August 21, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



397 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by . . 





. Professor C. S. 



Sargf.nt. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE 1 



POST OFFICE AT NEW 



YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, 



WEDNESDAY, 



, AUGUST 21, 



1889. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial : — Design in the Surroundings of Houses 397 



Among OaUs, Madrones and Redwoods Charles H. Shinn. 398 



The so-called " Gnt " in Apple-twigs Professor B. D. Halstead. 399 



Entomological: — The Asparagus Beetle J. G. Jack. 399 



Motes Upon Some North American Trees. — VI. (illustrated), 



Professor C. S. Sargent. 400 



Nf.w or LiTrLE Known Plants : — Uniola Palmcri (with figure), 



George Vasey, M,D. 401 



KouEiGN Correspondence: — London Letter W. Goldring. 402 



Cultural Department: — A few Summer Pears '. E. Williams 403 



Memoranda from a Northern Garden T, H. Hoskins, M.D. 404 



Aquatics for Small Gardens f. N. Gerard. 405 



Crotons as Bedding Plants W. H. Taflin. 405 



Filling in About Trees. Planting Deciduous Trees in September, 



fosepJi Meehan. 405 

 Fruits and Vegetables for Forcing. Preparing for Flowers, 



John Thorpe. 406 



COKRESPONDENCE :— Forests and Civilization. V. — The North Woods, 



J . B. Harrison. 406 



Orchids in Flower in Brooklyn A. Dimmock. 407 



Diseases of Ampelopsis E. H. C. 407 



Ribbon Grass Thojnas Meehan. 408 



Notes 408 



Illustrations: — Acacia flexicaulis,* Fig. 123 ^a 401 



Uniola Palmeri, Fig. 124 403 



Design in the Surroundings of Houses. 



A FEW months ago Mr. Charles EHot, the well-known 

 landscape-gardener, read before the Massachusetts 

 Horticultural Society a most instructive paper with the 

 above title. Assuming that every one desires to have his 

 house and grounds beautiful as well as convenient, Mr. 

 Eliot insisted (i) that the real beauty of what he aptly 

 termed the "house-scene" is never derived from added 

 decoration, but must spring directly from the scene itself ; 

 and (2) that this beauty can be attained only when the 

 house and its surroundings are thought out together as one 

 design and composition. These truths are fundamental, 

 and yet the ordinary practice is to build houses without 

 much reference to the land about them, and often with no 

 thought of so essential a matter as the way of approach. 

 After the building is complete some attention may be given 

 to making the scene a pleasant one to look upon ; and 

 this is usually done by inserting flower-beds or specimen 

 plants here and there, without reference to the nature of 

 the ground. 



Illustrations of the truth of both these propositions can 

 be found in town and country, but it is our purpose now to 

 present a portion of Mr. Eliot's paper which relates to the 

 suburb — a district where roads and houses dominate the 

 landscape. Generally the ground here is level, the bounda- 

 ries straight, and the lots comparatively small. In such 

 neighborhoods the architect's share in making the scene is 

 predominant, and an error in the style of the house is fatal 

 to the effect of the house-scene. A many-angled and 

 many-gabled building on a smooth site, in a straight- 

 bounded enclosure, is out of keeping, and so is a tangle of 

 bushes and bowlders, or a sharply-curved approach-road. 

 This does not imply that the curve must be forbidden and 

 the path made straight when the streets are curved or 

 when the house-door is reached most easily by a curved 

 line, but it does mean that purposeless curvature, such as 

 prevails in many suburbs, should be shunned. 



But we leave Mr. Eliot to speak in his own language : 

 " Awkward and breadth-destroying- lines of approach are tlie 

 rule in the sul)urbs, and the architect is often responsible tor 

 them, for he frequently places the house door in such a posi- 

 tion that the path or road leading to it must necessarily cut 



the ground before the house into lamentably small pieces ; and 

 he does this, too, when a little thought might perhaps have 

 brought about that happiest of all arrangements in which a 

 stretch of grass as long or longer than the l)uilding is l)rought 

 without a break up to the house-wall itself. No suljsequent 

 plantingcan obliterate mistakes in these controlling elements of 

 the suburban iiouse-scene, the liouse and the approach ; and 

 no planting can accomplish what it otherwise might, if, by 

 reason of luunindfulness of the effect of the house-scene as a 

 whole, the framework of the scene is wrongly put together. 



"It is seldom that a suburban lot, after the house and ap- 

 proaches are built, retains nnich of its former vegetation. A 

 few large trees may survive the necessary gradings, but the 

 natural ground covering is generally killed out. On the com- 

 pletion of the grading, grass is sown, and from the resulting 

 sheet of green, the house-walls and the boundary walls or 

 fences rise abruptly. It is surprising to see, as one may every- 

 where, well-designed houses, adorned witliin with much rich 

 ornament, and probably inhabited by people who appreciate 

 art and nature, standing thus naked in naked enclosures. 

 The contrast between a handsome building and bare surround- 

 ings is sufficiently obvious in summer, but in winter in this 

 New England chmate it becomes positively startling, so that 

 it is difficult to understand how educated people can fail to be 

 impressed by it, and how they can longer refuse to compre- 

 hend that the house and the house-ground should be treated in 

 the same spirit. 



" From another point of view this nakedness is equally sur- 

 prising. Here in the suburbs is an opportunity for adding to 

 all the usual advantages and ornaments of city life the ne\v 

 and delightful pleasantness of verdure, fragrance, and bloom. 

 As a matter of fact, it is an appreciation of this opportunity 

 that causes the first plantings in most suburl^an grounds. 

 Trees and shrubs, selected for their profuse flowering or their 

 striking habit, are set out here and there, and brilliant beds of 

 flowers are perhaps added. Desire for ornament of this sort 

 grows by whatitfeedson, and causes the pressing demand upon 

 the nurseryman for plants of marked appearance. The efTect 

 upon house-grounds resulting from planting undertaken in 

 this spirit is generally unfortunate. Specimens of many sorts 

 planted promiscuously on a lawn compose an interesting, 

 though ill-arranged museum, but not an appropriate setting 

 for a house. They wholly destroy all that breadth of effect 

 which is so difficult but so important to preserve in small 

 grounds ; if they grow large they interfere with the prospect 

 and the aspect of the home, and, whatever their size, they give 

 the scene the appearance of having been adorned to make a 

 show, and remind one of the saying of the Greek sculptor, 

 who charged his pupil with having richly ornamented a statue 

 because he knew not liow to make it beautiful. 



" An ambition to possess a collection of handsome, curious 

 and rare plants, like the similar passions for shells or minerals 

 or precious stones, is entirely praiseworthy and honorable, and 

 may well be indulged ad libituiii, provided a place can be set 

 apart and fittingly arranged for the purpose, as cabinets are 

 prepared indoors for collections of curios of all sorts. Out of 

 doors a flower-garden is such a cabinet, and there is no reason 

 that tree and shrub gardens should not be similarly arranged 

 by those who desire to grow many striking sorts. In formal 

 and highly decorated pleasure-grounds, specimen trees are 

 already used in this way, and with good effect. Before stately 

 buildings and in connection with terraces and formal avenues, 

 appropriate specimens are always in keeping ; but in New 

 England house-scenes not especially arranged to receive them, 

 they destroy the last hope of good general effect. 



" With what object, then, should the planting of the suljurban 

 house-ground be planned ? 



"I answer, with the object of helping the building, and the 

 other controlling parts of the scene, to form an appropriate and 

 pleasing whole. In the very smallest front yards one thing 

 which should seldom or never be omitted can be accomplished 

 just as well as it can be in grounds of larger area, that is, the 

 connecting of the house-walls with the ground by means of 

 some sort of massing of verdure. Shrubs planted near the 

 base of the house-wall remove at once all appearance of isola- 

 tion and nakedness, and nothing can help a building moie 

 than this. Here, if nowhere else, some evergreens should he 

 used, and it is fortunate that in a climate in which liard\- ever- 

 greens are few, the stiff sorts, like the bo.v and arborvit;es and 

 the junipers, are all entirely appropriate in close connection 

 with a building. The more irrcgailar the structure, tiie more 

 varied in detail may be these \N'all-])lantings, but it the house is 

 of formal design, a hedge-like row of l)uslies mav be best. 

 The older houses in many New England villages often have 

 bushes set out thus along their walls; and at the Longfellow 



