March 27, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



147 



through, with a trunk five feet seven inches in circumfer- 

 ence at the smallest part, vs^hich is two feet from the ground. 

 A California Walnut {Juglans Californica), planted in 1882, 

 is twenty-five feet high, with a head twenty-five feet 

 through, and a trunk diameter of twelve inches. An En- 

 glish Walnut, planted in 1884, is sixteen feet high, with a 

 trunk six and one-half inches in diameter. 



The Art of Gardening. — -An Historical Sketch. II. 

 —Egypt. 



IF we wish distinct proof in support of the belief that man's 

 love for art developed before his love for nature and that 

 he practiced architecture in advance of gardening, we may find it 

 in the fact that all tlie early gardens of which we have any accurate 

 knowledge were formally, architecturally arranged. Egyptian 

 gardens are portrayed in many paintings and bas-reliefs, suc- 

 cinct and conventional, of course, in treatment, but easily de- 

 ciphered and clear in the witness they give to the rigid formal- 

 ity of the Egyptian style. Although the civilization portrayed 

 in these pictures is the earliest of which history, as distin- 

 guished from mere legend, speaks, it was already highly de- 

 veloped and must have existed for many ages. And when we 

 remember the physical character of the land, with its burning 

 sun and level plains, devoid of all that picturesqueness of sur- 

 face and that richness in large vegetable forms which other 

 countries exhibit, we can easily believe that gardening art was 

 widely pracdced on the banks of the Nile. Temples were 

 surrounded with gardens ; the rich Egyptian lived in country 

 houses encircled by larger ornamental demesnes, and gardens 

 existed in wliich the architectural factors were of accessory, 

 not primary, importance. But whatever the size of the enclos- 

 ure, it must have been formally disposed. Such was the case 

 in all ancient lands, but there were especial reasons why it 

 should have Ijeen the case in Egypt. 



Local taste, as every relic we possess declares, ran emphati- 

 cally in the direction of symmetry in all forms of art. And we 

 can understand why if we glance at the physical aspect of the 

 land. It is, so to say. Nature's most formal, symmetrical cre- 

 ation, with its single wide river, its vast level plains, and those 

 bordering mountains which are but perpendicular walls of 

 rock. Picturesqueness is nowhere suggested — Nature did not 

 teach the Egyptian what its charms might be, nor reveal to 

 him the beauty of variety. Although a multitude of minor 

 plants grew, of course, in his fertile soil, trees were present in 

 l_)utfew varieties, and everywhere order, balance, sobriety, and 

 a persistent, if splendid, monotony of outline met his eye. 

 Even to-day, with all our preference for landscape-gardening 

 properly so-called, we feel that a large measure of formality 

 would be prescribed in Egypt by the dictates of Nature herself. 

 Here one does not desire an outlook into the distance so much 

 as to seclude one's self from its sameness behind barriers 

 which allow the imagination to believe that variety may lie be- 

 yond them. Here the chief essentials are coolness and shade. 

 But no brooks exist ; to simulate natural ponds would be too 

 gross and palpable a deception — the formal basin is really the 

 most natural expedient. As all vegetation must be irrigated, 

 and as in its larger forms it is supplied in no great variety, both 

 convenience and beauty are best served by a symrnetrical dis- 

 position of the plants. And, in general, only a garden with a 

 disdnct element of architectural stability and grandeur would 

 seem in harmony with the outer world. If we feel this to-day, 

 how much more must the Egyptian have felt it to whom ex- 

 perience had revealed no other kind of beauty ? As he natu- 

 rally evolved the most solid and most symmetrical kind of 

 architecture that the world has seen, so, too, he naturally cre- 

 ated only formal, architectural gardens. 



The common type of temple-garden is, of course, the one 

 most frequently shown in Egyptian picture-records. It was 

 not so much a place into which men could escape from the 

 imprisonment of walls and roofs as an adjunct to the beauty 

 of the building — a stately court-yard surrounded by high bar- 

 riers and planted with rows of trees which seeni often to have 

 grown in pots. Avenues of trees must likewise have formed 

 the approach to die temples, obelisks, sphinxes and other 

 sculptured monuments mingling with their more pliant forms. 

 Thus, for example, we may picture the great sphinx-avenue 

 which leads for more than a mile between the temples of 

 Luxor and Karnak, now a waste sandy stretch lined by head- 

 less figures, but once verduous under foot and shaded by tall 

 Palms or Sycamores. 



Other pictures show us gardens of more importance lying 

 around palace or temple, with wide parterres, long row's of 



umbrageous trees, groups of Palms and great basins and 

 canals flowing with water; and one picture at least on the wall 

 of a Theban tomb, shows a villa-garden in which architec- 

 tural elements by no means prepondrate. It is a great square 

 walled enclosure, lying close to a river — the Nile, of course, 

 as there was no other — from the banks of which steps lead up 

 to the only entrance, a noble gate. On the opposite side of the 

 garden, near what we may call its back wall, stands the villa. 

 To right and left of the entrance are great longitudinal basins of 

 water, while two others, of a square shape, lie further back. 

 The side walls are lined with trees, between each pair of 

 which a vine is trained against the wall, and outside the front 

 wall, close to the river, runs a row of trees evidently of excep- 

 tional size. The centre of the garden is occupied by a vine- 

 yard, divided by paths into seven sections, which is encircled 

 by its own wall and fills perhaps a third of the whole area. 

 And all the remaining portions are sub-divided into regular 

 sections, amid which kiosks and shelters are arranged, filled 

 with various kinds of plants in masses. Several different 

 species of trees are indicated, and among them we may divine 

 the Sycamore and the Date Palm, while in other spots we see 

 great groups of rush-like foliage, and the basins hold aquatic 

 plants. This, indeed, niust have been a spot where man 

 could refresh himself in seclusion and peace; yet nothing 

 could well be more formal, more architectural in design. 



A picture which was discovered by ChampoUion and is now 

 in the Louvre, shows a garden surrounded by a wooden wall, 

 and again lying by the river between which and the wall 

 stands a row of trees cut into spherical forms. In the centre 

 of the enclosure is a great arbor of vines, encircled by a double 

 row of Palm-trees, while in other parts square pools and sym- 

 metrical parterres of flowers are indicated, and an open kiosk 

 of four rooms covered with vines. In other pictures we see 

 trees clipped into columnar shapes, and in all we realize the 

 natural desire of everyone who built a garden to place it close 

 to Father Nile. 



The chief shade-tree of the Egyptians was the Sycamore — 

 of coiu'se the true Sycamore, Ficiis sycainorus, and not one of 

 the very different trees which in modern Europe and in America 

 are called by this name. The Date Palm must have been 

 equally conspicuous, valued for its fruit as well as for its 

 beauty, and harmonizing well in its graceful yet stately lines 

 with the architectural forms about it. The Doum Palm 

 {^Hyphcene Thebaica), the Acacia, the Carob-tree {Crafonia 

 siliqua) the Almond, the Pomegranate, the Myrtle and the 

 Laurel were also familiar trees ; the Vine was everywhere 

 present ; and a wall-picture of the eighteenth dynasty shows 

 us an apartment in which ornamental foliage-plants are grow- 

 ing in pots. 



It is probable that lawns and parterres of grass were unknown 

 in Egyptian gardens — in no hot southern land can they ever 

 have been perfected. But their place was supplied by flat par- 

 terres of flowering plants, which, it is in harmony with all we 

 know of Egypfian taste to believe, formed carpet-like patterns 

 of vivid colors. Of course such patterns were entirely appro- 

 priate when the design of a garden was formal ; the Egyptian 

 feeling for color was so well developed that we must fancy 

 them peculiarly beautiful in the grouping of their tints ; and 

 never can they have had so admirable an effect as here, where 

 the architectural forms they encircled were painted in conspic- 

 uous designs with bright blue and red and green. 

 New York. M. G. Van Rensselaer. 



The Cedar of Lebanon. 



THE Cedars of Mount Lebanon are, perhaps, the most re- 

 nowned and the best known natural monuments in the 

 world. Religion, poetry and history have all united to make 

 them famous. Distinguished travelers and men of science 

 have visited them, and their story has been told over and over 

 again. There are, however, grave doubts, at least, whether the 

 Cedar so often mentioned in the Bible was the tree now called 

 the Cedar of Lebanon ; and the forests which Solomon cut to 

 rebuild the Temple were, perhaps, composed of Junipers or of 

 some other tree with more durable wood than that of the Cedar. 

 There is no doubt, however, that the Cedars of Lebanon in 

 more modern times have been objects of veneration. Belon, 

 the author of the first work upon Conifers ever written, visited 

 Syria in 1550, ascended Moimt Lebanon, and visited the Mon- 

 astery of the Virgin Mary, situated in a valley below the grove 

 of these trees where the festival of the Transfiguration was 

 held. For diis solemnity the Marmites— a Christian sect inhab- 

 iting Mount Lebanon— with many pilgrims, repaired to the 

 grove. The night before was celebrated in dancing and feast- 

 ing by the light of fires built with branches cut from the 



