March 19, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



139 



and to the left was another higher mass of conifers inter- 

 spersed with deciduous trees, seen beyond a lofty bridge. The 

 foreground was composed of moss and low grasses broken 

 by taller tufts and by patches of a tiny flowering plant — as 1 

 remember, an Oxalis — and foreground and background were 

 united by plants of intermediate sizes in the most thoroughly 

 artistic way. The horticultural skiil displayed was marvelous; 

 for not only the trees but the grasses and everything else must 

 bave been dwarfed to bring them to such fairy-like propor- 

 tions, an inch counting for a considerable elevation, and the 

 flowers being no bigger than pin-heads, yet each and every 

 plant being in perfect condition, and the general effect luxuri- 

 ant and rich. It was not a little toy-shop garden — it was a little 

 living picture of a broad landscape of incomparable beauty 

 and grandeur. If one took a moment to get absorbed in the 

 scene before him, he thought no more of dimensions than if 

 he had been looking at painted canvas. What he saw was a 

 shadowy glen where rich green grass was starred with yellow 

 flowers, where coolness and freshness breathed from the air, 

 and in the background great masses Of rock and foliage that 

 stirred the imagination as well as refreshed the eye. The mar- 

 velous skill of the horticulturist was forgotten in wonder at 

 the power of the artist who could conceive so beautiful a land- 

 scape. The way in which foreground, middle distance and 

 background had been contrasted yet harmonized, the grand- 

 eur yet softness of the massing, the loveliness of the sky-line, 

 the variety and beauty of the color, all kept in a low, quiet 

 tone with no crude notes — these merits impressed one as in 

 the work of some great painter ; and what a painter would 

 have supplied in the way of atmosphere and perspective was 

 added by the modeling and shadowing of Nature herself. Of 

 course the result had not the suggested poetry that we find in 

 a Corot ; nor could such a living picture on a board ever give 

 effects of distance or supply the canopy of heaven. But within 

 the limits possible to such work, there seemed nothing that 

 the Japanese artist had not accomplished. As a "realistic" 

 picture of a rocky glen no painter could begin to equal it, for 

 it was as perfect to the tiniest detail as it was in the effect of its 

 largest masses. In short, if on the soil the Japanese landscape- 

 gardener had shown us nothing, here he showed us something 

 in which we could read an account of his larger enterprises. 



There was nothing I saw in all the Paris Exhibition that I 

 coveted as I did this exquisite, and, to my eyes, novel work of 

 art. But if it would have been rash to think a single dwarfed 

 tree might survive in European hands, how should one dare to 

 touch this far more complex bit of art-created life ? It seemed 

 a pure marvel that it had been brought half way round the 

 world even by those competent to care for it at home. 



New Brunswick, N. J. George Cumming. 



Some Old American Country-Seats. — V. 

 Montgomery Place. 



JANET LIVINGSTON, a sister of the Chancellor, grew up in 

 the quiet elegance of Clermont, but after her gallant young 

 husband, General Richard Montgomery, was killed at Quebec, 

 she chose and purchased for her home a tract of three hun- 

 dred acres lying upon the river by the mouth of the Saw Kill 

 and a few miles south of the southern limits of Clermont 

 Manor. Here, with the help of plans which are said to have 

 been sent from Ireland by Montgomery's sister, a Lady Rane- 

 lagh, a mansion remarkable for its simple but elegant archi- 

 tecture was built, and the new seat was named Montgomery 

 Place. Here in later years the eminent jurist, Edward Living- 

 ston, was wont to retire from the cares of office to enjoy the 

 beauties of nature. 



Approaching the estate to-day from Rhinebeck or from Red 

 Hook, the way lies through a charming farming country 

 crossed by numerous lane-like roads and by the one highway 

 which leads to Albany. The approach to the house at Mont- 

 gomery Place parts from the high-road at right angles, and 

 leads, at first straigkVroward the river through an avenue of 

 noble trees of various sorts, planted in rows, yet not in pairs. 

 Indeed, not only is there no precise symmetry, but a giant 

 Locust may here be seen standing opposite a Linden (as in the 

 picture on page 143), or a great Horse-chestnut opposite a 

 Beech ; and in one place, where the road is carried on a stone- 

 walled causeway over a little gully, great Willows throw large 

 limbs across the vista. Beyond the rows of trees, on either 

 hand, lie gently undulating pasture-lands, bounded in the dis- 

 tance by woods. Drawing nearer now to the house, the 

 straight avenue ends just as the roadway passes through a tall 

 hedge into the inner park. Here is a wood of fine forest-trees 

 standing well apart, and, as the road curves gently to the right 

 between the trees, a little valley on the left begins to fall away 



quite rapidly toward the Hudson. The sides of this valley are 

 richly wooded, and serve to frame a first glimpse of the river, 

 where it is disclosed by the broadening of the valley's mouth. 

 As the road swings still farther to the right, the house comes 

 into view ahead, and branch roads lead on the left to the 

 stable, and to the kitchen yard, which is concealed by shrubbery 

 and by being sunk to the basement level at the southern end 

 of the house. The main road ends with an ample turn, placed 

 symmetrically before the semi-circular portico which marks 

 the entrance. The guest of the house who turns here looks 

 eastward back toward the Albany road across a gently rising 

 lawn bounded, on one hand, by the same dense wood which 

 lie before saw limiting the northern pasture, and, on the other, 

 by the more open groves through which he has just traveled. 

 Formerly this sheltered open ground contained the flower- 

 garden and an elaborate conservatory ; and, on the gentle rise 

 behind this structure, a considerable arboretum once existed, 

 where now only a few scattered specimens are to be seen ; 

 but from the point of view of design and general effect the 

 substitution of the existing simple but well framed lawn in 

 place of the old garden and conservatory is by no means to be 

 regretted. The entrance front of the house as it now appears, 

 when viewed from the site of the conservatory, may be seen 

 in the picture on page 142 ; but though the building and the 

 great Locusts near the porch are well shown, the picture gives 

 no hint of the blue distance of hills and mountains which in 

 reality appears through the tree-trunks just north of the house. 

 If, tempted by this glimpse of distance, the visitor turns the 

 corner of the building and steps into the round-arched pavilion 

 which is attached to the north side of the house, the whole 

 broad panorama of the river and the Catskills is spread before 

 him to the westward ; but even here the wide prospect is 

 broken into scenes and framed by the solid piers and arches 

 of the pavilion itself, and by the trunks and branches of great 

 trees, chiefly Locusts, standing on the brink of the irregular 

 grassy slope which falls steeply to a narrow wood on the bluff 

 at the river's edge. " To attempt to describe the scenery which 

 bewitches the eye as it wanders over the wide expanse to the 

 west from this pavilion would be an idle effort," wrote Mr. 

 Downing in 1847. "As a foreground, imagine a large lawn 

 waving in undulations of soft verdure, varied with fine groups, 

 and margined with rich belts of foliage. Its base is washed 

 by the river, which is here a broad sheet of water, lying like a 

 long lake beneath the eye. . . . On the opposite shores, 

 more than a mile distant, is seen a rich mingling of woods 

 and corn-fields. But the crowning glory of the landscape is 

 the background of mountains. The Kaatskills, as seen from 

 this part of the Hudson, are, it seems to us, more beautiful 

 than any mountain scenery in the Middle States. It is not 

 merely that their outline is bold, and that the summit of 

 Roundtop, rising three thousand feet above the surrounding 

 country, gives an air of more grandeur than is usually seen 

 even in the Highlands ; but it is the color which renders the 

 Kaatskills so captivating a feature in the landscape here. . . . 

 Morning and noon the shade only varies from softer to deeper 

 blue. But the hour of sunset is the magical time for the 

 fantasies of the color-genii of these mountains. Seen at this 

 period, from the terrace of the pavilion of Montgomery Place, 

 the eye is filled with wonder at the various dyes that bathe the 

 receding hills — the most distant of which are twenty or thirty 

 miles away. . . . It is a spectacle of rare beauty, and he 

 who loves tones of color, soft and dreamy as one of the 

 mystical airs of a German maestro, should see the sunset fade 

 into twilight from the seats on this part of the Hudson." 



Mr. Downing did well to sing the praises of the Catskill 

 sunsets, and he might have added that this favored pavilion of 

 Montgomery Place spreads its prospects before the visitor to 

 the delightful accompaniment of the music of waterfalls 

 sounding from the depths of the wood near by. Upon enter- 

 ing this wood it is seen to occupy a large and long valley 

 curiously broken into lesser ravines and hollows. Numerous 

 paths lead through the dark shadows of the wood to all the 

 finest parts and to the falls — one of them forty feet high — by 

 which the Saw Kill plunges down to join the Hudson. Here 

 are wildness and extreme picturesqueness in sharp contrast 

 with the stately breadth and quietness of the lawns and groves 

 about the house and the majestic panorama of the river. 

 Well may Mr. Downing have called Montgomery Place second 

 to no seat in America for its combinations of attractions ; and 

 it may be added that its makers and owners — all of them 

 Livingstons, or close connections of the family — have been 

 second to none in the taste and skill which took advantage of 

 glorious opportunities and in the care which has preserved 

 the essential features of the original design until this day. 

 Boston. Charles Eliot. 



