February 6, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest 



63 



in color and texture than the Weeping Willow, and is an 

 extremely graceful tree; yet it has great dignity, and har- 

 monizes admirably with almost all the trees commonly 

 planted. A glance at the illustration on page 67, which 

 shows the border of a pond in Brookline, Massachusetts, 

 where White Willows edge the water for a considerable 

 distance, should be enough to prove its appropriateness 

 for such a place, and to suggest that not only near water, 

 but in all other situations where Willows are desired. 

 White Willows or some other species of similar habit 

 should be chosen in preference to the Weeping Willow. Of 

 course, there may be rare cases where a Weeping Willow, 

 especially a small one, has been well used by an intelli- 

 gent planter; but, as a general rule, it will be found out of 

 keeping with its surroundings. When this is the case, a 

 tree must have extraordinary merits to justify its introduc- 

 tion ; and this can hardly be affirmed of the Weeping 

 Willow, which, at its best, is eccentric rather than beautiful, 

 weak rather than really graceful. 



A correspondent, who is familiar with the forests of 

 southern Indiana and Illinois, calls our attention to the 

 fact that in this region, which is celebrated for the rich- 

 ness of the forest-growth and the immense development at- 

 tained by individuals ofseveral species of trees growing upon 

 the deep, alluvial bottom-lands, more clearing and thinning 

 of the woods has been done during the past five years than 

 in the fifteen years previous. A large proportion of the great 

 Yellow Poplars {Liriodendron) have already fallen under 

 the axe of the lumbermen. The wealth of these forests 

 will be appreciated when the fact is realized that ten 

 years ago it was not uncommon to find an average of 

 three Poplars to the acre, with stems six feet in diameter 

 and running up straight and clean for a distance of 

 seventy or eighty feet to the first branches. These giants, 

 now nearly all destroyed, grew in a forest in which the 

 predominating trees were Beeches, Black Gums and Blue 

 Ash, which were not surpassed anywhere in stately pro- 

 portions and splendid vigor. 



Japanese Gardening. — II. 



I HAVE already tried to show through quotations from Mr. 

 Conder's article in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society 

 of Japan, what ideas generally control the formation of gar- 

 dens in Japan, and have tried to explain that the Japanese con- 

 siders his garden, with its miniature artificial hills, vales, 

 streams and rock-arrangements, a truly " natural " work of art, 

 because it typifies or suggests by imitations on a smaller scale 

 the effect produced by large natural features. This is to say 

 that the Japanese looks upon this art much as we look upon 

 painting, not demanding that the same materials shall be used 

 as exist in the scene portrayed, or the same scale preserved, 

 but merely that the result shall be truthfully suggestive of 

 something that might be found in the natural world. 



Passing to matters of detail, Mr. Conder explains that 

 whether water be actually present or be simulated by ex- 

 panses of smooth earth or sand, " a garden-lake when con- 

 structed in a limited area should never be completely visible 

 from any one point of view, but parts of the outline should be 

 intercepted and hidden by shrubs and plants placed in suita- 

 ble positions. We find here again the important principle of 

 suggesting limitless space by the partial obliteration of bound- 

 ing lines." And, it need hardly be said, this idea at least is 

 common to good landscape-gardeners all over the world. 



Great use is made of islands in such lakes, whether they be 

 of water or of simulated water. Some of them are isolated 

 from the shore and treated in a way to suggest that they are 

 surrounded by the sea itself. Others are joined by bridges to 

 the bank, and always their minor features have symbolic 

 meanings, which are lost upon a European eye. In a few 

 Occidental gardens great use is made of natural unhewn 

 stones and boulders, but the practice is almost the chief 

 element in Japanese gardening, and great care is given to the 

 sizes and outlines of the separate stones, as well as to their 

 general effect as a mass. "The sizes and proportions of the 

 different stones employed govern, in many cases, the scale of 

 the trees and shrubs used in juxtaposition. Some writers go 

 so far as to say that stones constitute the skeleton of the gar- 



afterwards in such a way as to emphasize and ' support ' these 

 stones and connect them into one harmonious whole." Scale 

 is nicely regarded — very large stones are not used in small 

 gardens, nor small stones in large ones. "The principal 

 boulders in an artificial landscape being arranged to represent 

 natural rocks, it is often customary to describe their altitude 

 by fictitious measurements applicable to the grandeur of real 

 scenery. This custom not only helps to keep up the imaginary 

 illusion, but no doubt assists the designer in a consistent 

 preservation of the character of all subsidiary parts. . . . The 

 chief thing to be kept in mind in arranging garden-stones is to 

 make them appear as if Nature had placed them in position. 

 Some of the wilder freaks of Nature must, however, not be 

 copied, for if artificially imitated on a comparatively small 

 scale, they would be suggestive of instability and danger, and 

 destructive to the general repose required in an artistic com- 

 position. It is the immensity, antiquity and adamantine 

 solidity of the overhanging rocks and towering pinnacles of 

 natural landscape which reconciles us to their threatening' ap- 

 pearance." How different indeed are such ideas as these 

 from the ones that commonly direct the employment of stones 

 in our gardens, where no thought of Nature is suggested by 

 the rockeries, grottoes and palpably artificial cascades, and 

 where beauty has seldom been considered in the choice of the 

 elements of construction. 



A long list of stones is given by Mr. Conder, each of which 

 is considered appropriate to a given service — as for associa- 

 tion with water, or for use in valleys or on mountains or be- 

 side roads — and each of which has its own symbolic signifi- 

 cance besides. The use of turf in Japanese gardens, he says, 

 is of comparatively recent introduction. "The level portions 

 were formerly finished in beaten earth, kept carefully weeded, 

 or spread with white sand or broken shells. The hills were 

 partly covered with different kinds of green moss." Raised 

 stepping--stones often traverse these earthy lawns, and they are 

 kept a little damp for the sake of neatness and coolness. Or if 

 sand is used, it is carefully raked, sometimes in patterns — as 

 in waving lines that represent water. "Gardens consisting of 

 such areas of naked raked sand, with only a few stones rep- 

 resenting rocks and islands, are not uncommon." How little 

 they would satisfy our taste ! Yet the strong Japanese imagina- 

 tion can delight in the picture of a sea-coast or mountain-lake 

 which they present. 



"In connection with the temples there are many magnifi- 

 cent avenues and groves of fine trees, arranged with the same 

 formality as is employed in Europe. Some of the avenues of 

 Cryptomeria and of ' Enoki ' ( Celtis Ckinensis) lining the country 

 roads and temple approaches are hardly equaled in grandeur 

 by any avenues in the West. But in landscape-gardening such 

 arrangements are seldom, if ever, resorted to. In cases where 

 trees are grouped together in numbers, they are generally of 

 different species and specially selected to contrast with one 

 another. Form and line receive primary attention. . . . Such 

 contrasts as that which the rugsjed Pine, with its scrambling, 

 angular branches, forms with the spreading Cherry, or the 

 drooping Willow, with its curving boughs, are purposely de- 

 signed. . . . Trees and plants should not be used in positions 

 contrary to their natural habits of growth. For example, a hill- 

 side plant should not be placed in a valley, nor should plants 

 peculiar to low, sheltered spots be placed on high ground." 

 Here again is a refinement quite foreign to Occidental garden- 

 ing, which prides itself, rather, upon making plants grow in 

 just those situafions where nature had not placed them. "As 

 a general rule, trees which shed their leaves and look bare 

 during the winter should not be planted in the foreground of 

 a garden. An exception ... is in the case of the Plum tree, 

 which, on account of its early blossoms, is placed in the front 

 of the grounds." 



"The habit of clipping and shearing trees and shrubs is a 

 common one in Japan, but it is seldom done in a manner 

 inconsistent with the general character of the particular trees 

 thus dressed." What the gardener aims at, is to accentuate, 

 not controvert, the design which nature had in forming a par- 

 ticular tree. The Pine, for example, "goes through a thor- 

 ough surgical treatment in the nursery, with the idea of pro- 

 ducing a shape of acknowledged beauty, as displayed in some 

 of the finest natural trees. Its branches are bent, broken and 

 bandaged, and bound with cords and splints, until it grows 

 into the fancy shape desired." This shape is rarely at variance 

 with forms that can be found in nature; yet dwarf trees are 

 sometimes trained into curious, non-natural forms, the 

 branches of the favorite Pine are occasionally cut into the 

 form of balls and trained to grow in a pendant way, suggestive 

 of a cascade, and now and then one may even see a shrub 



den, that their form and distribution should receive the first 



attention, and that the trees and shrubs should be placed ? cut into the shape of a junk under full sail. But fantasies like 



