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



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 TOST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1, 1890. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles: — Organized Protection for Parks. — The Forestry Report 



of the Tenth Census i 



The Deciduous Cypress. (With Illustration.) 2 



The Art of Gardening — An Historical Sketch. — XVI. 



Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. 2 

 Holiday Notes in Southern France and Northern Italy. — IX. 



George Nicholson. 3 



New or Little Known Plants : — Viburnum pauciflorum. (With figure ) C. S. S. 4 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter IV. Watson. 4 



Cultural Department : — Sowing Seed Professor L. H. Bailey. 6 



Stove Plants in Flower IV. 8 



Orchid Notes John Weathers, F. Goldring. 8 



Christmas Roses J.N. Gerard. u 



The Forest: — Forests and Floods B. E. Femow. 9 



Correspondence:— The India Rubber-tree H. Crist. 10 



Winter Protection of Plants in Germany IV. C. Strong. 10 



The Cultivation of Chrysanthemums 11 



A Mild December Jackson Dawson, IV. F. Massey. 11 



Periodical Literature n 



Recent Publications n 



Notes 12 



Illustrations : — Viburnum pauciflorum. Fig. 1 5 



A Cypress Swamp in Indiana, Fig. 2 7 



Organized Protection for Parks. 



THE proposal to seize a portion of Central Park as a 

 site for some of the exhibition buildings of the 

 World's Fair has been discussed in these columns more 

 than once, but we refer to it again, because it is a mat- 

 ter of much more than local interest. As an admira- 

 ble example of pastoral scenery in the heart of a great 

 city, and as the first work with such a motive ever 

 designed for such a situation, Central Park is in a sense a 

 national possession and is regarded with pride by the 

 entire country. At all events, the proposed invasion is a 

 representative case, and as such should command the 

 attention of all those who have an intelligent appreciation 

 of the value of public parks in cities and who wish to 

 protect them from encroachment and spoliation. The 

 pressure of the expanding city is felt on every foot of the 

 boundary of every open space in New York, and the most 

 powerful interests are constantly pushing to gain a foot- 

 hold for some special purpose on the land devoted to pub- 

 lic use. This situation is repeated in each of our rapidly 

 growing cities, and unless the resistance to these constant 

 assaults is unremitting and determined, we may expect to 

 see many other urban parks share the fate of our own City 

 Hall Park, and gradually disappear, or else become per- 

 verted to purposes foreign to their design and destructive 

 of their highest usefulness. 



It is not our purpose to repeat the reasons for preserving 

 park areas, and especially for protecting those whose beauty 

 and value will continue to increase for generations to come. 

 But taking it for granted that a park is worth preserving, 

 it should be remembered that it is only safe when public 

 sentiment is intelligently and actively interested in its 

 behalf. And since the attacking forces may be swift and 

 strong, public opinion needs to be organized for expression 

 and always ready in an emergency. It is known to every 

 one who is familiar with the history of Central Park that 

 the newspapers of the city have saved it from ruin more 

 than once, when even its legally constituted custodians 

 were eager to surrender it; and when the question of ap- 

 propriating a portion of the park for the World's Fair was 

 under discussion, the unanimity of the press, outside of the 

 daily papers, was surprising. Journals in the special fields 



of architecture, art and engineering, and the leading lit- 

 erary, pictorial and religious weeklies, with scarcely an 

 exception, took a firm stand against the invasion. It may 

 be that this aid can always be counted on; but the real 

 danger comes when the sober sense of the community is 

 prostrated before a sudden gust of enthusiasm for some 

 dazzling enterprise, whose right to occupy and possess the 

 park is insisted upon as superior to that of the people or of 

 their descendants. 



It is plainly the part of wisdom to make preparation for 

 such emergencies, and one assurance of safety against 

 these sudden assaults might be found in a permanent asso- 

 ciation organized for the special purpose of protecting the 

 parks from injury. True, there is a Board of Commis- 

 sioners whose official duty it is to care for them. But 

 this Board may need the positive support of public opinion, 

 just as the Park Department in this city requires support 

 to-day ; and the time may come when the authorized 

 guardians of the parks are their most dangerous enemies. 

 In either case a voluntary association of public-spirited 

 citizens, whose names would command respect and who 

 would look at every question affecting the parks from the 

 people's side, and not from the point of view selected by 

 some special interest could not fail to exert a wholesome 

 influence Such an organization, with a permanent Secre- 

 tary, and, when needed, a paid staff, would be prepared not 

 only to give timely warning of coming danger, but to give 

 opportunity for public opinion to find effective expression. 

 An association in New York, for instance, charged with 

 the duty, could have at Albany when the legislative session 

 begins, protests against any change in the law forbidding 

 exhibitions in Central Park, from the associated architects 

 of the city, from the artists, the physicians, the clergymen, 

 and from citizens of every calling. The sum of the matter 

 is that all parks in our cities are exposed to attacks, 

 which are the more dangerous because many of them 

 come from combinations of worthy people, organized for 

 worthy purposes. The ultimate safety of these pleasure- 

 grounds can be assured only by an enlightened and alert 

 public sentiment ; whether some systematic plan for help- 

 ing the public will to find expression is not needed now to 

 meet well organized attacks against them is a question 

 worth considering by the friends of public parks in all our 

 cities. 



The volume of the final reports of the tenth census, for 

 which the largest demand has been made at the Depart- 

 ment of the Interior, is the ninth, which is devoted to the 

 forests and forest-resources of the United States, and the 

 edition is now nearly exhausted. This fact seems to indi- 

 cate that the American forests, which ten years ago created 

 no real interest except among persons engaged actively in 

 destroying them, have now become a matter of general 

 concern with thoughtful persons in all classes of society. 

 Ten years ago little was known, actually, of the extent or 

 composition of our forests. The conditions essential to 

 the distribution and development of our most valuable 

 trees, and the character even of the material produced by 

 many of them, had not been determined; and the produc- 

 tive capacity of the forests of the country, if any one 

 thought about it at all, was considered inexhaustible. 

 Now it is known where our forests are, at least, and how 

 they are composed, what they produce and how long 

 they may be expected to remain productive ; and there is 

 hardly a newspaper in the United States which does not 

 contain, from time to time, valuable information about 

 forests and forestry. Commissions have been appointed 

 in a dozen states to collect and disseminate knowledge 

 about forests, and the interest in the subject is increasing 

 on all sides. This result has been brought about by the 

 hard and untiring work of a few conscientious investigators. 

 Their w r ork has not been thrown away if it has prepared 

 the way by this general dissemination of knowledge for 

 the gradual introduction into the United States of systems 

 of forest-management which, when they are adopted, will 



