April 30, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



211 



out in a ragged line; Hollyhocks are plucked from their stems; 

 Pansies are strung into a frieze ; rough little Chrysanthemums 

 are stuck up stiff and single. But Roses — it is Roses that are 

 most often attempted and most seldom portrayed. Years ago 

 we complained that they were always too hard ; now things 

 have changed — they are almost always too soft. Their color 

 has been the sole concern. Achieve this, the painter seems 

 to say, and what matter though they look as if made of a layer 

 of cotton wool without thickness or outline or velvety sur- 

 face ? The worst is that even color cannot be achieved unless 

 texture at least is given ; we may match the tint of a Rose- 

 petal in cotton wool, but the two tints will not be the same. 

 When, from time to time, we find evidence of an eye that has 

 seen the whole beauty of a flower and a hand that has had the 

 skill to render it, then we are indeed content, though we see 

 nothing more than one Rose on its stalk or two Carnations in 

 a tiny bottle. We are content, although the portrait can hardly 

 be called a picture, just as when, on the other hand, we find a 

 beautiful picture we are content if it only indicates the beauty 

 of the flowers that inspired the painter. To ask for everything 

 together is to ask what only the greatest masters of the brush 

 could give us. Indeed, it is doubtful whether any great mas- 

 ter has ever given us, could even give us, a canvas in which 

 we should have perfect pictorial beauty of an impressive 

 kind, and perfect portraiture of flowers as well. Yet nothing 

 is easier, thinks the amateur, than to paint flowers. 



An Old New England Bridge. 



THE bridge of which we give a picture on page 215 is on the 

 -^ old Boston and Newburyport Turnpike, and spans the 

 Ipswich River at Topsfield, where for fifty years it has borne 

 witness that such a structure can be at once rustic and monu- 

 mental looking, that it can show the most evident solidity and 

 yet harmonize perfectly with the natural aspect of the shores 

 between which it stretches. 



There is nothing about this bridge to show whether it stands 

 in New England or in Old England, and it would look as thor- 

 oughly at home in any country where stone of a similar kind 

 can be found. The semicircle is the simplest of all arched 

 forms, and is certain to be selected by primitive or rustic 

 builders; the comparatively shallow voussoirs, as small as is 

 compatible with safety, are likewise characteristic of men 

 whose desire is to build as cheaply as possible, and who think 

 of security rather than monumental effect ; and the irregular 

 shape and rough surface of the other stones, and their asso- 

 ciation without mortar, tell a similar story. On a small scale 

 it is the same sort of a wall that we find in the so-called 

 "Cyclopean" structures of primitive Greece. And work of 

 the same sort is still seen in the farm-walls of all parts of New 

 England where there are granite ledges to be easily split. 

 There is no reason why bridges of just this character could not 

 be built everywhere in these districts to-day ; and our picture 

 is sufficient proof of the desirability of building them. 



A dozen miles below Topsfield, at Ipswich, is the more 

 famous "Choate bridge," which was built about 1760, and 

 whose stone arches are still as sound, and a great deal more 

 beautiful, than when they were first erected. The Black Wil- 

 low, the White Maple, the Red Ash and the Swamp White 

 Oak here fringe the banks of the Ipswich, and make them 

 interesting, but the beauty of the river scenery is heightened 

 by these solid spans of time-colored stone. And yet to erect 

 them nothing was required but the unskilled labor of country 

 masons, guided by the instinct of some one who knew the 

 practical and artistic value of the simple round arch and the 

 massive wall. 



Our illustration is from a photograph by Rev. E. C. Bolles, 

 D.D., of this city, to whom we are indebted for its use. 



In a California Canon. 



A SPECTS of out-door life in California have often received 

 ■**■ literary treatment in the broad way, and on a large 

 scale. Yosemite and Shasta are known, and the forests of 

 giant Pine, close-carpeted with trailing Ceanothus, and the 

 mountain acres brilliant with Calochortus blooms. But many 

 a Californian can leave a thickly settled valley of orchards and 

 find himself, in ten minutes' walk, in a flower-crowded moun- 

 tain canon, flooded with April sunlight, and stirred by all the 

 springtide sounds and pulses. Perhaps Thoreau would have 

 thought this as wonderful and satisfying as to dwell in the 

 remote fastnesses of those Sierras that King, Whitney and 

 Muir have so finely revealed. 



The canon I have just visited is one of the many small ones 

 in the Coast Range on the eastern side of the Santa Clara 



Valley, sloping west. The sea- winds rise and pass over them, 

 and the fog drifts through the deeper river-cafions, so that 

 these short, steep ravines are warm and sheltered, full of 

 early pasturage and bloom. Their charm is in their nearness. 

 A hundred yards from the wide wheat fields and the closely 

 tended orchards of Apricots, Peach, Prune and Cherry, now 

 in the full current of bloom, carries one into the mouth of the 

 wooded canon, which rises sharply, with little turns and 

 pauses, to the outer crest of the Coast Range. If one goes 

 quite to the top, it is only half a mile, and a broad rolling 

 mesa with hill-tops rising over it extends several miles and 

 then descends to another valley. The canon consists of just 

 this wooded, steep half mile of ravine, and its flower-covered 

 sides sloping to the north and south. There are thousands of 

 such canons in California, and thousands that are much larger 

 and more imposing, but not more interesting to the lover of 

 hills and trees. 



There were flowers in bloom all winter in the sunny shelters 

 of this canon, not many, to be sure, but a few flame-colored 

 Eschscholtzias, the brilliant California Poppy and golden Mus- 

 tard, and the wild Pea by the brook. A month ago, even this 

 rainy and late season, the Larkspurs began to bloom on the 

 yellow shale in sheltered spots. The grass has been growing 

 everywhere since the first rains, and now, in these early 

 days of April, it is knee-high in many places, and the heads of 

 Wild Oats are half out of their sheathes. It is a tangle of 

 growth from the mossy rocks by the water's edge to the 

 windy summit of the hill. 



The place is locally known as " Morrison Canon," and the 

 little stream is Morrison Brook. At every step on the way 

 up its course, except when one is hidden under the great 

 Oaks and Maples, the slightest backward glance reveals the 

 sloping width of the orchard-planted valley, the Bay of San 

 Francisco and the purple San Mateo Mountains beyond, filling 

 up the whole western horizon. 



First, at the foot of the hills, between the Almond-orchard 

 and some one's vineyard sloping south, where the brook 

 crosses the lane, bordered with Willows and Sycamores, one 

 finds early blue and white Nemophilas in clusters in the grass, 

 one or two plants in a place. There are brilliant masses of 

 glowing Eschscholtzias, and above on the hill-side blue and pur- 

 ple Larkspurs {Delphinium simplex), and saucy Dodecatheons. 

 The cation begins, as most of them do, in well-pastured 

 slopes, but the bottom is full of Live Oaks, just in bloom, 

 Maples with leaves half grown, and Sycamores, Horse-chest- 

 nuts and Alders, all in the first rush of spring. 



Pretty soon, as we go on, the hillsides are seen to be cov- 

 ered with patches of color, in acre-wide splashes. Here and 

 there are Buttercups (Ranunculus Calif 'amicus), far more firm 

 in texture than those of New England, and lasting a week or 

 so in a flower-vase. There it is the pretty purplish blue Gilia 

 (G. jmilticaulis), mingled with the white G. dichotoma, and 

 Clovers, with half a dozen little Cruciferce and Composites that 

 make up in numbers for what they lack in individual glory. 

 Clumps of the scarlet Painted Cups (Castillegia foliosa) illu- 

 mine the hill-side. This fine perennial often has forty or fifty 

 heads on a single plant, and blooms most of the year. It 

 grows in clumps with the lovely red stemmed, " Rock-brake" 

 Ferns (Pellcea andromedafolia) that dot the warm hill-sides. 

 Such clusters as they make, too, in this old-fashioned 

 district, where even the children are careful not to destroy the 

 roots ! You gather all you care to carry from one or two 

 clumps. 



Since one has begun to seek the Ferns, a step below the 

 path into the shelter of the trees and rocks reveals (he Gold 

 Fern (Gymnogr amine triangularis), which children love to 

 gather and press on cloth to leave the pollen-stamp of dusky 

 yellow. Still further down the ravine at the bottom of the 

 canon the Gold Fern is more abundant, and with it, in moist, 

 mossy crevices of rock, are young pink-tinted and emerald 

 fronds of the delicate Adiantum emarginatum. On the north- 

 ern slopes are tall Chain Ferns (Woodwardias) and taller 

 bracken. There are white and purple Trilliums there, too, 

 and spicy-scented Wild Currants (Rides tcnuifolium) just 

 passing out of bloom, while higher up a mass of Holly-leaf 

 Cherry (Prunu s ilicifolia) is just beginning to flower. Some- 

 where about here there is a Cercis-tree that ought to be well 

 in blossom, and the pretty Wild Gooseberries are abundant. 

 Rides Menziesii has a little whitish flower, and after a while a 

 prickly, oval, red berry that children like. Rides divaricatum 

 has round, smooth, black berries, really excellent and worthy 

 of cultivation. 



On the hill-sides, close to the fragrant new-budded Oaks, 

 are massive, semi-tropic plants of the Balsamorhi/.a, with its 

 many-flowered yellow heads. Near them are groups of rose- 



