February 26, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



97 



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, M. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1890. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles : — Botany for Young People. — The Gray Herbarium. — A 



Bill to Facilitate the Destruction of the National Forests 97 



An Alley in the Tuilleries Garden, Paris. (Illustrated.) 98 



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



George Nicholson. 99 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter W. Watson. 99 



New or Little Known Plants : — Rosa foliolosa. (With figure.) 5. W. 100 



Cultural Department :— An Analysis of Grafting Professor L. H. Bailey. 100 



Garden Flowers and Fruits in Midwinter J. G. Jack. 102 



Fern Notes. — II W. H. Taplin. 102 



Begonia manicata. — Habrothamnus elegans M. Barker. 104 



Correspondence : — A So-called Poisonous Primrose. (Illustrated.) 



Dr. George Thurber. 104 



Mocking at Knowledge A Mother. 105 



Esparto Grass F. G. Hampton. 106 



Recent Publications 106 



Recent Plant Portraits 107 



Exhibitions 107 



Notes .. 108 



Illustrations : — Rosa foliolosa, Fig. 22 101 



An Alley in the Tuilleries Garden, Paris 103 



Magnified Leaf-hairs of Primula obconica. Fig. 23 104 



Botany for Young- People. 



THE letter entitled "Mocking at Knowledge," which will 

 be found on another page, calls attention to certain mis- 

 apprehensions which are not uncommon. Indeed, there are 

 many intelligent people who seem ready on all occasions 

 to discourage the study of botany even in its simplest 

 and most attractive forms. They would be shocked if 

 charged with indifference to knowledge of other natural 

 sciences, but they seem to consider a desire to study 

 botany on the part of any young person as a foolish endeavor 

 to pry into a subject so profound that only a "smattering" 

 of it can ever be learned, and a smattering of knowledge 

 is declared worse than entire ignorance. Another objec- 

 tion to the study is that the more one learns about plants 

 the- less will one appreciate their beauty. The scientific 

 attitude is held up as the reverse of enjoyment ; scientific 

 knowledge is proclaimed to be deadly to artistic or poetic 

 feeling. " Why," it is said by those who should have spoken 

 more wisely, " can any one want to pull flowers to pieces 

 to learn their hideous Latin names ? What is the good of 

 it in the end, and must it not destroy all sense of beauty 

 which we, in our happy ignorance, enjoy so keenly?" 



No one believes that a knowledge of astronomy destroys 

 all pleasure in the splendor of the midnight sky, or a 

 knowledge of geology all interest in the grandeur and 

 variety of the earth's surface. But trees and flowers must 

 not be studied unless the student is willing to exchange the 

 pleasure of the eye for whatever barren satisfaction he 

 may find in hard names and withered, dissected specimens. 

 It is probable, however, that one cause of this odd belief is 

 the idea that to study botany means simply to learn Latin 

 names, and thatthe knowledge of these names is its own only 

 end and aim. If this were true botany would indeed be a dry 

 and not very useful study, although there would still be 

 some benefit in being able to speak of plants exactly in- 

 stead of inexactly, and to speak of any possible plant in- 

 stead of a comparatively restricted number. But to learn 

 Latin names is only the first step in learning to know the 

 plants they represent — a needful step if one's knowledge is 

 ever to amount to much, but in no sense an end or aim. 



When a simple handbook can be used so that the name of 

 a plant can be found in it (the common name, as our cor- 

 respondent points out, always appearing with the scien- 

 tific), then all other facts about the plant can be read at a 

 glance ; and unless this can be done most of these facts 

 will never be gathered. Knowing the name, we find the 

 manner of the plant's growth, the regions where it is com- 

 mon or rare, the character of the spots where it may most 

 hopefully be looked for, its seasons of blooming and fruit- 

 ing, and its relationship to other species, with the facts 

 upon which this relationship is founded, as well as those 

 which make its own individuality clear. Is not all this 

 worth knowing, even at the cost of dealing for the moment 

 with the ugliest of Latin names ? If a child finds a rosy 

 Arethusa with twin blossoms, will not his pleasure in it 

 and his desire to search for other flowers both be stimu- 

 lated by the knowledge that his treasure is a very rare one ? 

 Or if he discovers that the pretty little Bunch-berry which 

 carpets some woody spot is first cousin to the big Flower- 

 ing Dogwood, and discovers too the reason why, will not 

 his interest in it be increased? Let him learn why an 

 Orchid is an Orchid, why the tiny Ladies' Tresses deserve 

 the name as much as the gorgeous Cattleya or Oncidium of 

 the greenhouse, and he has gained something which surely 

 cannot decrease his enjoyment of the beauty of either. 



But to do this, it may be objected, beautiful flowers 

 must be pulled to pieces, and this will " deaden the sense 

 of beauty." By no means. The truth is quite the other 

 way. No one who has not once pulled a flower to pieces 

 can realize, in the great majority of cases, how beautiful it 

 is. All its beauty is not in its larger features or on the out- 

 side of its cup. In the interior, in the hidden recesses 

 where the great work of reproduction goes on in a myriad 

 different ways, each more marvelous and admirable than 

 the other — here resides a great part of the beauty of all 

 flowers and the greater part of the beauty of not a few. 

 Even if it led to nothing but a knowledge of Nature's 

 delight in making the tiniest features of her productions 

 lovely to our eyes, the close examination of floral struc- 

 tures would be well worth many hours of a busy man's 

 time. Once this has been learned, we do not need always 

 to see it. Seeing the flower as a whole, we not only know 

 its name, habits and relationships, but remember its struc- 

 ture. The exterior suggests the interior, and a knowledge 

 of the interior explains the lovely individuality of the 

 envelope. 



This is sufficient to prove, we think, that even a smat- 

 tering of botanical knowledge is better than entire igno- 

 rance. Archbishop Whately long ago pointed out that 

 this word has two distinct significations. One of these is 

 a superficial acquaintance with a subject and some' pre- 

 tentious display of slight acquirement. The other simply 

 means rudimentary acquaintance, and must be the begin- 

 ning of all knowledge. Even the slightest smattering, in 

 this latter sense, of botanical knowledge will greatly 

 increase instead of lessening the enjoyment of any one 

 who by nature has any love for flowers. 



But there will be a further gain. Once let a person 

 begin to study plants and he will desire to increase the list 

 of his acquaintances ; and then he will use his eyes as he 

 never did before. He will discover beautiful flowers whose 

 existence in the neighborhood none of his mocking friends 

 ever suspected. He will see a hundred things where they 

 will not see ten. Having learned to appreciate beauty on 

 a small scale, he will seek for it instead of waiting for it to 

 strike his eye, and will find it in the most unpromising 

 places. He will delight in the exquisite beauty of the 

 infinitesimal blossoms of the Door-weed on which passive, 

 uninstructed observers will never have perceived a blossom 

 at all ; and will be enchanted by the flowers of the Pig- 

 weed even, despised of the multitude, but honored by him 

 as a treasury of interest. Nor, surely, will his new appre- 

 ciation of such humble charms lessen his feeling for the 

 splendor of the Iris he finds in the swamp or the Meadow 

 Lily that flaunts by the way-side. 



