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Garden and Forest. 



[April io, iSS^. 



A recent number of the Saturday Review devotes a page 

 to "Forestry." No special familiarity with the subject is 

 displayed by the writer, and the article contains nothing 

 new and little worth quoting except these sentences : 



" In a lifetime a man may find out a tree or two, grand and 

 handsome in their maturity, which flourislr on Iiis land. But 

 he plants many, exceedingly pretty and promising when young, 

 which, as they advance in years, show that they languish in a 

 foreign country, and present miserable contrasts to the splen- 

 did parent trees from which the traveler has brought the seed. 

 In ornamental planting, except where a mass of thick covert is 

 required for the picturesque, a tree should have plenty of room 

 to display its proportions and full growth." 



This can hardly be called forestry, but it is sound doc- 

 trine, and it can hardly be repeated too often for the benefit 

 of those who are tempted to plant foreign trees, or to plant 

 any trees without giving them ample space to spread out 

 into strong and characteristic growth. 



We have received the following notice from the Corres- 

 ponding Secretary of the American Forestry Congress : 



" The next meeting of the American Forestry Congress will 

 be held in Philadelphia, on the i6th, 17th and i8th of October, 

 1889. Papers to be read at the meeting sliould be sent to the 

 Corresponding Secretary before October ist. I shall be glad to 

 receive, from any source, short and vital papers on any of the 

 practical aspects of forestry, and of tree-culture and preserva- 

 tion in this country. It is desirable to avoid long historical 

 dissertations, and reviews of the general subject of forestry, as 

 they benumb the faculties of the hearers, and lead to no valu- 

 able result. We wish to show that we have passed beyond 

 this stage of the forestry movement. Some of the subjects to 

 be discussed, and the arrangements of the local committees, 

 will be announced hereafter. If the press of the country will 

 kindly publish this notice I shall be grateful for their courtesy 

 and cooperation. Every facility will be afforded for reporting 

 the proceedings. <v. r> tt 



Franklin Falls, N. H. /■ B. HamSOIt. 



Gardening in Florida. 



ONE who visits Florida for the first time is impressed most 

 of all with the fact that the land is so largely wild and un- 

 subdued. Outside of a few old settlements, pioneers are 

 everywhere attacking the original forest, and the inhabitants 

 are brought into as close contact with primeval nature as are 

 those on our western frontier. Life in Florida, however, is 

 not pioneer life as known in the West. Hotels, with every 

 modern urban appointment, are to be found in the most 

 untamed sections of the state, and evidences of luxury are 

 seen in clearings where the stumps are still standing, But 

 well-kept gardens are not noticed among other marks of refine- 

 ment. This does not imply a lack of taste or of inclination to 

 the art, for elaborate gardens cannot reasonably be looked for 

 in a country comparatively new. The whole aspect of nature 

 must be softened and mellowed by years of human control 

 before fair gardens are developed naturally and harmoniously 

 out of their surroundings. 



It is not to be inferred from this that Florida has no orna- 

 mental planting to show. On the contrary, examples are 

 seen everywhere, and they are full of promise. Great numbers 

 of the shrubs and vines that are the ornaments of northern 

 green-houses are here in full flower in February and March, to 

 the constant surprise of tourists from colder latitudes. The great 

 vine of Bignonia venusta, with its mass of orange-colored 

 flowers, which covers the side of a house in St. Augustine, 

 and the sheet of snowy bloom from a plant of Solanum jasmUi- 

 oides, stretching across the front of the piazza of the Putnam 

 House in Palatka, will not be forgotten by anyone who has 

 seen them. Specimens of Laurestinus, Chinese Hibiscus, 

 Oleander, AUemanda, Poinsettia, Fragrant Olive, Rhincosper- 

 mum and other flowering shrubs, trees and vines, which are 

 seen everywhere, together with stately Bamboos and such col- 

 lections of Palms as have been gathered by Mr. E. S. Hart at 

 Federal Point, all prove that in years to come central and 

 southern Florida will have gardens wherein will be displayed 

 whatever is beautiful and luxuriant in the semi-tropical vegeta- 

 tion of the world. 



Our purpose, however, is not so much to speak of the future 

 of gardening in Florida as to call attention to some of the pos- 

 sibilities of genuine landscape work with the abundant indi- 

 genous growth of the state itself. The grandeur of mountain 



scenery is lacking, but the dense forests on rolling lands, the 

 numerous lakes and rivers, the abundant broad-leaved ever- 

 green trees, the Palmettos, which are characterized by a grace 

 and stateliness rarely equaled, furnish material which can be 

 combined in pictures of infinite variety and interest. 



The home of Mr. A. H. Curtiss,at Talleyrand, on the bank of 

 the St. John's River, a few miles from Jacksonville, well illus- 

 trates what can be accomplished by a careful study of the nat- 

 ural features of the region in the way of bringing out the 

 beauty that was waiting to be revealed. About the house are 

 disposed many rare and beautiful plants, but they add little to 

 the general effect produced by the broader treatment of the 

 grounds. Back from the, river bank, which is covered with 

 low trees and shrubs, among which Honeysuckle and Smilax 

 clamber, with yellow Jessamine rioting over all, is an open 

 space, and beyond this is the Orange-grove, which forms a feat- 

 ure of the grounds of every home in Florida — and a grove of 

 healthy Orange-trees, with glossy foliage and golden fruit, is a 

 spectacle of which the eye never tires. Behind this is a heavy 

 forest of Live Oak, Water Oak, Hickory, Magnolia and Red 

 Bay. The rich undergrowth of small trees and shrubs — Holly, 

 Andromeda feruginea, Sweet-leaf, Vacciniums and a score of 

 other shrubs, with inter-twining vines and a more modest 

 growth of Scrub Palmetto, Partridge-Berry, Ferns and other 

 lowly plants upon the forest-floor are all allowed to remain 

 and encouraged to grow. Winding roads are cut through 

 the woods, opening here and there, to give glimpses of the 

 Orange-grove framed in with moss-draped branches of the 

 Oaks, or of the broad river with the thickly-wooded banks be- 

 yond, or of some striking object like a great Magnolia, which 

 is remarkable for its size and for that dignified expression that 

 only comes to these trees with great age. 



There is little more to be said ; for it would be impossible, 

 even if it were not outside of our present purpose, to give any 

 adequate idea of the beauty of these distant pictures, or any 

 satisfying description of the fine native trees in the forest or 

 standing in loose groups about it. The lesson to be enforced 

 is that whether in the low levels of the South, or on the rocky 

 coast of New England, or in a glen among the AUeghanies, the 

 aim should not be to transform home-grounds into something 

 foreign or fanciful, but to unfold and enhance the native and 

 peculiar beauty of the spot ; to develop its own beauty rather 

 than to decorate it with imported ornament. This is not an 

 easy achievement, it is true. It implies an artist's sense, and 

 it means an ability to treat nature with respect, if not with 

 reverence. Surely one who agreeably leads you to a point 

 where you unconsciously pause before a well-composed picture 

 from which all incongruities are shut out by a frame of foli- 

 age, is accomplishing what the landscape-gardener aims at in 

 his best constructive efforts. Many who attempt this kind of 

 work in Florida or elsewhere will fail of very high attainment ; 

 but they will not be in such danger of displaying impertinence 

 and pretentiousness as will those who endeavor to obliterate 

 from their land everything that is distinctive, and rid it of every- 

 thing common, so that they can trick it out in exotic finery of 

 their own choosing. 



The Art of Gardening.-^An Historical Sketch. — III. 

 Egypt and Mesopotamia. 



AFTER the isolation in which the Egyptians lived dur- 

 ing the earlier centuries of their civilization had been 

 broken through — after their kings entered upon that long 

 series of foreign conquests which the monuments so lavishly 

 celebrate — exotic plants were cultivated as well as those native 

 to the valley of the Nile. The Rose, for example, was not 

 a native of Egypt, nor can we guess at the date of its 

 introduction, yet in later years it was very largely exported 

 to Rome. The sacred Lotus itself was probably an exotic; and 

 on certain bas-reliefs we see large trees in pots which are be- 

 ing transported by water, thus ilhistrating the statement that 

 the triumphant armies of Egypt brought home from other 

 lands such plants as struck their fancy, and placed them as 

 trophies in front of palace or temple. 



Flowers and ornamental plants were used in profusion, not 

 only to enliven the Egyptian garden, but to perfume and 

 adorn the apartment. The Rose was doubtless a prime favor- 

 ite, but no plants were so beloved as the Lotus (see page 172) 

 and the Papyrus. These grew in masses in the Nile, and were 

 cultivated in every canal and basin. And the degee to which 

 they were employed in sacred ceremonials is proved by the 

 direct influence they had upon architectural development. 

 We are all familiar with those Egyptian capitals which simulate 

 an open Lotus-flower or a closed bud, and with the reeded 

 shafts which show so strong a likeness to bundles of Papyrus 



