326 



Garden and Forest. 



[July io, li 



upon it, then, compared with the evaporation from the free or 

 woodless ground, we get a diminution of more than eighty 

 per cent. ! The practical question, however, lies not so much 

 in the increase or diminution of the rain-fall as in its distri- 

 bution." 



Sonae Old American Country-Seats. 



III. — Belmont. 



TDEYOND Fresh Pond the road from Cambridge to Waverly 

 ■*-' ascends a gentle swell of smoothly-surfaced upland, 

 enters the shade of arching Elms and presently discloses on 

 the right hand a green lawn of an extent that is imcommon 

 near Boston. The ground has a beautiful form. It descends 

 a little from the road towards a gentle hollow which holds a 

 small pond, and thence it rises very gradually, and with many 

 slight irregularities of slope, to the wood which bounds the 

 scene at the north, and to the house at the north-west. The 

 western border of the open ground is a wood of native, decid- 

 uous trees through which the approach road goes to the house. 

 In many places the grass runs in between the surrounding 

 groves, so that only the lower or eastern boundary of the lawn 

 appears in the least degree formal or stiff. A few Hickories 

 rise in the midst of the grass. They are quite in keeping 

 with their surroundings, but this cannot be said for the group 

 of White Pines, or the two or three Norway Spruces, or the big 

 Larch encircled by old plants of Arbor-vitiE, which are the com- 

 panions of the Hickories in the open ground. Our picture, 

 (page 330) taken from a point near the little pond, shows only 

 the upper half of the lawn and but one of these incongruous 

 trees, the Spruce, which appears behind the two Hickories 

 in the foreground. This Norway is a fine specimen of its 

 kind ; its lower limbs rest upon the ground on all sides, 

 but it should never have been planted where it is, for its for- 

 mal shape is quite the opposite of every shape around it and 

 attracts the eye to itself at once in a way which confuses the 

 effect of the otherwise harmonious scene. The stiffly circular 

 clump of Arbor-vitcC is a still more obtrusive object. Thought- 

 less planting like this has too often injured scenes which 

 nature made harmoniously beautiful, and to which nature 

 would gladly add more and more of character and beauty if 

 she were helped and not thwarted by man. 



The house is approached through a wood of trees which 

 arch overhead to form a handsome informal avenue within 

 which the road curves very gently ; but as the whole length of 

 the road is visible at once from the beginning, it had better 

 have been made straight. At the house is a wide gravel space 

 for the accommodation of waiting carriages, and here a junc- 

 tion is made with the service road, a branch of which leads to 

 the stable. Thus all the necessary gravel spaces are provided 

 at this one side of the house, so that the grass is free to sweep 

 up to the very walls on two sides — a point of great merit in 

 the plan. The fourth, or north, side is occupied by a walled 

 kitchen-court and laundry-yard. 



The house is a substantial structure of brick, with verandas 

 built of stone. Its rooms command a view of the ten acres of 

 lawn on one hand, and of the interior of the wood on the 

 other. Over the tops of the trees at the foot of the lawn 

 appears the shining dome of the State House on Beacon Hill, 

 five miles away. 



A broad walk leads eastward from the house to a point of 

 view which commands Fresh Pond and the intervening diversi- 

 fied farms. Six Purple Beeches stand in a row beside this path 

 near the house, but formality ceases at the view point, and the 

 walk wanders off along the brink of the gentle eastward slope, 

 passes among scattered Oaks of large size and around the 

 small deer-park, and after sending off a branch to a knoll which 

 offers a yet wider prospect over the Mystic River basin, returns 

 to the rear of the garden. 



Our picture on page 331 shows a part of the Oak-wood on 

 the eastern slope. The trees are fairly well exhibited, but the 

 gracefulness of the undulations of the ground surface at this 

 point is scarcely suggested. 



The garden behind the house is an enclosed square measur- 

 ing 300 feet each way, level, and formally divided by broad 

 gravel paths, , as shown upon the plan. A conservatory and 

 two long graperies, behind which are the potting-sheds and 

 plant-houses, front upon the northern side of the garden, while 

 two Peach-houses and many well-trained Pear-trees occupy 

 the east and west walls. Most of the groimd is smoothly 

 grassed. There are two large masses of Rhododendrons 

 mixed with similar shrubs ; at the sides are long beds 

 of perennials and foliage-plants, and grouped upon the 

 grass near the angles of the walks, are specimens of such 

 trees as the Flowering Magnolias, the Red-flowering Horse- 



chestnut, the Weeping Elm, the Swamp Cypress, the Ginkgo, 

 the Oriental Spruce, the Swiss Stone Pine, and the Mountain 

 Pine {P. Ahigho). Such specimen plants are certainly quite in 

 place in a formal garden intended to be decorative. Tliey 

 should, however, be chosen for their appropriateness, and 

 grouped with due regard to the effect upon tlieir neighbors. 

 The Mountain Pine just mentioned is too roughly picturesque 

 to appear in a garden like this where elegance is the end and 

 aim. 



A glance at the sketch-plan will explain the arrangement of 

 the numerous niinor buildings and enclosures of the estate. 

 The completeness of the equipment is remarkable. There are 

 buildings for all purposes — they are not all named upon the 

 plan — and elaborate facilities for the growing of everything 

 from the Parsnip and the Potato to the Chrysanthemum and 

 the Orchid. The land company which is now in possession 

 • has cut off the farm lands, but offers the remaining parts for 

 sale quite intact. These lands made a country-seat, at least, as 

 long ago as 1800, when the owner was a brother of Commo- 

 dore Preble. One of die daughters of the house married Mr. 

 Nathaniel Amory, who became the next owner, and he sold 

 the property to Mr. R. D. Shepherd, and he to Mr. J. P. Cush- 

 ing. Mr. Gushing spent many thousand dollars every year 

 upon the place and made it, thirty-six years ago, the most 

 famous seat near Boston. Mr. S. R. Payson, the last owner, 

 maintained and increased this fame. 



To-day the place possesses something of that priceless and 

 poetic charm which so distinguishes the Gore Place and the 

 Lyman Place ; it is felt in the deer-park and among the Oaks, 

 but the spell is not so potent, nor does it pervade the whole 

 scene, as at Waltham. To define the difference is a little diffi- 

 cult, but it is in part accounted for by the fact that a certain 

 unavoidable suspicion of display attaches to this place — to 

 the great expanse of clipped lawn, the specimen trees, and the 

 elaborate gardening. On the other hand, the gardening and 

 the specimen-planting is generally good in its way, and it is 

 pfaced where it belongs : namely, in the garden, and not in 

 the landscape. 

 Boston. Liiarles hliot. 



A New Race of Lilacs. 



nPHERE may be found in some gardens still a very old 

 -*- variety of the common Lilac under the name of Syringa 

 azurea plena. I do not know the origin of this plant. It pro- 

 duces small panicles of clear-colored flowers in each of which 

 there are a number of corollas arranged one within the other. 

 It is a teratological curiosity, but as an ornamental plant quite 

 destitute of value, as the rare flowers are quite hidden by the 

 foliage. This variety, as the flowers have no stamens, and 

 the pistils are either abortive or so hidden among the numer- 

 ous corolla-lobes as to be beyond the reach of insects, does 

 not produce seeds naturally. But it will sometimes seed with 

 the aid of artificial fertilization; and seeds secured in this 

 way produced the first of the double-flowered Lilacs introduced 

 during the last few years. 



It is eighteen years since this plant, artificially fertilized in my 

 nursery with pollen of various Lilacs, bore a few seeds, which 

 afterwards germinated. Some of the best varieties of Syringa 

 vulgaris, such as Ville-de Troves, Sanguinea, etc., were selected 

 as pollen-parents in this experiment, and the pollen of Syringa 

 oblata, a species remarkable for its early flowers and for the 

 brilliant coloring of its foliage in autumn, was also used. The 

 characters of this species, to which an article recently published 

 in Garden and Forest has called attention, were transmitted 

 to one of the seedlings derived from this cross. This was first 

 sold under the name of Syringa hybrida hyacinthiflora plena. 

 The term "hybrida," which is found still on the catalogue of 

 the Maison Lemoine, was used to show that this plant is a true 

 hybrid between two species of Syringa. 



Syringa hybrida hyacinthiflora is already out of flower, 

 although the flowers on most of our Lilacs are only just open- 

 ing ; and in autumn it is exceedingly ornamental, with its bril- 

 liant red foliage. The panicles of flowers are large enough, 

 although the corolla-lobes of the double flowers are narrow and 

 reflexed. But the producHon of this plant was a step in the 

 right direction. 



The other seedlings from this first crop of seed showed no 

 trace of the blood of 5. oblata, but there were some of them 

 which were handsomer than 5. hyacinthiflora plena. The 

 l>est plant of this set was sent out under the name of .S". vulgaris 

 Lemoinei. The thyrsus of this plant is eight inches long, and 

 covered with lilac-blue double flowers, with numerous imbri- 

 cated corolla-lobes. A number of other good varieties were in 

 the set differing from S. vulgaris Lemoinei in the shape of the 

 flowers, in their color, in the color of the flower-buds, or in the 



