386 



Garden and Forest. 



[August 14, i88g. 



A WELL-WRITTEN letter from Walnut Grove, Arizona, 

 in the Evening Post of July 24th, describes the 

 great dam recently built for a storage reservoir at that 

 place. It took more than a year to construct it, the work 

 going on day and night. It is of solid masonry, and is 1 10 

 feet high. It is thirty miles southeast of Prescott, on the 

 Hassayampa river. Above it is a wide valley, shut in on 

 all sides by high mountains, the only outlet a narrow 

 canon, through which the river runs. The dam blocks 

 up the mouth of the caiion where it leaves the valley, and 

 the valley is changed to a lake basin. There was a heavy 

 snow on the mountains, and at last a great rain. 



"Every crack in the rock fed a hollow, the hollows fed the 

 streams that grew quickly into torrents that tore their way 

 down the sandy washes into the lake. The lake rose three 

 feet in an hour as the result of the local rain, but the warm rain 

 and snow on the mountains were yet to be heard from. The 

 catchment area of the reservoir, extending over 300 square 

 miles, has its outer circle of mountains at least thirty miles 

 awa)'. It might take all night for the snow to melt and come 

 down. But at midnight a cowboy rode in on horseback to toll 

 us there was a wave anywhere from 50 to 100 feet high com- 

 ing down the ' Hassayamp.' We took onv po^ichas^ml lanterns, 

 and started for the boom. We could hear the roar of the 

 water three miles away, but it was an hour before the wave 

 rolled in upon us, like a great tidal swell, iifteen feet high and 

 fifty feet across, boiling and bubbling with foam, and carrying 

 huge rocks and trees along with it. Above the roar of the 

 storm we could hear the boom of the other streams that one 

 after another came on, great rivers, where an hour before 

 there had been nothing but creek-beds. 



"We went home to tind the water half-way up the camp- 

 hill, and everybody awake and rustling. The croakers who 

 had built on the edge of the fiat, in defiance of the dam level, 

 were scurrying about in the dark, scooping their belongings 

 into gunny-sacks, and hurrying up the hill to establish new and 

 rival claims above the no-feet line." 



When the letter was written the water was within five 

 feet of the top of the dam. If the mountains above were 

 clothed with forests, the water would not be likely to come 

 down in such enormous waves, carrying huge rocks and 

 trees along with it. Such masses of debris will, of course, 

 fill up the reservoir rapidly, but that is not so serious a 

 matter as the probable effect upon the dam of the pressure of 

 an unusually heavy flood. Let us hope that the dwellers 

 along the stream below who cannot keep their claims and 

 belongings "above the no-feet line" may never learn 

 from experience the destructive force of so great a volume 

 of water when once it is set free. 



How to Mask the Foundations of a Country 



House. — HI. 



TT ARDY shrubs, it was said in an earlier chapter, are the 

 -'■ ■*• best things to plant close to the foundations of a house 

 to give it tlie look of being integrally united with the soil be- 

 neatii it, and to bring it into harmony with the natural feat- 

 ures around it. Whether creepers are profusely used or not, 

 whether or not trees stand near by, shrubs can hardly be dis- 

 pensed with if the house is to seem to belong exactly where 

 it stands, and nowhere else. Flo\ver-beds can never rightly 

 take their place, for they are at once too formal, too monoto- 

 nous and too ephemeral. What is wanted is a garment that 

 can be high in some places, low in others ; here dense and 

 massive7 there light and graceful ; that can now cling closely 

 to the walls, and now spread away a little to unite them with 

 neighboring plantations. Shrubs give us everything that is 

 thus required, and in endless variety. 



Just in this profusion of species among which he can 

 choose lies, however, danger for the planter. When so many 

 beautiful shrubs are offered, and so many striking novelties, 

 he may easily forget the exact purpose in question and think 

 too much of the claims of individual plants, and thus produce 

 a confused medley of inappropriate plants instead of an har- 

 monious and appropriate variety. If "specimen plants" are 

 wanted, their place should not be here. Here the effect of 

 the house is the tirst consideration. If a tall shrub is planted, 

 it should be because a tall one is needed, not because a partic- 

 ularly handsome tall one has been seen in a nursery or in 

 some neighl:>or's grounds. The question should not be 

 whether one likes Lilacs especially, but whether Lilac-bushes 



can be well used in the general scheme. With a little care a 

 good spot can be found for any special favorite ; or, if not, 

 something that will win itself as high a place in its owner's 

 affections can be found to use instead. 



Of course an over-use of shrubs should be avoided. We 

 do not want a house to look as though it grew in a thicket, 

 or as though the cultivation of shrubs were its owner's chief 

 concern. Mass shrubs in the angles of stoops or bay-win- 

 do\Vs, carry them along in lower groups, then break them, 

 and for a little space let the foundations be seen resting on the 

 grass, in order that their stability may be clearly manifest, 

 and then in another angle place another more important 

 group. Take the outline of the house and the character of its 

 features as your guide, and accent these while uniting the 

 building, as a whole, with its site. Do not conceal beautiful 

 features, but sedulously plant out those which, like out-houses 

 and drying-yards, should not be seen. 



Plant closely at first, and then as the individuals develop 

 thin out those which are no longer needed, for crowded, ill- 

 grown shrubs are as ineffective as a garment for the walls as 

 painful to the eye of the true lover of plants. Each shrub 

 should be well developed and have room to display its pe- 

 culiar habit, and the masses, as a whole, should have that play 

 of light and shade and that freedom of movement which over- 

 crowding ruins. Above all, never shear off the tops of these 

 shrubs to a horizontal line ; nor clip them into stiff or formal 

 shapes ; nor trim away their lower branches and cut back their 

 heads to make them look like dwarfed trees. If the proper se- 

 lection has been made, all pruning and training should be with 

 a view to bring out the distinctive character of each shrub, and 

 not to force any of them into alien and unnatural forms. 

 Shrubs which stand in front of a plantation should sweep the 

 ground with their branches. Behind these may stand others 

 of a different habit, but to place individuals which naturally 

 grow well above the soil in the foreground, or to clip others till 

 they present a similar, but, of course, less pleasing appearance, 

 is to give a shrubbery a bald, ill-grown and ungraceful look. 

 Nor is there any place where this look is so unfortunate as 

 in shrubs, the very purpose of which is to unite the base 

 of a house with the ground upon which it stands. If a 

 shrub thus placed grows too large, take it out and let its 

 neighbors gradually fill the space, or plant a smaller one in its 

 stead. Severe cutting will only spoil it, and in spoiling it you 

 will injure the effect of the whole group to which it belongs. 



Color should be especially regarded in choosing shrubs and 

 creepers. One monotonous tint of green is to be avoided, and, 

 still more, an excessive use of bright-hued plants. Green is 

 Nature's color. The bright-hued plants which, in this climate, 

 she spontaneously produces are few, and the vast majority of 

 those which the nursery-gardener offers us are those sports 

 and freaks of Nature which she herself, perhaps, would regard 

 as lamentable mistakes. Curiosities have, however, a great 

 attraction for the average man, especially at the moment when 

 they rank as novelties also, and far too many places are dis- 

 figured by an accumulation of abnormally colored plants, with 

 striped or blotched or speckled foliage, and especially with 

 foliage of those sickly yellow hues which go in nursery cata- 

 logues by the attractive name of "golden." A single plant of 

 this sort may often produce a pretty effect, if grouped among 

 others of a normal tint — as a slender Golden Honeysuckle 

 climbing amid others of ordinary kinds, or a single red Japan- 

 ese Maple, associated with a mass of dark-green shrubs. But 

 to plant too many of them, and to mingle reds and yellows, 

 streaks and spots, in the reckless manner that we often see, is 

 to destroy all peacefulness and unity as well as all naturalness 

 of effect. 



But, even when shrubs of a normal hue are adhered to, there 

 is still need for selection. The different shades of green should 

 be well distributed. Each should form a mass of sufficient 

 size to prevent any look of spottiness and restlessness in the 

 general effect, each should harmonize with its neighbor, and 

 each should be in right relationship to the house itself. A dark- 

 blue green should not stand next to a light and rather yellow- 

 ish green — there should be a medium tint to make a transition 

 between them. Nor does a pale grayish-green harmonize 

 well with a yellowish tint, although, against a dark blue-green, 

 it may look well. Again, a rather yellowish shrub, which 

 might have an excellent effect against a shingled or a painted 

 wooden house, may look too crude against a red brick wall, 

 while each different color in stone will make a different de- 

 mand upon the exhausfiess resources of the intelligent planter. 

 In general, if dark-colored foliage is used in the background 

 and lighter colored in the foreground, and if there is more 

 variety of hue near the eye than further back, the shrubbery 

 will gain in depth and richness of effect. 



