52 



Garden and Forest. 



(January 30, 1889. 



idea of greater extension of the garden. By a similar theory 

 the spaces immediately behind the nearer hills should be left 

 open and not filled with detail. There are five principal hills 

 specified for gardens. ... in the Finished style. Hill No. 

 I forms the most central feature of the nearer distance. 

 . . . As it represents a near mountain of considerable size, 

 it should have broad and sweeping sides, and may have a 

 pathway and a little house or pavilion upon it. Hill No. 2 

 should be placed adjacently to No. i, a cascade and rocks 

 often dividing the space between the two. It is secondary to 

 No. I, and should be somewhat smaller and of different char- 

 acter. Hill No. 3 is placed upon the other side of No. i near 

 the base of its broad slope and more in the foreground ; it 

 suggests the idea of a lower hill divided from the main moun- 

 tain by a depression. This depression may be supposed to 

 be occupied by a hamlet, road or stream, in which case its 

 sides should be clothed with a few thick-foliaged trees or 

 shrubs to add to the impression of a sheltered and inhabited 

 dale. No. 4 is a small hill generally introduced into the near 

 foreground ; it should have none of the characteristics of a 

 large mountain, should be low, rounded and covered with 

 much detail in the form of stones, shrubs and flowers. Hill 

 No. 5 is in the remotest part of the garden, and, as it repre- 

 sents a distant mountain, it should be steep and mysterious 

 without much detail." 



This, then, in general terms, is the scheme upon which a 

 Japanese constructs one type of garden, varying it, of course, 

 in multitudinous ways to suit the suggestions of the site or 

 the leanings of his individual taste. It may seem at first 

 thought as though, while avoiding artificiality in one direc- 

 tion, the artist who works thus falls- into it in another direc- 

 tion — our idea of a "natural" landscape arrangement is 

 certainly not the wholesale creation of features which some- 

 times are not even suggested by the site, nor the simulating 

 in miniature of large natural forms, nor the effort to make 

 sand or gravel do duty for water or small shrubs produce the 

 effect of trees. Could anything, we ask ourselves, be more 

 unnatural than a small garden designed to imitate an ex- 

 panse of mountain scenery, with bare earth instead of living 

 water for its lakes and streams .'* 



But it seems to me, after much reading upon the sub- 

 ject, that the Japanese aim is not more wholly differ- 

 ent from ours than is the spirit in which this people 

 looks at works of gardening art. It is often said that 

 they have less imagination than Occidentals ; but the 

 statement refers merely to abstract imagination, so to 

 say — to metaphysical, spiritual imagination. As regards 

 material imagination — the picture-making power of the 

 eye, the ability to recognize, appreciate and enjoy the 

 beauty and sentiment of a thing which is not actually imi- 

 tated or even portrayed in art, but merely suggested — the case 

 is exactly the reverse. Here the Oriental imagination is much 

 stronger than our own. Whether we try, in our garden 

 arrangements, to be formal and architectural, or natural and 

 free, we demand that the desired effect shall be actually, prac- 

 tically, materially obtained, that the things we see shall be 

 literally themselves, and depend not at all for their significance 

 upon the imaginative faculties of the observer. The Japan- 

 ese, on the other hand, never desires anything but a strictly 

 natural effect ; but he is content that it shall be suggested 

 rather than displayed. The elements before him are valued 

 less for themselves than for their power to act upon his 

 imagination and recall the forms of beauty which they typify 

 rather than reproduce. We demand in a natural garden that 

 it shall be a beautiful passage of scenery. The Japanese de- 

 mands that it shall suggest a beautiful passage of scenery. His 

 garden is to him less a landscape, properly so called, than a 

 picture of a landscape ; and he does not see anything more 

 unnatural in a small picture composed of piles of' earth, rocks 

 and shrubs representing mountains, trees and lakes, than we 

 see in a small painting on canvas when it represents similar 

 objects. We know that an adequate statue of a man can be 

 made within the compass of a few inches, and never think of 

 questioning its truth or "naturalness" because of its size. It 

 does not purport to be the man, but merely suggests the man, 

 and our imagination accepts it without thought of its discrep- 

 ancies in size and color. Thus the Japanese looks upon his 

 little studies of mountain scenery, and finds them as thor- 

 oughly natural as works of art can be. 



How soon an Occidental can learn to assume his stand- 

 point, how thoroughly he can learn to appreciate the sug- 

 gestive beauty of Japanese gardens — these are questions, of 

 course, with regard to which only travelers can speak, and Mr. 

 Conder does not touch upon them. 



New York. M. G. van Rensscluer. 



New or Little Known Plants. 

 Berberis Thunbergii. 



ALTHOUGH one of the earliest Japanese plants known 

 to botanists, having been collected by Thunberg, 

 one of the first Europeans to explore the botany of Japan, 

 Berberis Thunbergii has found its way into western gardens 

 only within the last few years. Thunberg considered it 

 identical w'lihB. Ge/Zca of south-eastern Europe, which, per- 

 haps, is nothing more than a geographical form of the 

 widely distributed and very variable B. vulgaris; while some 

 later botanists have referred it to B. Chinensis of northern 

 China, a very different plant, with slender pendulous 

 branches, and long, drooping racemes of flowers and fruits. 

 Berberis Thunbergii is, nevertheless, one of the best 

 marked and most distinct of all the Barberries now found 

 in gardens. It forms in cultivation a dense, although 

 graceful, bush, some three feet high by four or five feet in 

 diameter. The branches are stout, ])endulous towards the 

 extremities, deeply grooved, covered with bright red bark, 

 and armed with simple, straight spines, half an inch long. 

 The leaves are deciduous, tufted along the entire length of 

 the branches, obovate or spathulate, rounded at the apex, 

 quite entire, bright green above, paler on the lower surface. 

 The flowers, which are produced in the greatest profusion 

 along the whole length of the stems, are solitary or in 

 pairs, or rarely in few-flowered umbels. They are rather 

 large, with three or four acute red sepals and pale straw 

 colored petals, sometimes streaked with red, and are al- 

 most odorless. The fruit is bright red, a quarter to half an 

 inch long, elliptical, or nearly globose. It possesses an in- 

 sipid and very disagreeable flavor, and remains upon the 

 branches bright and fresh through the winter, and until 

 the appearance of the new foliage in the spring. The 

 leaves of this plant late in the autumn are tinged with bril- 

 liant shades of orange and scarlet. 



Berberis Thunbergii was sent several years ago to the 

 Arnold Arboretum from St. Petersburg, and is now often 

 seen in American gardens.- It has much to recommend it — 

 hardiness, free and rapid growth, neat and graceful habit 

 and foliage, brilliant autumn coloring, and showy and per- 

 sistent fruit ; and few shrubs are better suited to form low 

 masses of foliage, or for dwarf hedges. It is not particular 

 as to soil, and, like the other Barberries, is easily increased 

 by division, from cuttings and from seed. 



Our illustration upon page 55 represents a well grown 

 specimen of Berberis Thunbergii in a garden near Boston, 

 and shows the habit of the plant ; while Mr. Faxon's draw- 

 ing upon page 53 makes known to persons unfamiliar with 

 them the foliage, flowers and fruit of this species, of which 

 an excellent colored figure was published in the Botanical 

 Magazine for 1882, A 6,646. C. S. S. 



Cultural Department. 



The Propagation of Rhododendron maximum. 



Sir. — In 1885 a distinguished landscape-gardener remarked 

 that whoever would produce Rhododendron maximum so 

 cheaply that it could be freely used, would render a service to 

 all planters, and this suggested some extended experiments at 

 the Shady Hill Nurseries. 



First, fresh seed of this Rhododendron wei'e planted in boxes 

 of carefully prepared soil in February. They came up promptly 

 and abundantly, but difficulties began at once. This plant, 

 wli^n first germinated, and for some time afterwards, is the 

 most delicate little atom of vegetable life that can be con- 

 ceived of. It is exceedingly small, and is as transparent as 

 water, of which, with a very thin film of more solid substance 

 to inclose it, it seems largely composed. This delicacy of 

 structure exposes it to the attacks of a minute fungus, which 

 often, kills a box of several thousand little seedlings in a single 

 day. To save them from this devouring enemy, which always 

 appears as soon as the plants do, it is necessary to transplant 

 them into fresh earth immediately after the seeds germinate. 

 This was done three times, and then the plants became 

 a total loss from the persistent attacks of this fungus. We 



