August 13, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



39 > 



woods, and thence by a sharp ascent to a high point on the 

 very edge of the park, whence a pretty view will be had of the 

 pond at one's feet and the Merrimac Valley beyond, with the 

 state-house dome in the middle distance and near the middle 

 of the picture. All things considered, Concord is in a fair way 

 to possess one of the most charming small parks in America. 

 Why are gifts like this of Mrs. White to Concord not more 

 common ? Can any more valuable present to posterity be 

 imagined ? Perhaps they may be commoner when it comes to 

 be known that thereare now several park commissioners in this 

 country who do not consider it their first duty to destroy the 

 beauty which nature provides. Real landscape art is nothing 

 if it is not broad, simple and conservative of natural beauty. 

 It is. elaborate and gardenesque only in special circumstances. 

 Its old name of "landscape-gardening" must be discarded at 

 once, if the definition in the new Century Dictionary is correct. 

 Landscape art does not consist in arranging trees, shrubs, bor- 

 ders, lawns, ponds, bridges, fountains, paths or any other 

 tilings " so as to produce a picturesque effect." It is rather 

 the fitting of landscape to human use and enjoyment in such 

 manner as may be most appropriate and most beautiful in 

 any given spot or region. When this is generally understood 

 by the public and practiced by the profession, parks and coun- 

 try-seats will be so designed as to be not only well arranged 

 and beautiful, but beautiful in some distinctive and character- 

 istic way,' as is White Park at Concord. 



The Alleghanies of Virginia in June. — II. 



THE long, low colonial house at Eggleston's Springs, where 

 we spent the night after leaving Salt Pond Mountain, 

 stands in the centre of a wide, shady meadow, on the edge of 

 the swift, muddy New River, and a few hundred yards below 

 it are the fine limestone cliffs that rise up perpendicularly out 

 of the water, several hundred feet high. The climb over a 

 rough, stony trail to the top of this cliff is well repaid by the 

 view of the curving stream and its beautiful, wooded banks. 



On the highest ledge of the great buttresses grows the rare 

 Pachystima Canbyi, a low evergreen shrub, only a few inches 

 high, with narrow, serrulate leaves and curious yellowish roots. 

 There is very little of it on the ledges; most of the plants, per- 

 haps fortunately for their future, are quite inaccessible. It is 

 in very select society, too, up there on its rock. Berberis Cana- 

 densis is close by on the edge of the precipice, so is Rhus 

 Canadensis; and on the shady side of the cliffs, the Walking Leaf 

 (Crfmptosorus rhizophyllus) "walks "over the mossy rocks, 

 and quite a little company of Spleenworts (Asplenium Ruta- 

 viuraria, A.parvulum and A. Trichomanes), grow close together 

 under an overhanging boulder. Two pretty little white-flow- 

 ered plants, Arabis lyrata and Draba ramossissima, grow on 

 the cliffs, and Clematis Viorna, the Leather Flower, was in both 

 flower and fruit. The long vines were covered with the dark 

 reddish purple bells and the round, fluffy balls of the plumose- 

 tailed fruit, and they climb over the bushes and hot rocks, 

 where all down the face of one of the cliffs, in the blazing sun, 

 the dainty, frail-looking little Arenaria Michauxii blooms un- 

 disturbed, and the pale, stiff Pellaa atropurpurea, the Cliff-brake, 

 grows out of the many cracks. Asclepias variegata was just be- 

 ginning to open its compact umbels of white along the path, 

 bordered by dense clumps of Rosa hnmilis and little straggling 

 patches of Pentste?non pubescens, where the air was heavy with 

 the fragrance of innumerable wild Grape vines. 



Our next mountain trip was from Buchanan, on the beautiful 

 James River, to the Peaks of Otter, in the Blue Ridge, Bedford 

 County, and beyond the assurance that there was a hotel near 

 the Peaks, we could get no information from the natives at the 

 station. It had rained heavily while we were in the train com- 

 ing from Natural Bridge, the dust was laid, and from the start 

 the scenery was finer, the forests older and in better condition, 

 and last, but not least, the roads smooth and level in compari- 

 son with those on Salt Pond Mountain. 



The picturesque Scrub Pine (Pinus inops), growing close to 

 the road and scattered over the hills, made a delicious frag- 

 rance through the moist woods. The pretty Chinquapin (Cas- 

 tanea pumila) was in full bloom, and at a turn in the road, on 

 the edge of the dense jungle, was a great clump of it against 

 a background of the large, shiny leaves of the Black Jack Oak 

 (Quercus nigra) and tall, overhanging branches of the Sorrel- 

 Tree (Oxydendrum arboreum). The latter is almost a small 

 tree in some of the thickets, its long finger-like racemes then 

 covered with little round buds just ready to burst into bloom. 

 The most striking plant on the first ascent is the Goats-beard 

 (Spircea Aruncus), with tall, compound panicles of pure white, 

 feathery flowers. Big bunches of TephrOsia Virginiana fill the 

 spaces between the bushes with pretty pink and yellow spikes, 

 and the Fire Pink (Silene Virginicd) makes a splendid show, for 



anything more brilliant than its bright crimson stars would be 

 hard to imagine. Two golden-yellow flowers, an Evening 

 Primrose (Oenothera glauca) and Coreopsis verticillata, were 

 abundant on the road embankment, where the little dark red- 

 flowered Galium latifolium, the graceful pink clusters of 

 Asclepias quadrifolia and the stiff, white-flowered Euphorbia 

 corollata grow side by side. 



A little further up on this same enbankment we found the 

 wonderfully pretty little relative of Shortia, Galax aphylla. 

 The glossy, heart-shaped leaves are a bright light green, 

 closely covering the ground, and row after row of the tall, stiff 

 spikes stand up all through the underbrush. It had been just 

 ready to bloom ten days earlier on Salt Pond Mountain, but 

 here it was at its height, for the tall stems were covered to 

 their tips with the beautiful little white flowers. When we 

 reached the top of the first hill we sawfor the first time Kalmia 

 latifolia in all its glory of bright pink buds and great round 

 bunches of white flowers. We drove up through tall hedges of it, 

 the straggly, Japanese-looking shrubs filling the swamp with 

 patches of white against the light green young woods beyond; 

 and all around the edges of the marsh we found Oakesia pu- 

 berula, Anemone trifolia and Pogonia verticillata, all three 

 already in fruit, and on the top of the hill Parthenium integri- 

 folium and Amianthemicm musccEtoxicum. This latter plant, be- 

 longing to the Lily family, has tall spikes of flowers, and was so 

 abundant that the whole swamp was a waving mass of white, 

 while over everything twined and twisted the large, pointed 

 leaved vines of the Wild Jam-root (Dioscorea villosa). 



The road-sides are bordered by splendid round-topped 

 Chestnuts, Magnolia aacminata, in plenty, and here and there 

 a few Hemlocks along the water-courses. Some of the Oaks 

 are magnificent, and by far the finest of the larger trees on the 

 mountain. 



The road led under the brow of a long ridge for a couple of 

 miles, and at every turn the view grew grander and more 

 varied. It was eight o'clock before we reached the hollow be- 

 tween the two peaks, where we supposed the hotel was. Our 

 colored drivers, who, notwithstanding their protests to the 

 contrary, knew absolutely nothing about road or mountain, 

 were entirely at sea till an obliging farmer informed us that 

 the house was on the top of the mountain, and had been there 

 for the last twenty-five years, and that we could only drive a 

 few hundred yards further, after which we should have to walk 

 up 700 yards or so to the summit. The road was so steep that 

 we all left the wagons and walked in the gathering dusk to the 

 small log hut, where the horses were left, then in the pitch 

 darkness tried to keep in the narrow stony trail, and at ten 

 o'clock, a tired, bruised party, reached the "hotel," a small 

 log cabin and a tiny kitchen, perched between two huge 

 boulders on the windy summit. Mr. Rosser, the proprietor, 

 an old negro servant, and his daughter, the cook, some dogs 

 and chickens, and a flock of wild white Angora goats, are the 

 only inhabitants of this lonely eyrie, from which in all direc- 

 tions we could see, shining out of the darkness far down in 

 the valleys below, the lights of Roanoke, Lynchburg, Liberty 

 and those of the many smaller settlements grouped around 

 them. 



The accommodations were not luxurious, but we were pass- 

 ably comfortable, and when called at five o'clock were ready for 

 a day's hard climbing. The sunrise from behind the misty 

 Blue Ridge was a sober one that morning, but the view was 

 magnificent. Range after range of the forest-clad mountains 

 of West Virginia lay to the west, and at our feet a few wooded 

 valleys and foot-hills, and then the wide fertile plain that 

 stretches south through Virginia and North Carolina toward 

 the Atlantic. 



In the cracks of the rocks and among the loose stones all 

 about us, but only on the very top of the peak, grew luxu- 

 riantly Dicentra eximia, the long, drooping racemes of curious 

 pale pink flowers closely resembling those of the cultivated 

 Bleeding Heart. The two ornamental shrubs of the summit, 

 and the only ones, were Rhododendron Catawbiense, its big, 

 deep pink bells bright and fresh in the morning light, and the 

 American Mountain Ash (Primus Americana), a very striking 

 little tree, with wide, flat cymes of creamy white flowers. 

 Diervilla trifida grows quite bushy not far from the top, and 

 a projecting group of boulders, "The Needles," is carpeted 

 with the small Paronychia argyrocoma in dense silvery looking 

 mats. The Wild Columbine (Aquilegia Canadensis) was hang- 

 ing out its bright red and yellow bells up there twice the size 

 that they attain in the valleys. We found Lilium Grayi all 

 through the woods, but we were too early for the flowers, as 

 we were too late for those of Clematis verticillaris that grew 

 further down. 



Asarum arifolium was growing in a damp spot near the 



