May I, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



205 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Opficr : Tr[bune Building. New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargknt. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY i, 1889. 



tablp: of content.s. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles: — School-Grounds. — Burning Rubbish-Heaps Wasteful 



and Dangerous. — Planting Wind-Breaks 205 



The Gardens of Levins Hall (with illustratiDii) 206 



The Art of Gardening. — An Historical Sketch, IV. — Mesopotannia and 



Judea Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer, 206 



Chrysanthemums in the Imperial Garden at AUasaka, Tokyo, 



Translated by K, Miynbe. 207 



Foreign Correspondence : — The Kew Arboretum'. V George Nicholson. 207 



New or Little Known Plants: — Portlandia pterosperma (with figure).. 5. ]V. 208 



Cultural Department :— Notes on Primulas D. Demar. 209 



The Musk melon Professor E. S. Gojf. 210 



A Few Early Cucumbers IV. H. Bull. 211 



Orchid iSTotes y. IVeatliers, A. Dimmock. 211 



Rose "Souvenii- de Wootton " Robi. Craig, ]V. H. Taplin. ■z\-2 



The Spring-Garden C 212 



Principles of Physiological Botany. Y,N\\\.... Professor George Lincoln Goodnle. 213 



Correspondence: — Our Forestry E.\liibit at Paris E. "'.Lander. 214 



The Home of Shortia Frank E. Boynton. 214 



The Newtown Pippin /K. Robinson. 215 



A Nursery of Hardy Perennial Plants 5. 215 



Notes 216 



Illustrations: — Portlandia pterosperma, Fig 105 209 



The Gardens of Levens Hall 211 



School Grounds. 



FOR several months in the year a large proportion of 

 the children of this country spend at least half of 

 the hours of daylight, for five days of the week, in or 

 about the school-house. At the most susceptible period of 

 life the influence of these surroundings must in the aggre- 

 gate be considerable A neat and tidy room, with simple 

 and cheerful decorations, will be a constant object-lesson 

 to every eye. A room with decrepit furniture upon an 

 unclean floor, and with walls and ceiling broken and 

 stained, will teach its lesson, too, in taste and morals, but 

 it will be quite a different one. It is due to the health of 

 children that they be supplied with abundant light and air. 

 This means a detached building, with ample, open space 

 about it, even in the city. Exercise is also essential to the 

 healthful development, as well as to the happiness of chil- 

 dren, and play is the natural and spontaneous exercise and 

 refreshment for both their minds and bodies. A play- 

 ground may, therefore, be considered a necessary adjunct 

 to every school. Children will play wherever they have 

 room, but it will hardly be argued that a bare space of 

 earth, which will be dusty or muddy as the weather 

 changes, offers every advantage that children should be 

 able to derive from their school-grounds. If the school- 

 room can be made to give lessons in cleanliness and order 

 and taste, the surroundings of the building should be 

 arranged to enforce the same lessons. 



That properly ordered school-grounds can aid in this 

 direction, and, besides this, be made an important 

 educational auxiliary in some branches of natural science, 

 was the thesis of an interesting paper read two months 

 ago before the Massachusetts Horticultural Society by 

 Mr. Leverett M. Chase, Master of the Dudley School, in 

 Roxbury. Mr. Chase argued that the ideal school- 

 ground should be separated into two distinct portions — 

 one devoted to the purposes of an out-door gymnasium, 

 and the other an area of green sward, properly planted 

 with trees, shrubs, vines — in short, a pleasure-garden 

 for the children. They should be taught that the garden 

 is theirs, and a feeling of responsibility for it should 



be encouraged. That this sense of ownership will engen- 

 der such a personal interest that the exuberant destructive- 

 ness, so often manifested by school-boys, will give place 

 to a sentiment of affection, and a desire to protect their 

 shrubs and flowers has been proved in many instances. 

 If the plants are all carefully labelled and catalogued; if 

 the children are invited to aid in cultivating them, under 

 proper direction, they will gain much practical information 

 as to the laws of plant-growth, and if a serious attempt at 

 systematic instruction in certain branches of botany is 

 connected with the care of the grounds, many lessons 

 which it would be an irksome task to acquire otherwise, 

 will be learned without effort, and even with positive 

 dehght. From the knowledge thus gained, and the inter- 

 est aroused in the school-garden, we may reasonably look 

 for a growing love of Nature — -an increasing appreciation 

 of the beauty of trees and their value. If this generation of 

 children were reared under such influences ours would be a 

 land of fair gardens in a quarter of a century, and there 

 would be no difficulty in securing proper legislation for the 

 preservation of our forests. Indeed, it is to be feared that 

 a distinctively American forest-policy which shall embrace 

 in its scope the wisest administration of the nation's forests, 

 and the most intelligent care of the farmer's wood-lot, will 

 never be adopted until the interest and sympathy of the 

 children are enlisted, so that they will grow up with sound 

 views and generous sentiments as to the importance of 

 trees and forests as an element of the national welfare. 



Of course, grounds sufficiently spacious for a garden can- 

 not now be found connected with every school-building, 

 and in crowded cities large school-gardens will not be 

 practicable. But there is room for a beginning everywhere. 

 A narrow border along the foundation of the school-house 

 may be made beautiful with flowers from the time when 

 Snow-drops appear until frost kills the latest Aster. There 

 are few school-yards where a place cannot be found for 

 some tree or shrub, or where a vine cannot be trained so 

 as to show its own beauty and hide some unsightly object. 

 At all events, some house-plants can be used to brighten 

 up the school-room and to illustrate by living examples the 

 elementary facts in botany and horticulture. One disad- 

 vantage will be that the teachers and trustees who must 

 take the lead in this enterprise know so little themselves of 

 the subjects in which it is proposed to interest the children. 

 The beginnings of this reform — for a genuine reform it will 

 be^will be feeble and much honest effort will be misdi- 

 rected. Unsuitable trees and shrubs will be often selected 

 and they will be badly planted in improper places. But 

 the very fact that the lack of knowledge on these points is 

 so lamentable is the strongest reason that a beginning 

 should be made. The attempt will excite inquiry and 

 criticism, and knowledge will come from the study and 

 discussion thus aroused. Fortunate are those places 

 already provided with teachers like Mr. Chase, and Mr. 

 Endicott, master of the Gibson School in Dorchester, who 

 at the meeting above-mentioned added some valuable tes- 

 timony to the soundness of the positions taken in Mr. 

 Chase's paper. 



A final suggestion made by Mr. Chase is worth consid- 

 ering in other States as well as in Massachusetts. It was 

 that prizes be offered for the best-kept and most tastefully- 

 embellished school-grounds. 



Innumerable fires are, or a few weeks ago were, com- 

 mon sights in the suburbs of all our cities. These fires are 

 set year after year to burn up the dead grass from lawns 

 and fields and to get rid of dead leaves and other refuse. 

 Such fires are dangerous and expensive. Where fires are 

 used to clear up a piece of ground compost heaps are 

 small, and year by year the land is robbed of its fertility; 

 and such fires often get beyond control and injure shrubs 

 and trees, or damage or destroy fences and hedges. The 

 same practice prevails to a very large extent upon farms 

 all over the country ; and brush-fires set to get rubbish out 

 of the way are the cause of nine-tenths of all the forest 



