626 



Garden and Forest. 



[December 24, 1890. 



fulfilled; the most important is to procure for the strangers 

 houses and retreats where they can find shelter and can rear 

 their young in 'safety. Numerous laws have been adopted in 

 France for the protection of insectivorous birds, although none 

 of them have yet produced any very satisfactory results. And 

 this must always be the case as long as people cannot be made 

 to understand that birds need places of refuge in which to 

 build their nests and breed without fear of being disturbed by 

 man, or by dogs, cats and other destructive animals. 



The stupid destruction of nocturnal carnivorous animals, 

 like owls, bats, etc., is one of the great agricultural errors of 

 our time, and it is safe to say that the enormous losses in 

 crops due to rats, mice and various insects are largely in con- 

 sequence of this error. Rabbits in Australia are ruining crops, 

 and still they might be got rid of by introducing the great owl 

 (Stryx bubo), the special enemy of rabbits, and other large car- 

 nivorous animals like eagles, which are not rare in the south of 

 France. It is certainly astonishing in this era of progress that 

 the world does not know better how to make use of such as- 

 sistance as nature offers us free of charge. 



villa Thuret, Antibes. Charles Nail din. 



Why Private Grounds Should be Enclosed. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — The article on " Private Grounds in Cities and Towns" 

 in your issue of December 10th prompts me to make a plea 

 for enclosures, for the appearance of privacy in the grounds 

 about a house, as the matter is in my mind everyday as I look 

 about my own neighborhood. I am glad that Mr. Baxter ad- 

 mits the "great charm in a 'close,'" but I regret that he 

 treats it as almost an impossibility in this age and country, 

 and wholly at variance with our habits and character, some- 

 thing to be relinquished with a sigh rather than to be sought 

 and striven for. 



I know nothing of landscape-gardening, and speak merely 

 as a suburban dweller, accustomed to see his own small 

 grounds and those of his friends from within and to look on 

 the property of others from without, and to feel that from 

 whichever point the usual surroundings of an American sub- 

 urban house are looked at, their attraction depends chiefly on 

 the extent to which they give an impression of privacy. It is 

 true that a low, open fence of rails or palings gives little pri- 

 vacy, and, unless covered with vines, may be unsightly; but 

 thick, high, graceful hedges, while grown less easily than in 

 Europe, are possible with care, and should by all means be 

 encouraged. A private lawn, be it large or small, with noth- 

 ing to separate it from the public street, looks, to me, un- 

 dressed and undignified. 



Why is not the desire for privacy thoroughly healthy and 

 sensible ? So long as a man surrounds his property with 

 nothing unsightly, his duty to the public is done. He cannot 

 be called upon to share his grounds with them. We attach a 

 great deal of importance to the idea of home, priding our- 

 selves upon the home-loving spirit as something peculiar to 

 our race. Who could take pleasure in a home with no front 

 walls to the rooms, or with those walls of glass so that every 

 passer-by could see all that was going on? — and yet why should 

 the house alone be home, why should not the home idea in- 

 clude the grass and trees and flowers about a house ? 



Then, too, barriers, as was said in Garden and Forest last 

 year (vol. ii., p. 193), give "the element of mystery, of sur- 

 prise and expectancy, the impression and promise of some- 

 thing still before us and beyond what we can see, which may 

 minister a fresh delight." Why should the public be refused 

 the pleasures of imagination as to what may lie behind the 

 hedge, and be given only the cold, hard facts of a small grass 

 plat and a few regulation dwarf trees and stiff flower-beds ? 



I believe that the first step of most village improvement 

 societies is to seek to remove whatever separates private 

 grounds from the street. By this they cut at the root of that 

 public spirit and that love of the picturesque which they seek 

 to gratify and develop. No man will care much to make the 

 village attractive who does not care to make his own grounds 

 so; and how much is he likely to care about them when he re- 

 gards them not as part of his own home, but merely as an ad- 

 junct to the street ? Again, the desire to see into a neighbor's 

 grounds, to enjoy his property without cost, regardless of how 

 much his own use of it may be abridged thereby, is the very 

 opposite of public spirit. These societies may do well to attack 

 unsightly fences; but they should recommend something bet- 

 ter in their place, and remember that the love of due privacy 

 is not to be condemned, for it is generally found closely allied 

 to the love of the beautiful and the love of nature. 



Mount Airy, Philadelphia. Charles C. Bhlliey . 



Autumn Colors in Oregon. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — In a contribution to Garden and Forest last year con- 

 cerning the autumnal coloring of this region I failed to men- 

 tion one of the most interesting plants of our western flora, 

 the Azalea of . the Pacific coast, Rhododendron occidentale, 

 known here almost universally as the " Honeysuckle." This 

 popular name has descended to it, doubtless, from its eastern 

 cousins, R. viscosum and R. nudiflorum, which are commonly 

 called by this name. It is a handsome shrub, quite abundant 

 in many wooded districts. In others it is seen only now and 

 then near the borders of streams, or sometimes forming 

 handsome clumps in some neglected corner of the field. But, 

 wherever seen, in the fall of the year its leaves glow with such 

 a profusion of scarlet and crimson mingled with the gold and 

 green, that it produces the most delightful effects, which are 

 none the less pleasing, it seems to me, than those it produces 

 when in full flower. 



Primus subcordata, the wild Plum of this region, should also 

 have been mentioned. The wild Plum sometimes becomes 

 a small tree, but is seen generally as a small shrub three to 

 four or five feet in height. It often sets the whole country- 

 side ablaze in the autumn with the abundance of its scarlet 

 and crimson colors, mingled, of course, with red and yellow, 

 and garnished with a sprinkling of green. 



Just at this time (November 27th), however, most of our de- 

 ciduous trees and shrubs are stripped of their foliage, only a 

 few of the Cottonwoods and Alders, and sometimes the 

 sprouts about the base of a felled Oak, still holding a portion 

 of their leaves. But the Willows have been conspicuous for 

 the past week or two by the bright yellow of their leaves. 

 These flame out into the brightest of yellow colors just as the 

 deeper and richer scarlets and crimsons and reds are about 

 dying out. The Willows here rarely form trees, but grow 

 mostly in great clusters of slender, wand-like stems, the younger 

 sprouts being very handsome in the winter with the polished 

 green and red of their bark. 



But in the cultivated orchards many of the Pear, Peach and 

 Apple-trees still hold their leaves. The Prunes and Plums and 

 Cherries, however, are bare. I notice that the Periwinkle 

 {Vinca), which our people here almost universally call " Myr- 

 tle," and a few other garden plants, are yet in bloom, with ex- 

 panding flower-buds on late blooming Roses. 



Wimer, Ore. E. W. Hammond. 



Planting a Screen. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir. — I , have been wishing to plant as a screen and for 

 variety some Staghorn and Glabrous Sumachs, and have hunted 

 for suggestions as to the best method of transplanting to secure 

 the best and speediest results. In early November I selected the 

 best specimens I could find on the road-side and put them in 

 rather poor and shallow soil. The specimens I selected were as 

 tall as any I remember to have seen, the Staghorn certainly 

 eight feet high, the other, I should think, four to five feet 

 high. Then I had a thick mulch of coarse manure applied, and 

 in December I contemplate cutting them down about one- 

 third. Can you suggest any treatment better than this ? 



Win, A. Jenner. 



[The mulching and cutting back are good treatment. 

 Perhaps smaller plants would have been preferable. — Ed.] 



Sporting of Chrysanthemums. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — The variable coloring of Chrysanthemums forms an 

 interesting subject for speculation and research, and can 

 hardly be studied too minutely. At least one or two features 

 of this tendency to sport I have not seen mentioned in print. 

 Several years ago I bought a single plant of Fair Maid of 

 Guernsey, a white variety with almost globe-shaped flowers 

 and finely quilled petals. Next season I raised several plants 

 from the original one, and was surprised to notice that while 

 some of them flowered after the fashion of the old stock, 

 others produced a flat flower, with petals as broad and open as 

 Elaine or Puritan. At that time I had but the single variety, 

 and there were no other Chrysanthemum cultivators in the 

 vicinity. The sporting apparently all occurred in one season, 

 and the variation appears to remain true, though of that I can- 

 not speak positively. The original plant from which all the 

 others came is still in existence and has not changed its ap- 

 pearance. I have now marked several specimens of both 

 forms and shall watch them carefully. 



