May is, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



229 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUIil.ISHED WEEKLY BV 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Offick : Tribune Building. New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargknt. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 1889. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — The Confiscation of City Parks. — Thinnino; Forests. — 



The Proposed Park for Minneapolis 229 



Recent Botanical Discoveries in China. II l-l^. Bolting Hetnsley. 230 



Horticulture in California Charles Howard Shinn. 231 



The Liquidainbar (with illustration) C. S. S. 232 



New or Little Known Plants : — Cordia Greggii, var. Palmeri (with figure), 



i-. \V. 233 



Cultural Department: — Boronias ^W. Watson. 234 



Lima Beans W. F. Massey. 234 



Orchid Notes F. Goldring. 235 



TrlUiums. — Dicentra eximia E. O, Orpet. 236 



Summer- Flowering Bulbs T. D. Hatjield. 236 



Pontederia azurea E. D. Sturtevaut. 236 



Notes from a Spring-Garden C. 236 



Notes from the Arnold Arboretum % 237 



Periodical Literature , 238 



Corkespondence: — Opening Buds Professor W. M'. Bailey. 239 



Maple Avenue Nurseries 5. 239 



Recent Plant Portraits 239 



Notes 240 



Illustrations : — Cordia Greggii, var. Palmeri, Fig. 106 233 



A Liquidambar in Southern Illinois 235 



The Confiscation of City Parks. 



LESS than a year ago it was stated in these columns 

 ^ that a project to erect a huge municipal building in 

 our City Hall Park had been defeated in the Legislature. The 

 fear was expressed, however, that this check would prove 

 to be but temporary, and already, under full sanction of 

 law, architects have been invited to prepare plans for 

 such a structure. In the same article it was asserted that 

 the railroad corporation which had invaded the Battery, 

 beautiful for situation and a priceless blessing to the 

 thronging population about it, would never rest from 

 efforts to extend its tracks and condemn a still larger por- 

 tion of the Park to ruin; andnow the Board of Aldermen have 

 been discussing a proposition to give this company enough 

 more of the Battery to hqld a loop-track, which it is pro- 

 posed to build in order to facilitate the turning of trains 

 at the terminus of the road. 



Both these schemes illustrate in a striking way the 

 threat of annihilation which constantly hangs over every 

 park in rapidly growing cities, where land has a high 

 value. Nothing like a necessity exists for placing this 

 building in the City Hall Park, for the city already owns 

 land suitable for this purpose, and if it did not own the 

 land it is able to buy what is needed. New York is 

 spending a million dollars a year to tear down buildings 

 and make breathing spaces in its densely peopled districts, 

 and yet the desire to fill up the few open spaces that re- 

 main with piles of stone is quite as strong as ever. The 

 Post Office now covers what was once a portion of the 

 Park ; Mr. Tweed's Court House absorbed another section. 

 The proposed municipal building is to occupy a consider- 

 able portion of what is left, and will furnish another prece- 

 dent to make the total obliteration of the old Park an 

 easy and certain achievement. It happens, too, that the 

 new building will destroy the beaut)^ of the old City Hall, 

 over which its seven stories will tower. Not only will the 

 venerable building be dwarfed and its delicate lines and 

 fair proportions distorted by the overgrown pile beside it, 

 but it will be entirely shut out of sight from one direction. 

 The projectors of this scheme are so bent upon confiscat- 

 ing the land that they will not be moved from their pur- 



pose even when it brings ruin upon one of the few fine 

 examples we have of the city's earlier architecture. The 

 destruction in this case practically involves the Park, to- 

 gether with the only building that has any justification for 

 standing in the Park. 



Nor can any excuse be devised for the further desolation 

 of the Battery. The railroad managers want room, but 

 when the loop is granted they will want it no less. They, 

 too, can afford to buy all the land they need, but they will 

 never have enough so long as more can be had for the ask- 

 ing. Every new aggression will make the next one easier, 

 notwithstanding the protest which the border, already 

 covered and blackened by the road, makes to everyone 

 who passes by. The new small parks, which the city is 

 now preparing, will not escape the same struggle, even 

 though their first cost may be enormous. Enough money 

 was paid for filling in that part of the Battery which the 

 elevated roads wish to seize to buy the land for a fair-sized 

 park in any of the tenement districts, but that cost counts 

 for nothing. 



The fact is, that the usefulness of park^ is not appre- 

 ciated. To very many persons they seem wasted ground. 

 There is a passion for "improving" vacant land, and the 

 only known way to improve it is to cover it tip with some 

 construction The time has not arrived when the people 

 of the city realize that open spaces are quite as essential 

 to health and comfort as solid blocks of buildings or they 

 would never consent to see their property destroyed in this 

 way. If a hostile fleet should anchor down the bay and 

 begin to drop shells into the town it would cause some 

 consternation, but the blowing up of a few million dol- 

 lars' worth of buildings would be a less serious loss to the 

 city than the obliteration of the Battery and City Hall Park, 

 and yet these parks are doomed unless the people are ed- 

 ucated to feel that every needless encroachment upon the 

 park-space of the city is an invasion of their rights, a con- 

 fiscation of their property and a real injury to society. 



Thinning Forests. 



MR. JOHN D. LYMAN, a popular writer about for- 

 estry in the press of northern New England, argues 

 in a recent article published in the Mirror, of Manchester, 

 New Hampshire, in favor of thinning the young Pine for- 

 ests of that state. Mr. Lj^man's arguments, like those of 

 many other American writers upon forestry, are not based 

 upon experiment ; and in this particular case he falls back, 

 in order to enforce his views, upon the statements of va- 

 rious local authorities and a number of English writers 

 upon agriculture. Thinning a young Pine forest may or 

 may not be a good thing to do, from a commercial point 

 of view. There is no doubt that the trees will grow much 

 more rapidly if they are judiciously thinned than if they 

 are left to fight among themselves for light and nourish- 

 ment But who knows what the ratio of income will be 

 under the two systems, or whether there is any money in 

 helping Nature in the case of a forest of White Pines. The 

 finest Pines which ever tossed their tops to the wind grew 

 without any assistance from man ; and man has yet to show 

 that he can improve upon such trees. Perhaps he can, if 

 money is not an object; but it is a serious object in the case of 

 a crop which requires a century in which to reach maturity 

 and which has such a low money value in comparison 

 with the time required for its production. A rule of mod- 

 ern forestry, now almost universally adopted, is not to 

 spend money on a crop for the mere purpose of hastening 

 its maturity. Time is less important than money when 

 the interest account is carried through so many years. 

 Forests in Europe are rarely thinned, therefore, until the 

 thinnings are of sufficient value to pay all the cost of the 

 operation. Young White Pines have no value, unfortu- 

 nately, until they are from twenty-five to thirty years old, 

 and cannot be disposed of. This will be found the one 

 disadvantage in this tree, in other respects one of the most 

 valuable of all trees for general forest-planting. 



