198 



Garden and Forest. 



[April 23, 1890. 



" Bilhagh " and'" Bircklands," under the sturdy branches of 

 the "Major Oak" and by some of its hardly less famous 

 companions, and then, leaving the forest and skirting the 

 park and woods of Welbeck, it returns to Worksop through 

 rich farm-lands held by tenants of the Duke of Portland. 

 Newsted Abbey, the home of Byron, is within easy driving- 

 distance of Worksop, and forty miles away in the other 

 direction is Chatsworth, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire. 

 This short sketch is not meant as an account of Sherwood 

 Forest or of "the Dukeries. " They are described over and 

 over again in books which treat of rural England, and in 

 the pages of English journals of horticulture. Our object 

 in alluding to them is to remind our readers that if they 

 visit England they can see in the neighborhood of Work- 

 sop, better perhaps and more easily than anywhere else, 

 what rural life means to English noblemen. 



The great advance in horticulture during the last twenty 

 or thirty years is due largely to the sustained and intelli- 

 gent efforts of those specialists who have devoted them- 

 selves to the study and improvement of particular classes 

 of plants. Such men, for obvious reasons, have been more 

 numerous in Europe, particularly in England, than they 

 have been in this country. We can point, however, to 

 conspicuous instances of long continued horticultural ex- 

 periments in America, and as wealth and leisure increases 

 here they will probably become more frequent than they 

 have been. Mr. Hunnewell, who relates in another col- 

 umn the conclusions he has reached from long years of 

 patient cultivation of the Rhododendron, shows us what 

 an individual interested in a particular class of plants can 

 accomplish in increasing, the stock of available knowl- 

 edge relating to his favorites. Mr. Hunnewell has for 

 nearly forty years been the most munificent patron of hor- 

 ticulture in America, and his gardens at Wellesley, in Mas- 

 sachusetts, are famous from one end of the land to the 

 other. But unlike many another horticultural Maecenas, 

 he does not content himself with the mere lavishing of 

 money in gardening, but practices the art himself, knowing 

 his plants and all their requirements thoroughly, and de- 

 voting himself year after year, and often in the face of 

 great disappointments, to the study of his favorite Rhodo- 

 dendrons and of the great collection of conifers for which 

 his garden is also celebrated. 



When the cultivation of Rhododendrons was first under- 

 taken at Wellesley little was practically known of the pro- 

 per methods of growing them in the United States, and 

 nothing at all of the sorts suited to our climate. To give 

 a full and fair test to all attainable varieties of these plants 

 demanded rare steadiness of purpose, but Mr. Hunnewell's 

 patient labors were renewed year after year with never 

 flagging zeal and enthusiasm. When his first Rhododen- 

 drons were planted, it was believed by most Americans 

 who knew anything whatever about them that any effort 

 to cultivate them here in the open air would be hopelessly 

 wasted. But forty years of experiment has proved that 

 many of the very best varieties will grow in New England 

 as readily as a Lilac or a Guelder Rose, if certain sim- 

 ple cultural conditions are supplied. That such men as 

 Mr. Hunnewell, generous, public-spirited and patient in 

 pursuit of knowledge, appear occasionally among us, is 

 certainly the most hopeful sign that American horticulture 

 is advancing to the broader and better fields we confi- 

 dently predict for it. 



The proposal of the Park Board of this city to remove 

 the collection of animals in Central Park from their present 

 quarters to a larger space of open meadow on the opposite 

 side of the park has called forth a vigorous protest from 

 the entire press of New York. The objections to this 

 scheme are not based on the opinion that the ground now 

 occupied by the menagerie is a suitable one, nor on the 

 assumption that a good zoological garden is not altogether 

 a worthy object to strive for, but on the conviction that the 

 open spaces of the park are too valuable to be sacrificed to 



any exhibition of the sort, however desirable in itself. Our 

 own belief is that this conservative view cannot be too 

 strenuously insisted upon. It is these tranquil meadow sur- 

 faces which make the park efficient as a refreshment and a 

 relief from the rigid lines of streets and buildings ; and the 

 paramount duty of all who have any influence in these 

 matters is to guard against any possible encroachment 

 upon these areas of greensward and their border of trees. 

 These open meadows, of which there are now too few, 

 and which were created at great expense, constitute the 

 primary and essential value of the park, and to obliterate 

 them is a practical confiscation of public property. It is 

 encouraging to find that every attempt on the part of any 

 special interest to occupy and possess these grassy openings 

 gives occasion for the people and the press of the city to 

 demonstrate how profound is their appreciation of the true 

 function and the highest purpose of the park. 



Native Shrubs of California. — III. 



Garrya elliptica, Dougl. ('* Bot. Reg.," t. 1686). From the 

 figure given in the " Botanical Register " more than fifty years 

 ago, taken from a specimen which had flowered in England, 

 one would not infer that the species deserved mention among 

 the really very ornamental shrubs of California. Perhaps it 

 did not find in England a congenial climate. In its native lo- 

 calities among the Coast Mountains, growing, in clumps, from 

 six to ten feet high, with its dark green, leathery, wavy-mar- 

 gined foliage, it is never unsightly ; while at flowering time it 

 appears very uniquely beautiful. The inflorescence, while 

 ameutaceous, and therefore like that of Alders and Birches in 

 kind, is of a much more showy character. The tassels, those 

 of the male shrub being commonly eight or ten inches long, 

 very slender, and of a pale green which harmonizes well with 

 the dark hue of the foliage, are hung forth from two to four or 

 five in a place, at the ends of all the branches and branchlets ; 

 and being of such length, some of them fall across lower 

 branches and often hang in festoons, draping most gracefully 

 and attractively the whole bush. The flowering occurs usually 

 in early February, after the first week of mild, sunny spring 

 weather; and the long light chains of pale olive green, natur- 

 ally of only ten days' duration at best, are sure to be gathered 

 from the bushes, almost before their full development, by af- 

 ternoon strollers in quest of earliest wild flowers.; 



One or two other species of Garrya, found southward in 

 the state, or in the mountains of the interior, are less orna- 

 mental ; but by virtue of the strongly tonic property of their 

 bark, they are well known to miners and mountaineers, who 

 employ them as a remedy in ague and intermittent fevers. 

 The bark of the Cornel or Dogwood of the Atlantic States has 

 the same qualities ; and there are botanical systematists who 

 consider the Garrya and the Cornus as belonging to the same 

 family, although they bear not the least external resemblance 

 to each other. All the Garryas have, however, the same fine- 

 grained, very hard wood as the Cornel. But for its uniquely 

 beautiful appearance when in flower our Garrya elliptica de- 

 serves a conspicuous place in every shrubbery. Lindley 

 described it as hardy in England ; but it is doubtful whether 

 it would endure well the dry cold of the New England winter. 



Ribes tenuiflorum,\AX\<SS.. ("Bot. Reg.," t. 1274). I must speak 

 first of the bibliography of this, our Californian Yellow Cur- 

 rant; for I have long perceived that all American writers of 

 the present generation confuse it with the Missouri Currant 

 (7?. aureiim). The two species are entirely distinct, as I have 

 clearly seen ever since my earliest years in California. The 

 last-named does not grow either in California or anywhere 

 west of the Rocky Mountains. The former is found along the 

 eastern bases of the Colorado mountains and for some dis- 

 tance eastward. The confusion of the two began with Pursh, 

 who, in 1814, had both in mind when he described his R. 

 aureum. According to Lindley, Pursh's dried specimens were 

 of the far western shrub from the Columbia River-region, not 

 then introduced into England, and his description was drawn 

 up from living bushes of the true Missouri Currant, at that 

 time already in cultivation there. Nuttall had in 1818 indi- 

 cated that he considered it to be two varieties of the R. au- 

 reum; but Lindley in 1829 made clear the specific differences, 

 and gave the name R. tenuiflorum to the Pacific coast species, 

 reserving the name R. aureum for the one then best known, 

 giving as his reason the fact that this had been the shrub from 

 which Pursh had drawn up his specific character. Both spe- 

 cies are figured in the "Botanical Register," R. aureum, at /. 

 125; but they are represented in flower only; and if these plates 



