u8 



Garden and Forest. 



[March 5, 1890. 



should, for its own best health, provide itself with all possible 

 open spaces in the form of public squares and play-grounds. 

 Boston (including now the various municipalities which sur- 

 round her) is far behindhand in this matter. Large areas out- 

 side of the old city are wholly unprovided with public open 

 spaces ; and while' the various municipalities which compose 

 this larger Boston continue to be fearful of spending money 

 for the enjoyment of their neighbors, there can be little hope 

 for much improvement. The difficulty arising from the con- 

 flicting interests and desires of these many towns and cities 

 delayed the construction of a proper sewerage system for the 

 suburbs, until the danger and the scandal which the lack 

 of such a system caused fairly compelled the state to create a 

 Metropolitan Drainage Commission, with power to plan and 

 to build a complete main drainage and to assess the cost 

 thereof upon the towns and cities benefited. It looks now as 

 if the acquisition of a suitable number of well distributed open 

 spaces must wait for the appointment of a similar commission. 

 Meanwhile the available open ground is being rapidly occu- 

 pied ; and Boston, like New York, may yet be compelled to 

 tear clown whole blocks of buildings to provide herself with 

 the needed oases of light and air. 



But a crowded population thirsts, occasionally at least, for 

 the sight of something very different from the public garden, 

 square or ball-field. The railroads and the new electric street 

 railways, which radiate from the Hub, carry many thousands 

 every pleasant Sunday through the suburbs to the real coun- 

 try ; and hundreds out of these thousands make the journey for 

 the sake of the refreshment which an occasional hour or two 

 spent in the country brings to them. Within ten miles of the 

 State House there still remain several bits of scenery which 

 possess uncommon beauty and more than usual refreshing 

 power. Moreover, each of these scenes is, in its way, char- 

 acteristic of the primitive wilderness of New England, of 

 which, indeed, they are surviving fragments. At Waverly is 

 a steep moraine set with a group of mighty Oaks. At the 

 Upper Falls of Charles River the stream flows darkly between 

 rocky and broken banks from which hang ranks upon ranks 

 of graceful Hemlocks. These two remarkable scenes have 

 been described in Garden and Forest ; and I shall name no 

 others, though several are well known to all lovers of nature 

 near Boston. One is the solemn interior of a wood of tall 

 White Pines — the tree the forefathers blazoned on their flag. 

 Another is a Pine grove on a group of knolls in the bend of a 

 small river, where it first meets the tide and the salt marshes. 

 Still another is a hill-side strewn with great boulders, and com- 

 manding, by a bowl-shaped hollow of the hills, a distant view 

 of the ocean and its far horizon. At present all these beautiful 

 scenes, excepting such as are included in the Franklin Park 

 and the adjacent Arnold Arboretum, are in private hands; and 

 many of them are in daily danger of utter destruction — some 

 of the finest spots have been destroyed within the ten last years. 

 Most of them lie outside the municipality of Boston proper. 

 They are scattered in different townships or along the border- 

 lines, and only an authority which can disregard township 

 limits can properly select and establish the needed reserva- 

 tions. 



The end to be held in view in securing reservations of this 

 class is wholly different from that which should guide the State 

 Commission already suggested, and this writer believes this 

 different end might better be attained by an incorporated asso- 

 ciation, composed of citizens of all the Boston towns, and em- 

 powered by the state to hold small and well distributed parcels 

 of land free of taxes, just as the public library holds books 

 and the art museum pictures — for the use and enjoyment of 

 the public. If an association of this sort were once established, 

 generous men and women would be ready to buy and give 

 into its keeping some of these fine and strongly characterized 

 works of nature ; just as others buy and give to a museum 

 fine works of art. Indeed, the association might even 

 become embarrassed, as so many museums are, by 

 offerings which might not commend themselves to its 

 directors. 



Lovely natural scenery supplies an education in the love of 

 beauty, and a means of human enjoyment at least as valuable 

 as that afforded by pictures and casts; and if, as we are taught, 

 feeling for artistic beauty has its roots in feeling for natural 

 beauty, opportunities of beholding natural beauty will cer- 

 tainly' be needed and prized by the successive generations 

 which are to throng the area within ten miles of the State House. 

 As Boston's lovers of art united to found the Art Museum, so her 

 lovers of nature should now rally to preserve for themselves 

 and all the people as many as possible of these scenes of natural 

 beauty which, by great good fortune, still exist near their doors. 



Boston. Charles Eliot. 



Orchids in Brooklyn. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — It would be difficult to find better specimens of Phalae- 

 nopsis than those in the collection of Mr. Frederick Scholes, of 

 Brooklyn, and at this season of the year, when great numbers 

 of them are in bloom, they are specially attractive. There were 

 more than 2,000 fully expanded flowers on February 20th and 

 the spectacle was one not easily forgotten. Among the plants 

 I noted some good examples of P. Schilleriana, literally 

 covered with its beautiful mauve colored blossoms, one speci- 

 men having eight spikes, which were short, well branched 

 and carried over 300 flowers. To this variety the owner has 

 given the appropriate name of P. Schilleriana compacta. It 

 has three strong growths, and eighteen broad, leathery leaves, 

 which measure from ten to fourteen inches in length. Another 

 specimen of an admirable variety was carrying 200 flowers, 

 while a dozen others were also equally well flowered. A fine 

 specimen was a plant of P. grandijlora, with three growths 

 and thirteen leaves, which had three strong spikes, well 

 covered with large white blossoms. P. amabilis was well 

 represented by specimens with strong stems freely branched 

 and covered with flowers. One plant with eight very large 

 leaves had a spike three feet long. The white and purple- 

 spotted flowers of P. Stuartiana were very attractive, and 

 one plant had produced a panicle carrying sixty flowers. P. 

 Sanderiana, which much resembles a rose colored P. ama- 

 bilis, was represented by several very dark varieties. The 

 plants occupy wire baskets, and are suspended some two 

 feet from the glass, and are grown moderately warm. On the 

 stages few Orchids were seen, the space being occupied by 

 Palms, Ferns, Eucharis, etc. .which are syringed daily, furnish- 

 ing an atmosphere which the plants above appear to thoroughly 

 enjoy. In the same structure several plants of Cattleya 

 Laivrenceana were in bloom, as well as of C. intermedia, C. 

 speciosissima and Dendrobium Ainsworlhii. Several plants of 

 the scarce Odontoglossum Hnmeanum were in the house set 

 apart for cool Orchids, together with the pretty yellow and 

 brown spotted Oncidium micropogon, and the orange-scarlet 

 flowered La:lia harpophylla. A. Dimmock. 



Summit, N.J. 



Periodical Literature. 



The most interesting" paper in the December number of 

 the Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information for horti- 

 cultural readers is an account of the tropical and sub-tropical 

 plants growing in the gardens of the Riviera, from the pen 

 of our London correspondent, Mr. W. Watson, who was 

 sent last autumn by the authorities at Kew to examine the 

 garden vegetation in southern France, for the purpose, 

 primarily, of determining whether many plants now grown 

 in England, in stoves and other warm houses, might not 

 be treated more successfully in a more temperate atmos- 

 phere. Mr. Watson's report contains most valuable infor- 

 mation for the gardeners of southern California, where the 

 climate is not unlike that of Provence and of the southern 

 Atlantic states, and nothing but its length prevents us from 

 reproducing it entirely. Our quotations, however, must be 

 confined largely to Mr. Watson's remarks about Bamboos, 

 plants which American .gardeners know very little about yet, 

 but which are beginning to attract considerable attention both 

 in California and in Florida and Georgia. "After the Palms," 

 he says, " the most tropical feature in the gardening of the 

 Riviera is the Bamboos, which are largely used in the compo- 

 sition of the best gardens, both public and private. To a 

 northern gardener the elegance and grandeur of some of these 

 Bamboos constitute some of the chief charms of the Riviera. 

 Some of the specimens are very large, as for instance one of 

 B. vulgaris, in Baron Vigier's garden at Nice, which measures 

 forty feet through in every direction, and is thirty-five feet 

 high. It contains hundreds of stems or canes, each three 

 inches in diameter, and straight and smooth as a gun-barrel. 

 It is planted on one side of the lawn near the house. As 

 fences, screens and boundaiy lines the Bamboos are fre- 

 quently used, and nothing could be better, as they are quick 

 growers and evergreen. All the kinds noted were in splen- 

 did health, and from the manner in which they had taken pos- 

 session of the ground, it was evident that their requirements 

 are abundantly satisfied. The finest and healthiest examples 

 are in wet ground, often on the edge of water. Most of them 

 are heavily manured annually. 



"In England we have not hitherto made the most of this 

 beautiful family of plants, man}' of which may be grown out- 

 of-doors successfully in all the milder parts of the country, 



