July 24, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



359 



for cultivation. Now it is exhausted and ruined, and the in- 

 habitants are starved and dwarfed in body and mind. Tlie 

 pictures of the Indian River country, and of the Hudson River 

 above Nortli Creek, exhibit accurately the desolation of regions 

 of appalling extent. The one showing the appearance of the 

 denuded hills of the Hudson watershed, following page 14, 

 represents precisely as it was at that time the condition of 

 broad hill-tops and slopes which were once covered with glori- 

 ous forests. I looked at these hills a few days ago. Their 

 appearance has not changed perceptibly in five years. The 

 pictures are still accurate. I wish that these pictures, or 

 photographs of similar places, could be reproduced in Garden 

 AND Forest. Making allowance for geological differences 

 they would show what will yet be seen in Pennsylvania and 

 other mountain forest-regions of our country, unless a great 

 and almost impossible change is speedily wrought in the 

 character and habits of the people of our country. 



Years ago I wrote from here : " Last week I rode through 

 the 'Schroon Country' with a man who has probably done as 

 much as any one to desolate this whole region. From 

 Minerva, past Pottersville, Schroon Lake, Schroon River 

 (Roots Hotel), and on along the Elizabethtown road past Dead- 

 water to the new road that leads through the forest to Smith 

 Beedy's, we traveled all day long through a blighted and hope- 

 less land. As league after league of utter desolation unrolled 

 before and around us, we became more and more silent. At 

 last my companion exclaimed : ' This whole country's gone to 

 the devil, hasn't it?' I asked what was, more than anything 

 else, the reason or cause of it. After long thought he replied: 

 'It all comes to this — it was because there was nobody to 

 think about it, or to do anything about it. We were all busy, 

 and all somewhat to blame, perhaps. But it was a large mat- 

 ter, and needed the co-operation of many men, and there was 

 no opening, no place to begin a new order of things here. I 

 could do nothing alone, and my neighbor could do nothing 

 alone, and there was nobody to set us to work together on a 

 plan to have. things better; nobody to represent the common 

 object. Why did not you come along to talk to us about it 

 years and years ago ? ' " 



During the last two days I have passed over the same ground. 

 The aspect of the country is the same, except that the gullies 

 in some places are deeper and wider, and where there is clay 

 or sand the erosion increases. Where there is life there is 

 change, but these dead regions, hills of bare rock, and valleys 

 of desolate sand are little changed from year to year. Exten- 

 sive tracts here will be much tlie same a century from now. 



I hope all the visitors to the great World's Fair in 1892, who 

 are intei"ested in forestry suljjects, will come and see the 

 " Schroon Country," taking the route I have indicated. Minerva 

 is reached by stage or buck-board from North Creek, which is 

 at present the northern terminus of the Adirondack Railroad. 

 If the people of the State of New York would visit these 

 regions they might, possibly, come to feel a more intelligent 

 and vital interest in their own possessions in the North 

 Woods, and in the great river which has its sources here, and 

 which is so necessary to the prosperity of the cities at its 

 mouth. At present everything indicates that when the Adiron- 

 dack region is completely ruined, if not before, the people of 

 the State will at last Jiwaken to a sense of its value, and will then, 

 perhaps, take steps to obtain possession of it. It will cost 

 vastly more then than it would now, and its value will be 

 fatally impaired for centuries to come. 



Elizabethtown, N. Y. 7- B. Harrisott, 



Cor. Sec. Amcncan Forestry Congress. 



The Adornment of Gardens. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir.— Kemp, in his " How to Lay Out a Garden," a little vol- 

 ume brimful of excellent suggestions, says : " Gardening and 

 architecture, like all the line arts, have much in common — 

 and that department of architecture which belongs more ex- 

 clusively to the garden has especially a great affinity with gar- 

 dening in its broader principles. In fact, there is much more 

 relation between the two than is usually admitted, or than the 

 ordinary products of practitioners in either art would at all 

 justify us in believing." 



I confess to a great admiration for those stiff, formal, geo- 

 metrical gardens so prevalent in England during the eigh- 

 teenth century, and whose disappearance was in great meas- 

 ure due to the writings of Addison, Pope and Walpole, and to 

 the hands of Bridgman and " Capability " Brown. There was a 

 direct, harmonious connection with the architecture of the day 

 — they were stately and full of dignity, like the grand lords and 

 ladies that walked in them. William Howitt'thus pleasantly 



discourses in his "Rural Life of England : " " It has been the 

 fashion to cry down all gardens as ugly and tasteless which 

 are not shaped by our modern notions . . . yet the old 

 French and Dutch gardens, as the appendages of a quaint, old 

 house, are, in my opinion, beautiful. They are like many 

 other things, not so much beautiful in themselves as Ijeautiful 

 by association — as memorials of certain characters and ages. 

 If the taste of the present generation had been that of all past 

 ages, what could there have been in the gardens of our past 

 kings, nobles and historical characters to mark them as 

 strongly and emphatically as they ai-e now marked ? " 



In a modified way, these old gardens were those of our 

 fathers in New England. They served to awaken associa- 

 tions with the past, and with very distant shores, which were 

 still dear to them. 



And they yet have their place. In the small public squares 

 of cities and of the larger towns, in contracted suburban bits 

 of ground where variety and irregularity are out of question, 

 and in connection with the pretentious square or rectangular 

 colonial house of the present taste — all that goes to make up 

 the mathematical garden — would, if judiciously carried out, Vje 

 extremely pleasing — for its novelty, if for no higher reason. 



The proper and appropriate adornment of the architectural 

 garden could not be mistaken. Its rectilineal gravel walks 

 with its edgings of Box-wood, its statues, fountains, vases, 

 formal trees- and quaint topiary-work were, each and all in 

 keeping with the symmetrical laying-out and with the adjoin- 

 ing buildings. Such, however, is not the case with the style 

 of the present day. Incongruity is too often displayed. As 

 examples, we may cite the disposal of fruit-trees among those 

 of a strictly ornamental character; the cultivation of vegeta- 

 bles in the flower borders ; the representation, in the surface 

 of a lawn, of some inanimate object by means of variegated 

 plants ; the use of ornaments in a style different from the 

 architecture of the house — not only immediately about but 

 attached to the building. 



This applies especially to rustic work. Not that I would by 

 any means decry the aesthetic use of any object or material, 

 however humble, but it must be in harmony with all that sur- 

 rounds it. And this leads me to speak briefly of the material 

 used in the construction of the suburban dwelling, a matter of 

 the more importance if it has any pretentions to architectural 

 beauty. Wood has long held its ascendency among us for 

 this purpose, chiefly on account of its cheapness, and in a 

 measure for sanitary reasons. It must, however, soon yield 

 to stone or brick, as the tastes of the people improve. To a 

 man of correct taste and judgment the idea of the want of 

 solidity in the wooden house is unpleasant, especially, if as is 

 generally the case, the appurtenances of the garden and ad- 

 joining grounds, such as terrace walls and steps, balustrades, 

 pedestals, vases, etc., are made of the same material. Down- 

 ing, who did much to improve the public sentiment in all that 

 relates to such matters forty years ago, says : " In point of 

 taste a house built of wood strikes us the least agreeably, as 

 our pleasure in beholding a beautiful form is marred by the 

 idea of the frailness of the material composing that form. 

 . . . The strength with which it strikes a European accus- 

 tomed to solidity and permanence in a dwelling, is the best 

 proof of the truth of our remark." 



Clicstnut Hill, Mass. D. D. Slade. 



The Cranberry Gall Fungus. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Some of the Cranberry bogs of New Jersey are in- 

 fested with a disease which is known as the Gall Fungus, or 

 by some called "red rust." In appearance to the naked eye 

 it consists of a small, deep red, gall-like structure extending 

 from the surface of the infested plant. The galls may appear 

 upon any young-growing part, and in a badly attacked branch 

 they are in large numbers upon the stem, leaves, flowers and 

 finally the fruit. In extreme cases the whole surface of the 

 diseased bog is reddened and the plants are stunted or killed 

 and the crop is a failure. This fungus, when considered mi- 

 croscopically, is quite different from the rusts of the grain- 

 fields, the smut of Corn, Oats and the like, the mildew of the 

 Lettuce and the various moulds which attack many kinds of 

 plants. For the present purpose, however, it may be only 

 said that it belongs in the great group of fungi which contains 

 thousands of strange and minute forms of plants, ranging in 

 size from the puff-balls and toad-stools down to those so min- 

 ute that a high magnifier is needed to make them appear of 

 the real size of such fungi as bread mould and Grape mildew. 

 The gall fungus of the Cranberry is one of the simplest forms 

 of those peculiar parasitic plants. 



In the inspection of the infested bogs it has been found that 



