4H 



Garden and Forest. 



[August 27, 1890. 



The fact is that the florists of the country have been 

 doing a great deal in the way of introducing more simple 

 and quiet arrangements. Even in cut- flower decorations 

 the stiff and formal designs of a few years ago have been 

 superseded by more natural grouping and more delicate 

 shading in the colors used. Perhaps there is no real con- 

 flict between the two schools so-called, and that there is no 

 reason why each one should not appreciate the value of 

 the other. The statement made by Mr. Manning, of 

 Brookline, that we must recognize two distinct arts to 

 which the name of gardening is applied, seemed to be 

 generally accepted. Landscape gardening deals more 

 with the fundamental and permanent features of scenery, 

 while decorative gardening is confined to more contracted 

 spaces where the treatment may be highly ornamental 

 and modified every year. Neither one of these should 

 be adopted to the exclusion of the other, and the real 

 question is, under what conditions landscape gardening 

 proper is to be preferred to decorative gardening, or 

 how far the two can be used together without conflicting so 

 that each one would detract from the value of the other. 



It will hardly be disputed that formal beds of flowers 

 can be placed so as to disturb the quiet and unity of a 

 meadow, and that on the other hand a stretch of green 

 sward with its irregular border of shrubs and trees would 

 be an inappropriate setting for a brilliant piece of carpet 

 bedding. The fields for the exercise of good work in both 

 directions are sufficiently numerous. There is abundant 

 room for formal planting in connection with architectural 

 terraces and monumental buildings, and there is no reason 

 why persons who appreciate good work of this sort can- 

 not relish also the broad and park-like treatment of larger 

 public grounds. The discussion was interesting because 

 it proved that every year there is a larger number of 

 people who take correct views of the principles upon 

 which both kinds of gardening should be based. 



The Sacred Olive-Tree of Blidah. 



A PORTRAIT of the Olive-tree in the Garden of Gethsemane 

 was published in one of the early numbers of Garden 

 and Forest (i., page 284). Less widely known and less inter- 

 esting, certainly, to the peoples of western nations, are the 

 sacred Olive-trees of Blidah, one of which appears in our 

 illustration on page 419, although these trees have long been 

 reverenced by the inhabitants of Algeria, and are familiar to 

 travelers in that country. The sacred grove, of which our 

 tree is one of the largest individuals, was planted, so goes the 

 story, by the hand of a famous Marabout, who prophesied the 

 destruction of this modern Nineveh, in the days when Blidah 

 was known as the "wicked city," from the depravity of the 

 rich Arabs who flocked to it to pass the summer months. The 

 prophecy came true, for an earthquake, which lasted during 

 four days, destroyed in 1825 the lives of 7,000 of the inhab- 

 itants of Blidah, but spared the sacred grove and the tomb of 

 the prophet, Mohammed-el-Kebir, which it shades. 



Our illustration is from an Algerian photograph placed at 

 our disposal by Mr. Francis Skinner, of Boston. 



The Arboretum of Dr. Dieck at Zoeschen. 



AT the ancient Saxon city of Merseburg, built by the Em- 

 peror Henry the Fowler, one is truly in the heart of cen- 

 tral Germany. Immense plains, unfolding themselves toward 

 the distant hills which to west and north border the horizon 

 with a line of blue, a rich alluvial soil traversed by the Saale 

 and its tributaries, a whole province where spontaneous vege- 

 tation has, so to say, disappeared beneath an overlay of infi- 

 nitely careful cultivation — this is the aspect of the country 

 through which we pass on our way toward Zoeschen. Towns 

 and villages solidly built of hewn stone breathe of comfort 

 and give themselves the air of a German Goshen; they swarm 

 with a well dressed population and bear the seal of an ancient 

 civilization. 



" Here is Zoeschen," says the driver, and we traverse the 

 village, which is more exactly a little town, pretty and cleanly ; 

 and, at the end of a short street, diversified by rural-looking 

 gardens, we enter a verdurous avenue that, making a turn, 

 carries us along a bridge over a brook whose troubled waters 



show the effect of this eminently rainy summer. Another 

 turn among great trees, dominated by an enormous Canada 

 Poplar, and the carriage stops before the entrance of a fine 

 modern villa, where Dr. Dieck is standing to offer us the hos- 

 pitalities of his estate. 



This oasis of arboriculture, in the midst of the prose of end- 

 less fields of grain, is of recent origin. It does not impress 

 us by means of ancient trees or of magnificent perspectives 

 losing themselves in great forests. All these there are, but in 

 the distance. What Dr. Dieck calls the " National German 

 Arboretum " exists as yet only in an embryonic state, although 

 conceived on a grand scale. It has been laid out over an area 

 of six hectares, at a half hour's distance from the house and 

 the park, on low grounds rather too subject to the inundations 

 of the little River Lupa, a tributary of the Saale. The trees 

 and shrubs have been planted recently in groups, at well 

 judged distances from each other and with regard to the natu- 

 ral families to which they belong. Several unfavorable seasons 

 have but too greatly retarded their development and left wide 

 gaps which must be refilled. Everything that the catalogues 

 offered in the way of old acquaintances and of novelties be- 

 ginning to be somewhat known has been confided to the soil, 

 and it is proposed to add without delay the whole assortment 

 contained in the nurseries of Zoeschen, a truly astonishing 

 quantity. No difficulties daunt the proprietor. After three 

 consecutive years of the most discouraging sort, he has just 

 enriched the Arboretum with 300 new species or forms which 

 are not mentioned in any catalogue, even his own. An 

 old tile-factory, which adjoins the plantations, is about to be 

 renovated, and will serve as a botanical and silvicultural 

 laboratory. 



But, after all, the Arboretum is not the greatest glory of the 

 Zoeschen establishment, for, however grandly prepared, it is 

 as yet a work of the future, counting for little at the present 

 moment. While the Arboretum at Muskau, founded with 

 such fair hopes by Petzhold, is sadly dying on its sandy hill, 

 that at Zoeschen is but just emerging from the dampness of 

 its alluvial soil. A future generation will admire it, but what 

 impresses us to-day is the greatness of the idea conceived by 

 its founder. 



. Present interest centres chiefly in the nurseries, which sur- 

 pass those of Angers, and already rival those of Herr Spaeth, 

 near Berlin, and which include a vast collection of species, 

 forming an extraordinary collection of novelties, some of 

 which are of almost fabulous rarity. Dr. Dieck has a rare 

 energy and an inborn passion for the works of nature. He 

 travels widely and himself collects plants, seeds and insects ; 

 where he cannot go in person he sends his agents, and he per- 

 petually animates the pen and the industry of innumerable 

 correspondents in fulfilling his mission to disseminate the 

 vegetable species of the whole globe and enrich the flora of 

 his fatherland. The word impossible does not exist for him 

 when rare plants are to be won from foreign countries. A 

 mere private citizen, he has established solely for his own use 

 eight stations through central Asia from the Caucasus to the 

 Japanese island of Yezo and into the depths of Siberia, with a 

 branch toward the west embracing Bulgaria, Asia Minor and 

 Mount Lebanon. 



His nurseries now cover a space of 100 acres, which will 

 soon be increased to 125 acres, as large an area as can 

 be kept in good order. The great mass of the plantations 

 extend beyond the Arboretum, stretching toward a vast and 

 magnificent forest of Oaks and Lindens, Ashes and Maples, 

 which is called "The Great Wood," and which reaches nearly 

 to Leipsic, along the course of several little rivers. Here are 

 great plantations of forest and avenue trees ; there conifers 

 brave a climate which is unfavorable for them, often under 

 the protection of shutters and rushes. It is worthy of remark 

 that the German Fir {Abies pectinata), the natural area of 

 which extends as far as Lithuania, freezes here, and that the 

 Douglas Spruce does very poorly, while cert^n species re- 

 puted tender seem, on the contrary, entirely hardy. 



The seedling-beds of Zoeschen, which make the most astonish- 

 ing feature of the place, occupy an immense space back of the 

 park proper. A great enclosure protects them, as is likewise 

 the case with the conifers. Here one finds also the plantes de 

 la terre de bruyere of the Rhododendron class, Azaleas, Kal- 

 mias, Ilexes and other broad-leaved evergreen shrubs. It is 

 not too much to say that this last class contains marvels, as, 

 for example, among those most recently introduced, Rhodo- 

 dendron Ungerii, from the Caucasus, with brilliant foliage 

 silvered beneath ; Phillyrea Vilmoriniana,ivom the mountains 

 of Pontus ; Brtukenthalia spicnlijlora, from the Bythinian 

 Olympus; Quercus alnifolia, from Cyprus, which might better 

 be called Q. camellia/olio. ,• Eleutherococcus, from the Amour 



