!22 



Garden and Forest. 



[May 7, 1890. 



It is a matter' of rare occurrence that names of botanists, 

 often associated in scientific language with the names of 

 trees, gain any real foothold in popular language. 

 Magnolia, a name which commemorates the scientific 

 labors of Pierre Magnol, a French botanist of two centuries 

 ago, is a conspicuous exception in this country, and our 

 great evergreen Magnolia is only known to the people liv- 

 ing in those parts of the southern states where it grows as 

 "Magnolia." The name of David Douglas is occasionally 

 associated in British Columbia with the Fir-tree which he dis- 

 covered, but "Douglas Spruce" can hardly be said to have 

 established itself very firmly or very generally yet in the 

 language of the people of any part of western America. 

 Cases are less rare where the names of scientific worthies, 

 perpetuated in the names of plants other than trees, are in 

 common use ; but trees, which are usually of importance 

 to man or sufficiently conspicuous to attract his attention, 

 obtain naturally local vernacular names before science 

 imposes others on them, and the common names once 

 engrafted on a language, almost always hold their own 

 among the people of the country where the trees are found. 

 It was a matter, therefore, of much interest and some sur- 

 prise to hear recently, in western Florida, the Torreya taxi- 

 folia, one of the rarest of all our trees, spoken of generally 

 as the " Torrey-tree " ; and to find that Stinking Cedar, the 

 unattractive name by which this tree was first known to 

 the inhabitants of western Florida, was gradually being 

 replaced by that of one of the Nestors of American botany. 

 The reason for this change is found perhaps in the fact that 

 this tree, from its rarity, the interest attached to the geo- 

 graphical distribution of the small genus to which it be- 

 longs, and the reverence which his successors have always 

 felt for the name of John Torrey, has several times been 

 visited in its remote and isolated stations on the banks of 

 the Appalachicola by men of science from distant parts 

 of the country. When the people of the region, therefore, 

 found that men of mature years and apparently in the 

 enjoyment of all their faculties had journeyed thousands 

 of miles merely to look at a tree which they had always 

 considered as valuable only because it furnished inde- 

 structible material for fence posts, their own interest and 

 curiosity became aroused ; and therefore hearing these 

 eccentric strangers talking always about Torrey and 

 Torreya, the name has gradually become fixed, and now 

 "Torrey-tree" may often be heard in at least two or three 

 counties of west Florida. 



Sir Dietrich Brandis offers the advice about the care of 

 our forests, which appears in another column. If the voice of 

 any man speaking words of warning on this subject is 

 worth listening to, it is the voice of Sir Dietrich, or, as he 

 is, still, better known, Dr. Brandis. No one better realizes 

 the evils which follow excessive forest-destruction, or 

 the possibilities of forest-administration. He it was who 

 planned and successfully executed the scheme of forest-ad- 

 ministration for India, one of the triumphs certainly of 

 modern administrative genius. Forest-administration in 

 India was established in the face of immense local opposi- 

 tion without the assistance of trained or adequate sub- 

 ordinates of any sort, and under natural and social condi- 

 tions of great difficulty. The government forests of India 

 were thirty years ago in as great peril as our own western 

 forests are now, and the methods by which our forests are 

 to be saved are very similar probably to the methods 

 which Brandis put into execution, and which, at the end of 

 a comparatively few years, not only secured the perma- 

 nency of the Indian forests, but made them yield a large 

 and steadily increasing income. No man who has yet 

 spoken of our forests has done so out of such full knowl- 

 edge of forest-conditions almost identical with our own, 

 or with such extended knowledge gained in actual forest- 

 administration, conducted on a vast scale and carried on 

 under conditions which, at the outset, must have seemed 

 well nigh hopeless to him and his friends. 



Some Old American Country-Seats. 

 VI.— Hyde Park. 



T N the days of the Revolution, Dr. Samuel Bard was a lead- 

 *■ ing physician of New York. He was a decided Tory in 

 feeling, yet he was a friend of Washington, and when the war 

 was over, instead of migrating, he retired to a country house 

 by the Hudson. He purchased his lands of the famous "nine 

 partners," and named his seat in honor of Sir Edward Hyde, 

 one of the Colonial governors of New York. 



Hyde Park is to-day the name of a station on the Hudson 

 River Railroad, the first stop above Poughkeepsie. The trav- 

 eler who alights here looks in vain for any village, and after 

 following the one road a little way, he finds himself beside a 

 foaming waterfall, and sees beyond the stream a wide-spread 

 and apparently unoccupied country-side, composed of woods, 

 grass-lands, hills and vales, which he rightly conjectures to be 

 Hyde Park proper. If the public road be followed as it winds 

 up the valley to its junction with the old Albany post-road at 

 Hyde Park Corner, and then the post-road be taken northward, 

 the main gate of the park will be reached; but the park may 

 also be entered from the river-side below the waterfall in 

 Crown Elbow Creek. 



A bridge, which leads to a landing on the bank of the Hud- 

 son, here spans the creek, and a narrow road enters the park 

 in very modest fashion just beyond the bridge. Beginning at 

 this gate, a belt of woodland stretches northward for perhaps 

 a mile along the bank of the river, occupying the summits of 

 the little crags and knolls which here make the rocky shore ; 

 and enclosing many charming bits of rocky woodland scenery. 

 Parallel with the river, and just east of the wood, lies a gently 

 hollowed valley of smooth grass-land, beautifully fringed by the 

 waving edge of the dense wood on the one hand, and on the 

 other rising with concave lines to meet the sharply ascending 

 curves of a high, steep and grassy bank, which, with the great 

 trees near its summit, bounds the scene on the east. 



The little road which enters by the bridge commands one 

 or two views of this bank and the long, green glade at its foot, 

 and then it turns to follow the windings of the stream which 

 comes dashing down over rough ledges and under shadowy 

 Hemlocks on the right. The valley narrows until there is only 

 just room enough for the stream and the road; and here a foot- 

 path breaks off to the left, and taking a rapidly rising open 

 ridge, plainly indicates its intention to gain the summit of the 

 high bank with the great trees which was lately in view. The 

 road continues up the winding glen, passing by several pretty 

 waterfalls; and, bye and bye, where the valley broadens and 

 the stream is held back by a low dam, it joins the main ap- 

 proach-road, which here bridges the creek on its way from the 

 Albany highway to the house. The united roads next ascend 

 by one easy zigzag to a broad plateau of grass-land, set with 

 numerous and variously grouped and scattered trees of noble 

 age and stature, between the trunks of which the house soon 

 appears in the distance. (See the picture on page 226.) This 

 level ground is both wide and long, and its strikingly simple, 

 open and stately effect is greatly heightened by the fact that 

 from every part of it is visible in the west, beyond and behind 

 all the massive tree trunks, an indefinite expanse of blue dis- 

 tance. When the house is reached, by the road just described 

 or by the footpath before mentioned, it is seen to stand close 

 to the brink of the plateau; in other words, upon the verge of 

 the irregular, mile-long grassy bank the visitor saw first from 

 below. The sudden descent of this bank, and the character of 

 the trees upon it — chiefly old Chestnuts and Oaks — are shown 

 in the picture on page 227. Some of the largest trees lean 

 outward from the bank, and most of them grip the ground 

 with a vigor befitting veterans who have long wrestled with 

 the gales. 



The view from the bank near the house embraces perhaps 

 ten miles up and down the mighty river, with the varied oppo- 

 site bank, and the wooded promontories near Staatsburg ; 

 and, in the far distance, the blue ridges of the highlands below 

 Newburgh, the dark outlines of the Shawangunks in the west, 

 and the pale summits of the Catskills in the north. Fore- 

 ground, middle distance and distance are presented here with 

 sharp definition. This is a scene not surpassed on the upper 

 Hudson, unless the better composition of the river view from 

 Ellerslie should place that wonderful picture first. 



As the illustrations show, the house at Hyde Park is of a some- 

 what stiff and cold type; but it is simple and dignified, and in 

 this respect is well fitted to its imposing site. Its south 

 and west sides meet the grass of the park, its east side is the 

 entrance front, and to its north-east corner is attached an 

 ample kitchen and laundry yard, reached by a special road 

 from the Albany highway, which, abreast of the house, has 



