86 



Garden and Forest. 



[February 20, iJ 



and perhaps more, from the endorsements of such juries 

 as the people who buy plants, for they would buy all the 

 more if they could feel assured that they were getting 

 what they were asked to give their money for. 



Private letters from Philadelphia indicate that there is a 

 chance, if the financial support of public-spirited citizens 

 can be obtained, to put into execution at last the long- 

 cherished plan of acquiring, for public uses, the site of Bar- 

 tram's Gardens, the first botanical garden established in the 

 United States, with the house built by John Bartram, the 

 famous Philadelphia botanist, and many of the trees planted 

 by him. This spot has for years been the Mecca of bot- 

 anists and horticulturists. There is no other more inter- 

 esting to them, and none so filled with associations con- 

 nected with the early development of botanical science in 

 America. 



This opportimity is an important one, therefore, and we 

 trust that it will be improved. The public spirit and civic 

 pride of Philadelphia's leading men are known all over the 

 civilized world, and there can be no doubt that as soon as 

 this matter is once understood they will not consent to see 

 this spot, at once so valuable on account of its historical 

 associations, and so convenient and suitable for a public 

 breathing-place and pleasure-ground, given up to the de- 

 mands of commerce. The land should be acquired in 

 such a way, or on such terms, as would permit some per- 

 manent special supervision of it by some body of men who 

 would be specially interested in the historic character of the 

 place — the University of Pennsylvania, or the Academy of 

 Natural Science. 



If it becomes merely one of the city parks, under the 

 general management of some branch of the city govern- 

 ment, it would inevitably lose all its distinctive or special 

 character and interest. 



The taste for museums and in-door collections of all 

 kinds, and the habit of giving large sums for their estab- 

 lishment and maintenance, are valuable and encouraging 

 features of our national character ; but we must strive to 

 make the out-of-door life of the inhabitants of our great 

 cities more attractive, healthful and interesting ; and 

 places of historic or other special interest should be util- 

 ized for purposes of this kind whenever it is practicable. 



The name of Bartram's Gardens should be preserved, 

 and in order that it shall have any significance or appro- 

 priateness, should be maintained in as near the condition 

 as its first owner left it as is practicable. Whether any 

 other features of a botanic garden would be practicable 

 is, we suppose, rather doubtful. But the name of a dis- 

 tinguished man is a precious possession to a great city 

 and a potent influence in popular education and the devel- 

 opment of civic patriotism. We hope to hear that definite 

 steps have been taken to purchase the old garden and to 

 perpetuate the interest of the place. 



The Daily Mt'rror and American, published in Manches- 

 ter, New Hampshire, calls attention to the fact that the 

 statement, recently made in our columns, that six million 

 feet of Spruce timber were to be cut this winter from the 

 immediate vicinity of Mount Washington, give a very in- 

 adequate idea of the damage which is being inflicted upon 

 the forests of northern New Hampshire. 



" The Connecticut River Lumber Company, whose head- 

 quarters are at the Connecticut lakes, will probably put into 

 the streams this winter nearly a hundred millions of Spruce. 

 The firown Lumber Company, of Whitefield, and the Berlin 

 Falls Company will cut twenty million feet each, the Kilkenny 

 Lumber Company half as much more, and half a hundred 

 other firms and individuals will contribute very much to the 

 destruction of the forests north of Woodsville and Conway. 

 Instead of six million feet, which a stranger might infer from 

 the statement made was the total output of our northern mills, 

 it must be several himdred millions. But this only empha- 

 sizes the fact that one of the chief glories and sources of 

 wealth of our northern counties is fast disappearing before 

 the woodman's axe to return no more, for the mountain sides 



from which this timber comes do not reproduce a growth as 

 land does in this part of the state, and when once stripped 

 they remain bare. With the forests departs much of the 

 beauty, the grandeur and the attractiveness which have made 

 our mountains famous as health and pleasure resorts. When 

 the woods have been cut away, the White Mountains are 

 about as bleak and barren a section of country as we know 

 of, and when there are no timber lots left the charm that was 

 formerly theirs will be wanting. Even the Profile, the Fran- 

 conia and Crawford Notches and Mount Washington would 

 lose much of their glory and beauty with the destruction of 

 the forests in which they are set, and the territory about them, 

 when stripped of trees, would be one to shun. 



" It is but a few years, comparatively, since nearly all these 

 forests were owned by the state, and it was a terrible mistake 

 when they were sold for a song to speculators. Most of the 

 timber lands in Pittsburg, and many in other townships, were 

 sold for twenty cents an acre during Gov. Harriman's admin- 

 istration. Perhaps this was all they were worth to sell at that 

 time, for with the nearest railroad forty miles away no one 

 could realize much by clearing them ; but some one ought to 

 have been far-seeing and wise enough to have concluded that 

 in a few years they would be worth a hundred times what 

 they sold for, and that the state could not afford to sell them 

 at any price. Other inmiense tracts have been sold for even 

 less per acre, or given away to Dartmouth College or some 

 of our academies, which have turned them over, for a nomi- 

 nal price, to the lumbermen." 



These statements are quoted, not only because they 

 emphasize the words of Mr. Harrison in another column 

 of this issue, but because they invite attention to the 

 broader fact that what has happened in New Hampshire 

 is now happening in other parts of the United States. 

 Valuable forests are being frittered away in the South 

 and in the West without any adequate return. But the 

 experience of New Hampshire, expensive and disastrous 

 as it has been, may yet have some value as a warning to 

 the people of other states. On no part of this continent to- 

 day are there any forests so remote from existing means of 

 transportation that they will not soon be called upon, if 

 they have any value whatever, to give up their quota to 

 supply the wants of our rapidly increasing population. 



Some Old American Country-seats. 



I.— The Gore Place. 

 JOHN WINTHROP, first Governor of Massachusetts, had 

 J his country-place. It lay upon Mystic River, and was 

 called Ten Hills. The pleasures of life there were certainly 

 peculiar, wolves and prowling Indians being frequent visitors; 

 but now that several of the ten hills have been even destroyed, 

 Winthrop's frontier "paradise" can only be imagined, not 

 described. Unfortunately the same must now be said of 

 almost all the mansions and gardens of the later aristocratic 

 time which preceded the Revolution. The rising tide of pop- 

 ulation has swallowed up the handsome establishments of 

 Tories and patriots alike. The Craigie house, which the 

 Longfellow family preserves in Cambridge, is now almost 

 the sole surviving representative of the terraced and high- 

 walled stateliness of the colonial days. 



Boston and her surrounding sister cides grow continually. 

 Farm after farm and garden after garden are invaded by 

 streets, sewers and water-pipes, owners being fairly compelled 

 to sell lands which are taxed more and more heavily. Before 

 destruction overtakes the few old seats now remaining, it will 

 be well to make some sort of record of their character and 

 beauty. 



About eight miles from the State House, one of the roads 

 of the Charles River valley, after passing through a somewhat 

 squalid manufacturing district, suddenly becomes a rural lane, 

 which winds its shady way tirst past the low-roofed farm-house 

 and then past the lawn and mansion of what is plainly an old 

 estate. The accompanying picture on page 91 shows the house 

 as it appears from just within the trees which shade the lane. 

 The grass sweeps up to the walls of this long, south front. 

 No line of any sort breaks the flowing breadth of the lawn, 

 for the approach-road, which leaves the lane near the farm- 

 house, goes around through the trees to the door in the north 

 front of the house. The simple but well-proportioned build- 

 ing is set off against a background of foliage, and the ends of 

 the low wings are shadowed by tall Pines and Chestnuts, 

 whose brothers, forming noble masses at the sides of the lawn, 

 support and frame the house, and, joined with it, compose 



