OCTOBER 29, 189O.] 



Garden and Forest. 



523 



twelve Tulip-bulbs of no particular value ; and again, apropos 

 of the story that when Jove turned Io into a heifer 

 he invented the Violet that she might have suitable 

 food, he declares his intention of making a lawn ex- 

 clusively of Violets. The sparkling persiflage which is the 

 salt of the book is not spent on scientific men and Tulip- 

 growers only ; the poets come in for their share. While 

 botanists have made flowers dull and tedious and florists have 

 made them ridiculous, poets have vulgarized their beauty and 

 distorted their sentiment by the constant repetition of trivial 

 or misleading phrases. The Greeks, he declares, said five or 

 six pretty things about the Rose ; the Romans translated these 

 and added three or four more ; and later poets of all times 

 and lands have repeated them all, without adding anything 

 fresh, until we are bored to death by their reiteration. 

 Equally tiresome and more foolish is the way poets introduce 

 the name of a flower simply because it gives them an easy 

 rhyme. How often, for instance, do they speak of the Gladi- 

 olus, simply because it rhymes with the Linden (glaieul and 

 tilleul), making the flower, most often, grow beneath the tree 

 where no human eye has ever seen it. He gets quite excited 

 over the traditional but wholly fictitious love of the butterfly 

 for the Rose, and nothing could be more amusing than the 

 grave way in which he demonstrates that the Violet is anything 

 but " modest," as poets invariably assert. But to give a sample 

 of everything the "Voyage" contains would simply be to trans- 

 late the book. Suffice it to add that, while we can gather 

 from it no facts of genuine horticultural importance (it really 

 contains more facts about insects than about flowers), now and 

 then we come upon a stray word which shows the difference 

 between his time and ours. Madame Hardy was then a 

 novelty among Roses ; yellow Poppies, he says, were as im- 

 possible to find as green or blue ones, and he had never seen 

 a red one streaked with white; he pronounces green Roses 

 a foolish fiction, and says that, despite the great beauty of 

 Paeonies, they are despised by horticulturists and the rich, and 

 grow only in poor folks' gardens. In short, it is a book to 

 charm the lover of Nature in a general way and the lover of 

 graceful and brilliant writing — not a volume for serious 

 students. What we admire most as we close it is "the ex- 

 quisite delicacy of the senses," which he does not hesitate to 

 boast about himself, and the easy mastery of word and phrase 

 which shows on every page. 



The Livre de bord is also delightful in its way, which is dis- 

 tinctly anecdotal. And here, too, we occasionally get brief 

 glimpses of his passionate love of (lowers. He tells us in one 

 place that before he left Paris he came very near engaging to 

 write a large horticultural dictionary " on a novel plan." He 

 could not have helped making it charming, but we may well 

 doubt whether the world is much poorer in knowledge through 

 its abandonment. In another place he relates how he once 

 formed a " Romancer's Garden " by collecting the queer ref- 

 erences to plants and flowers which he chanced upon in the 

 writings of his day. In it he planted a blue Carnation, discov- 

 ered by Janin; a Chrysanthemum, likewise blue, which George 

 Sand had possessed; a Camellia "of intoxicating perfume," 

 invented by Rolle ; a black Tulip belonging to Dumas, a 

 climbing Azalea for which Balzac was responsible, and very 

 many Mowers which had bloomed out of season in the grounds 

 of Eugene Sue and other romancers. It was for the compiling 

 of catalogues of this sort, not of prosaic dictionaries, that 

 Alphonse Karr was born. Yet he seems to have known how 

 to grow plants so as to please the buying public as well as to 

 delight himself, and we are glad to think of him spending his 

 long last years — fully half his patriarchal life — solely occupied 

 in gardens under the delicious sky of Riviera. 



New York. M- G. Van Rensselaer. 



Max Leichtlin's Garden. 



IT is twelve years since I first visited the far-famed garden of 

 Hen* Max Leichtlin, at Baden, and though I have more than 

 once attempted to describe it in the Gardeners' Chronicle there 

 is always something new to be said. Within a few years it has 

 been increased in size, but it is still far too small to contain the 

 fine plants and bulbs which are brought together from all parts 

 of the world through the skill, liberality and ardor of its owner. 

 There must be something in the climate of Baden which is 

 very favorable; for, although in winter the frost and snow are 

 quite as severe, or even moreso, than in the midland counties 

 of England, and in summer the heat is usually greater, plants 

 from such varied localities as Asia Minor, South Africa, Chili, 

 Sikkim and California all seem to succeed equally well. This, 

 in some instances, is no doubt due to the special provision 



made for their culture, and in others to the fresh soil which is 

 frequently renewed in the numerous frames and beds. 



Any one who has cultivated a large number of small bulb- 

 ous plants in close proximity to each other knows how hard it 

 is to keep them from becoming intermixed and to find room 

 in suitable positions for the accessions which are constantly 

 coming in. Herr Leichtlin has always been, and is now more 

 than ever, an advocate for rigid selection, and he will grow 

 nothing that is weedy, of bad habit, or easily increased by ordi- 

 nary cultivators, but devotes his attention as a propagator and 

 a hybridizer only to such plants as are new, rare or difficult to 

 manage. He annually throws away many plants which would 

 be highly prized by less intelligent collectors. But he never 

 forgets a really good plant, and spares no effort to secure and 

 prove the value of every species in any genus for which he has 

 a special liking. 



The practical experience of Herr Leichtlin during thirty years 

 of gardening would make a work of interest and value to the 

 botanist as well as to the gardener. This is specially true with 

 regard to hardy plants. The feature of his garden at this time 

 are Irises, which he has lately introduced from Asia Minor. 

 Though but a few of these plants were still in flower on the 

 17th of May, they were worth a journey to see. The first 

 plant which attracted my attention on entering the gar- 

 den was a good specimen of Ferula Narthex in full flower. 

 This has been sixteen years in attaining sufficient strength to 

 bloom, and though not a showy plant, it is a very striking one. 

 The branches when broken exude a white sap which produces 

 the drug known as assafcetida, and which, though so unpleas- 

 ant in its smell, is, when judiciously used by a skilled cook, an 

 agreeable and valuable ingredient in many dishes. The next 

 wonder was Iris Lor teti, a very rare and splendid species allied 

 to/. Susiana, but much more beautiful in color, and seemingly 

 difficult to cultivate. Iris Gatesii, from Asia Minor, is of the 

 same section, but even finer, and seems much more amenable 

 to cultivation. It was sent out for the first time this sum- 

 mer. Iris Inpina and Iris paradoxa are two species rivaling 

 Masdevallia Chimara in beauty of structure and delicate, 

 though not showy, coloring. Long beds of /. Bakeriana, I. 

 Bomviulleri, which is supposed to be the same as /. Dan- 

 fordice, I. Persica purpurea and several others, though now 

 long past bloom, and in many instances ripening seed freely, 

 must have been a splendid sight in the winter, when they 

 braved the snow and frost with impunity. Fine varieties of 

 /. Korolkowi, I. Iberica and many others were either flower- 

 ing or just about to flower, and quantities of labels without 

 names showed that many surprises are in store. 



Herr Leichtlin, like all good bulb-growers, takes up annually 

 almost all bulbous and tuberous rooted plants which have not 

 some special peculiarity ; he also puts glasses or lights over 

 many things in order to ripen them more thoroughly and to 

 protect them from the frequent thunderstorms which prevail in 

 this valley. The collection of Nerines and Kniphofias is quite 

 unrivaled, and many seedlings are being raised both from 

 selected plants of the best species in these genera and from 

 crosses made between species which appeared capable of im- 

 provement in color or habit. It is delightful to see that how- 

 ever small, insignificant or difficult to manage a plant may be, 

 every care is given it, provided it belongs to a good genus or 

 has anything to recommend it. Many plants which have been 

 lost almost everywhere, are to be found here awaiting the dis- 

 covery either of the secret of their propagation or the intro- 

 duction of something better of the same character. Among 

 other beautiful or curious plants which I saw were Jankaa 

 Heldreichii, allied to Ramondia and one of the rarest of 

 European alpines, which had been procured with great diffi- 

 culty from Mount Olympus in Thessaly; Geranium Balkanum, 

 with fragrant leaves and pretty, deep rose colored flowers freely 

 produced ; Onosvia albo-roseum, with hoary, grayish leaves, 

 and numbers of flowers, which are white when first opened, 

 but change to rose color afterward ; Gladiolus Kotscliyanus, 

 a fine hardy species, quite unique in color ; a wonderful 

 double Tree Pasony of a deep lake; a very fine white Aquilegia, 

 A. Californica alba, which, though self-sown, was flowering 

 beautifully inthechinks of the large stones with which the nar- 

 row terraces are faced. This system of terracing, very similar to 

 that adopted by vine-growers on rocky hill-sides, is calculated 

 not only to combine depth of soil with thorough drainage, but 

 to accumulate and store up all the sun heat possible. It 

 may not be so picturesque as the ordinary English rock-garden, 

 but for growing many plants which will not thrive in a flat 

 border it is more effective ; the species are much more easy 

 to keep separate than when they are divided only by small 

 pieces of rock or stones. I observed a small covered jar placed 

 beside the plants, the seed of which was ripening ; this was 



