April 16, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



185 



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, N. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 1890. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles :— Planting New Places. — Arbor Day 185 



Notes on North American Trees.— XVI. A Question of Nomenclature, 



Professor C. S. Sargent. 186 

 The Art of Gardening — An Historical Sketch. — XIX. The Arabs in Spain, 



Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. 186 



Plant Notes: — Two American Honeysuckles. (Illustrated.) C. S. S. 187 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter W. Watson. 187 



The Veitchian Nurseries Visitor. 188 



Cultural Department :— Some Adaptations in the Strawberry E. P. Powell. 189 



Good Plants for the Greenhouse W. H. Taplin. 190 



Pentstemons for the Garden E. O. Orpet. 191 



The Spring Garden J. IV. Gerard, F. H. Horsford. 192 



Insecticides for Window Plants Professor J. B. Smith. 192 



Chrysanthemum maximum John Thorpe. 192 



Seasonable Hints P. O. 192 



Recent Publications: — The Forests of North America. — 1 193 



Correspondence: — Why Not Legislate Against the Black Knot? 



Professor Byron D. Halsted. 194 



Public Forest Associations J. E. Chamberlin. 194 



The Rest of Plants Professor L. PL Bailey. 195 



The Cork- wings on the Sweet Gum Professor Wm. Trelease. 195 



Gordonia Altamaha John Saul. 195 



Notes 195 



Illustrations : — Lonicera fiava, Fig. 33 190 



Lonicera Sullivantii, Fig. 34 191 



Planting New Places. 



THIS is the season when novices in planting, especially 

 those who have recently acquired possession of 

 suburban or country homes, are preparing to stock their 

 grounds with ornamental trees and shrubs. The thought 

 that thousands of new gardens are to be made would be a 

 pleasant one, indeed, if there were any assurance that they 

 would be well planned and planted; but the probabilities 

 are that ninety-five out of every hundred of them will have 

 no plan whatever, while the great majority of the trees 

 and shrubs used in them will be selected without any ade- 

 quate reason, and then badly planted in improper positions. 

 This is a perfectly true statement and on its face it is dis- 

 couraging enough. But the fact is that failure is the foun- 

 dation of nearly all practical knowledge of gardening 

 among amateurs, and the mistakes of this year will be an 

 education for the next. When once a man or a woman 

 either sets out in serious earnest to beautify the home-acre 

 by planting trees and shrubs and flowering- herbs, 

 we may cherish a well-grounded hope that this is the 

 beginning of an interest in gardening which will deepen 

 with ensuing years and come to be at last an unfailing 

 source of recreation and refreshment. 



And yet if novices in the art of gardening would seek a 

 little counsel at the outset and act upon it, their education 

 would be much more rapid and much less expensive. They 

 almost invariably begin at the wrong end, and gather their 

 materials together first and then wander around their 

 grounds in search of places to put them. The catalogues 

 of the nurserymen offer to such persons a fascinating field 

 of study. Naturally enough in these trade-lists plants of 

 established merit are passed over with slight mention, for 

 it is justly assumed that most buyers are informed as to 

 their value. It is not surprising, therefore, that the novice, 

 misled by the more circumstantial and perhaps a trifle 

 over-colored description of the novelties and rarities and 

 oddities among trees and shrubs, makes his selection 

 largely from this class. The probabilities are that he will 

 buy a great many more than are needed, and after he has 



crowded them all into his place, he will begin to realize 

 that it has no consistent purpose, no unity of expression, 

 no meaning. 



It is not probable that any marked success would have 

 been achieved, but certainly the outcome would not have 

 been so utterly unsatisfying, if a careful plan of the grounds 

 had first been made. Let the amateur planter at the very 

 outset make an accurate diagram of his grounds, drawn to 

 a certain scale, so that he can note the space covered by 

 any given tree or shrub. Next let him attempt to form in 

 his mind a clear and definite picture of his future home- 

 scene — such a picture as he will be able to construct with 

 the verdurous material at his command — grass, shrubs, 

 trees, flowers and festooning vines. No tree or shrub will 

 then be selected merely because it is pretty, but because 

 it fits in with the rest to give outward and visible expres- 

 sion to his thought. To accomplish this the mental 

 picture will need to be distinct and vivid. It must em- 

 brace the relation of the house to the grounds. It should 

 preserve and frame in any attractive prospects beyond the 

 boundaries of the place, and shut out of view what is 

 unsightly or incongruous. It must provide for walks and 

 out-buildings and a hundred conveniences for the house- 

 hold in such a way that they will not disturb the harmony 

 and fair proportions of his picture. When such a design 

 is perfected it will not be difficult to make an order for 

 the nursery, for it will be known exactly how many trees 

 and shrubs are needed, and an intelligent reason can be 

 given why each particular one was selected for its chosen 

 position. 



But is it probable that the beginner will be able to make 

 a design which shall be so reasonable, consistent and 

 complete? Perhaps not. But an honest attempt to make 

 one, for which he can give an intelligent explanation, will 

 be a pretty good way to convince him of the genuine 

 difficulties of the situation. One part of an education con- 

 sists in finding out how much there is to learn ; and the 

 novice may discover, before his design is finished, that it 

 requires real artistic feeling and training to make a perfect 

 cabinet-picture on a half acre of ground, as truly as it does 

 to plan a park. He will realize that there are adaptations 

 and adjustments to be settled in the very framework of 

 his design and all through its essential elements which 

 demand experience and thought. . He will more than sus- 

 pect that he has made a mistake in attempting to solve, 

 off-hand and while the buds are bursting, problems of such 

 puzzling complexity that an artist with years of practice be- 

 hind him would hesitate to undertake them without ample 

 time for study. He may divine at last that even a work 

 of this magnitude may present an opportunity for dis- 

 playing a comprehensiveness of treatment, a refinement 

 and felicity of touch which will worthily exemplify the 

 supremacy of the hand of genius. 



One who has been educated up to this point will begin 

 to look about him for a landscape-gardener of recognized 

 attainment, and, more than that, he will be prepared to 

 appreciate his counsel and to follow his instructions with 

 confidence. 



The popular interest in Arbor Day is steadily increasing 

 if it is measured with any accuracy by the growing volume 

 of literature on the subject. We have just received the 

 "Arbor Day Manual," which is a stout octavo of 450 pages, 

 and handsomely illustrated. It has been prepared by Mr. 

 Charles R. Skinner, Deputy Superintendent of Public Schools 

 for the State of New York, and it contains selections in poetry 

 and prose on subjects relating to forests, trees, shrubs and 

 flowers, together with songs set to appropriate music, and 

 its declared purpose is to aid teachers in arranging pro- 

 grammes for the celebration of the festival. This is the 

 most elaborate treatise we have seen, but in some other 

 states the manuals are nearly as large, while in many others 

 a modest pamphlet prepared by some public officer is 

 deemed sufficient. In Colorado, for example, the Forest 

 Commissioner, Mr. Edgar T. Ensign, has issued a circular 



