278 



Garden and Forest. 



[June 12, 1889. 



tained from it would be great in proportion as it was con- 

 centrated. A man with abundant means and sufficient 

 ground at his disposal might make a dozen such gardens 

 without greater outlay than is required for the mixed 

 planting now in vogue; or, in a village, a dozen men might 

 join together and each one plant the surroundings of his 

 villa or cottage with some plant or plants, for a particular 

 effect, for one particular time, leaving to his associates to 

 carry on the display from week to week. Such a scheme 

 might be diiScult to inaugurate, but if carried out to its 

 possible limit it would develop a greater excellence in 

 gardening, and produce more marvellous results than have 

 yet been attained. 



A lady who carries on a large farm and has for many 

 years been a successful planter of trees, and a lover of 

 them and of country life, sends us some male flowers 

 which she has found growing on one of her young Pines, 

 with the query, whether they are not some new form of dis- 

 ease which has appeared on her trees. We mention this fact, 

 which does not astonish us as much, perhaps, as it should, 

 as an illustration of how little even well educated and intel- 

 ligent people know about the commonest trees which they 

 see growing about them every day and as an argument 

 in favor of giving children in the schools some elementary 

 instruction about trees. The men or the women who can 

 readily distinguish all the trees among which much of their 

 lives are passed, and who have mastered some of the sim- 

 ple secrets of their life histories, have prepared for them- 

 selves an amount of pleasure which the person ignorant of 

 such matters can hardly realize. This is a pleasure, too, 

 of a sort which is as enduring as the trees themselves, and 

 which, like them, bursts out each year into new and more 

 vigorous growth. 



A New England Village Street. 



THE people of New England have reason to be thank- 

 ful that their original forests produced many trees 

 whose wood was of much greater value than that of the 

 American Elm, for this, no doubt, is one reason why so 

 many magnificent specimens of this tree have been left to 

 shelter farm-houses and shade the highways of the Eastern 

 States. It is plain, too, that its value as a street-tree was 

 recognized there as soon as street-planting was begun, and 

 many a New England town, like Old Hadley and West 

 Springfield and Conway, has gained a name for beauty 

 because the men who dwelt in it a hundred years ago ap- 

 preciated the dignity and grace of the Elm, with its colum- 

 nar trunk, buttressed at the base with sturdy roots, and its 

 massive branches arching outwards to hold aloft its dome- 

 like crown of foliage. The Sugar Maple is another of our 

 noblest northern trees, although when young its outlines 

 are rather too smooth and featureless. With advancing 

 years, however, this Maple develops a certain individuality, 

 with a more rugged contour and deeper shadows ; and no 

 one sees the avenue of Maples at Hyde Park on the Hudson. 

 for instance, without a feeling of unqualified admiration. 



Our illustration on page 283 shows a remarkable row of 

 each of these trees. It is a view looking down the main 

 street of Charlestown, New Hampshire, a town that was a 

 frontier post in the old French war, and afterwards as a 

 shire town, became the home of many people of more than 

 ordinary public spirit and intelligence. In 1800,, some of 

 these residents planted a row of Elms on one side of the 

 street and one of Sugar Maples on the other, and their suc- 

 cessors continued the practice as the village grew, until the 

 street is bordered with trees for about a mile. The two 

 large Elms in the foreground on the right belong to a still 

 earlier planting. They stand in front of the site of the old 

 tavern which was kept by Colonel Abel Walker, and as the 

 sign of the tavern, now in possession of the Massachusetts 

 Historical Society, bears the date of 1785, they were prob- 

 ably planted as early, at least, as that year. Three other 

 trees probably date from the same period, as they are 

 larger than those known to have been planted in 1800, and 



at five feet from the ground vary in circumference from 

 twelve and a half to nearly fifteen feet, and appear to be 

 nearly one hundred feet high. The avenue of Elms seen in 

 the background is probably unsurpassed in New England, 

 and later plantations on the side streets so hide the 

 houses that the town looks like a continuous forest to one 

 who looks down upon it from any of the neighboring hills. 

 The view is reproduced from a photograph taken by Mr. 

 S. S. Webber, a grandson of one of the old residents who 

 practiced medicine in the town for more than sixty years. 



Horticulture in Ancient Egypt. 



FROM an article on " Egyptian Horticulture," by Monsieur 

 G. Delchevalerie, recently published in the Revue Horti- 

 cole, we have gathered a few facts which may be of interest to 

 our readers in connection with tlie chapter on Egyptian gar- 

 dening-art that was printed in these pages not. many weeks 

 ago. On the tomb of Ti, in the vicinity of the great pyramid, 

 which dates from about forty centuries before Christ, the har- 

 vest of the Lotus and the manufacture of wine are repre- 

 sented, together with irrigating machines and horticultural 

 tools similar to those in local use to-day. The tree called 

 "Heglig" {Balanites ^gyptica),\N2i% largely cultivated in the 

 Thebaid, and was sacred to Isis because it would grow even 

 in the desert sand, and also because its edible fruit was shaped 

 like a heart and its leaf like a tongue. The Sycamore, as has 

 been said, was one of the chief trees of Egypt and likewise 

 the Doum Palm {Hyphcene Thebaica) and, of course, the Date 

 Palm. Lentils and Onions formed the main food of the 

 people and Melons, Leeks, Radishes, Watermelons, Garlic 

 and Chicory were everywhere cultivated, the last-named being 

 indeed prescribed by a special law. Oil was obtained from 

 the Castor-oil plant, Flax, Carthamus, Sesamum and Turnip. 

 Olive-oil was obtained from Judea. Herodotus is careful to 

 note that in his day the Olive was only grown in one or two 

 districts and there not with great success. From two species 

 of Lawsonia the ancient like the modern Egyptians obtained 

 the henna with which to dye their finger-nails. In mummy 

 cases many fruits have been found in a recognizable condition 

 — Dates, Figs, Bananas, Lemons, Grapes, Doums, Pomegran- 

 ates, Castor-oil beans, Sycamore Figs and Lotus beans, as well 

 as bees-wax, gum-arabic and flowering shoots of Lawsonia. 

 The Vine was grown for ornament over arbors and porches 

 and was cultivated on trellises. An ancient legend explained 

 that the first idea of priming it came through observing a 

 specimen which, after a goat had eaten off the tips of its 

 shoots, bore with greater luxuriance than usual. Beer made 

 from cereals was in common use among the lower classes, 

 and as Hops did not grow in Egypt a bitter infusion of Lupi- 

 nus te7uns was used instead. During the rule of the great 

 conquering dynasties part of the tribute always exacted from 

 subjected peoples was in the form of useful and ornamental 

 trees and plants not indigenous in Egypt. 



The cultivation of Sugar-cane was not introduced undl the 

 time of the Mohammedan caliphs, and then its chief use for 

 a long period was to be eaten raw. At the present day the 

 Egyptian laborer is never so happy as when squatdng hour 

 after hour on his heels beside the Nile chewing an immense 

 stick of Sugar-cane. Nor did the ancient Egyptians cultivate 

 the Bean which now plays so large a part in their domestic 

 economy; it was considered by the priests an "unclean" plant. 

 It is needless to repeat what has recently been said in these 

 pages about the Sacred Lotus and the various Water-lilies 

 which grew in Egypt. The Poppy was another favorite flower. 

 The Papyrus does not now grow there spontaneously and it is 

 a question whence the ancient inhabitants originally obtained 

 it ; probably from Upper Nubia and the Soudan countries 

 where it grows in enormous thickets. 



At a feast celebrated in Alexandria 284 years before Christ, 

 during the reign of Ptolomy Phildelphus, a conspicuous fea- 

 ture in a splendid procession was a car, twenty cubits in 

 length, which was drawn by three hundred men and sur- 

 mounted by a wine-press full of grapes that were being 

 pressed by sixty satyrs, singing vintage songs to. the accom- 

 paniment of flutes. The wine ran out into the road and was 

 served to the public by numerous children carrying vases of 

 gold, silver and parti-colored enamel. 



When Egypt fell under the dominion of Rome half a cen- 

 tury before Christ, it became, as is well known, the granary 

 of the imperial city, and furnished it with vast quantities of 

 wine as well as cereals. This state of things lasted for three 

 centuries and a half until about the year 330 A. D., when the 



