74 



Garden and Forest. 



[February 12, 1890 



ating money to re-clothe a million acres of land which has 

 been stripped of forests. Austria has 800 torrents to hold 

 in check, and Prussia every year buys up waste lands for 

 the purpose of reforesting them. What thoughtful men in 

 this country are asking is not the outlay of millions, but the 

 use of ordinary foresight to make such outlay unnecessary. 

 They only ask that the most efficient agents of forest 

 destruction be restrained for a season, until some persons 

 who are competent can tell us what we really have, and 

 how much of that must be preserved to save us from reme- 

 diless disaster. A refusal on the part of Congress to give 

 heed to this appeal, which is repeated year after year with 

 increasing earnestness and urgency, would be little less 

 than criminal. 



The portrait of a remarkable Walnut-tree found growing 

 by Professor Rothrock at Lower Brandon, on the lower 

 James River, in Virginia, is published in the January issue of 

 Forest Leaves. Professor Rothrock describes it as " a gigantic 

 spreading tree, which towers higher and spreads over a 

 wider area than any of its associates. This is always 

 plainly visible, but particularly so when winter has 

 stripped the leaves and allowed the branches to stand out 

 on the background of a cold sky." No one knows when 

 the tree was planted, and nothing is known of its origin. 

 The remarkable thing about it is, that in bark and in 

 foliage this tree is almost identical with common forms of 

 the so-called English Walnut {Juglans regia), while the 

 nuts, which have a thick, rough and deeply furrowed endo- 

 carp or shell, and thick cell-walls, are not distinguishable 

 from some forms of the nut of the Black Walnut ; and the 

 tree thus presents every appearance of being a hybrid be- 

 tween the American and the old-world Walnuts. The 

 Walnut-tree cut last year on the grounds of the late Ben 

 Perley Poor, near Newburyport, Massachusetts, mentioned 

 on page 14 of vol. ii. of this journal, had the same pecu- 

 liarities as the James River tree, and one of the stories told 

 about the Newburyport Walnut was that it came originally 

 from Virginia. There is another specimen of the same tree 

 growing in the grounds of the Episcopal School of Harvard 

 University, in Cambridge, of whose origin no one knows 

 anything. The presence of American blood in these trees 

 is shown not only in the nut, but in the fact that the New- 

 buryport tree and the Cambridge tree are both perfectly 

 hardy, and have grown to a large size, while the English 

 Walnut in Massachusetts is precariously hardy, and, when 

 it grows at all, never attains to any great size. We hope 

 to publish a figure of the foliage and fruit of this interesting 

 tree, but before doing so it is desirable to obtain as much 

 information of its origin and of other individuals which 

 may be growing in Virginia as it is possible to acquire. It 

 is in the hope that some of our readers may be able to 

 throw some further light upon the subject that this prelimi- 

 nary note is now printed. 



Entrance to the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris. 



THERE are nineteen cemeteries in Paris, thirteen in the city- 

 proper and six in the suburbs. In the former the ground 

 is granted in perpetuity, in the latter for a stipulated period 

 only. The largest and most famous of all is the Eastern Cem- 

 etery, more commonly called " Pere-Lachaise." It is not so 

 ancient as is usually believed, having been laid out in 1804 

 under the direction of the architect Brogniart. The principal 

 entrance, shown in our illustration on page 79, is a model of 

 what such a construction should be — dignified, yet not obtru- 

 sive or showy, appropriately massive and severe, yet not 

 gloomy-looking, and expressing its function in the emblems 

 chosen for its decoration as well as in its general effect. Ac- 

 cording to French writers the aspect of the cemetery itself " is 

 not in the least lugubrious," and they are certainly right in 

 saying that the " majority of visitors consider it rather a prome- 

 nade than a funereal spot." Nevertheless, to trans-Atlantic 

 eyes it seems lugubrious enough by contrast with the open, 

 park-like and cheerful look of even those American ceme- 

 teries which we think most sadly overcrowded. As can be 

 divined from our picture, its alleys are thickly lined with 

 tombs, many of them large and very ornate, and, though trees 



grow in abundance, there is little room for grass and none for 

 the attainment of those open landscape effects which Americans 

 think most desirable in a cemetery. Near the entrance the wall 

 includes but a small space on the right hand, encumbered by 

 various official buildings. But a little further on it bends 

 sharply to the right and the corner thus formed is the Hebrew 

 portion of the burial-ground. From the entrance there is a 

 considerable ascent to a point occupied by the chapel, and 

 thence the hill slopes toward the east and the newer part of 

 the enclosure. This part is laid out in rectangular divisions, 

 but in the older portions the alleys are winding, and, as they 

 meet, form various open spots which relieve the general 

 monotony of close-grouped memorials. 



The Art of Gardening — An Historical Sketch. 



XVII.— Ancient India. 



HPHE luxuriant imagination of the ancient Hindu expressed 

 *■ itself in architectural forms which, while they lacked the 

 purity of Greek and the intellectual suggestion of mediaeval 

 European types, have a brilliant, gorgeous beauty that harmo- 

 nizes well with their semi-tropical surroundings. None of the 

 Hindu remains antedate the time when stone replaced wood as 

 the material of construction, and this seems not to have been 

 ealier than the third century, B. C. But tastes and customs are 

 peculiarly persistent in the East, and from their witness we 

 can understand the role that gardening played in India in very 

 ancient times.* 



The simplest type of an old Indian garden was the enclosed 

 court intimately connected with temple or habitation. The 

 great Buddhist monasteries, where thousands of persons 

 sometimes dwelt, were composed of an immense number of 

 apartments surrounding open courts, and remains of their 

 groves and huge water-basins may still be traced. A plan 

 of a temple at Ramisseram, in the south of India, published by 

 Fergusson.f shows a succession of enormous colonnades, 700 

 feet in length, encircling the main buildings and encircled 

 themselves on two sides by a wide expanse of formally 

 planted garden, all together being surrounded by a wall twenty 

 feet in height. And everywhere we read of temple-enclosures 

 filled with smaller temples, tanks, garden-plots, colonnades 

 and fountains. 



In such places as these the gardens were features in a great 

 architectural whole ; but there are others where the buildings 

 were but features in the landscape. Here again, however, a 

 true regard was paid to unity of effect. In no country, it may be 

 said with especial emphasis, has the art of combining architec- 

 tural forms with sheets of water been so perfectly understood. 

 Both the value of the mere cool aspect of water in so hot a cli- 

 mate and the custom of frequent ablutions made it desirable 

 that many buildings should stand near every lake and stream. 

 Here temples, colonnades, terraces, kiosks and wide stairways 

 for bathing purposes are harmoniously grouped together and 

 beautifully composed against backgrounds of thick groves or 

 sloping hill-sides. One of the palaces of Chittore, writes Fer- 

 gusson (which were built in the fifteenth century, but by a 

 prince of one of the old dynasties, and may be accepted, there- 

 fore, as representing an art of far earlier origin), " stands on 

 the verge of an extensive lake surrounded by hills of great 

 beauty of outline ; and in the lake are two island palaces . . . 

 which are more beautiful of their class than any I know else- 

 where. It would be difficult to find any scene where art and 

 nature are so happily blended together and produce so fairy- 

 like an effect." Studying the pictures of Chittore and of many 

 similar places, we realize that chance — the mere accident of a 

 beautiful natural landscape — had little to do with the charm of 

 the general result. Temple and palace were not left in isola- 

 tion amid untouched natural surroundings. Platforms, ter- 

 races, stairways, walls and gateways formed the transition 

 from one to the other ; each adjunct was considered not only 

 for its intrinsic beauty, but for its value as a feature in the gen- 

 eral picture, and prospect as well as aspect was considered. 

 The great palace at Oodeypur, for example, which lies in a 

 district not overrun by Mahometan influence, "covers the 

 entire crest of a hill, the base of which is washed by the blue 

 waters of Lake Peshola ; and this crest being insufficient for 

 the full consummation of the architect's design, an immense 

 terrace had been carried out on a level with it, and supported 

 by three massive tiers of arched vaults." J The palace, as 

 usual, consists of a multitude of different buildings and- court- 

 yards, and the whole is so arranged as to resemble " a vast 



* There are no books to help out the witness of art. Indian literature, so very 

 rich in many directions, includes no historical works, 

 t " History of Indian and Eastern Architecture." 

 t " India, Pictorial and Descriptive." 



