September 4, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



43 i 



either case they do not receive real impressions, or they lack 

 the power to convey them to others. Once in a while, how- 

 ever, comes an artist — a nian born not merely to see but to 

 feel, and dowered with the gift of adequate expression. Then, 

 if his craft be painting, he shows us more than all the maps 

 and diagrams and faithfid prosaic paintings of generations 

 have shown ; and if his craft be writing, he tells us more than 

 all the learned students and careful statisticians who had gone 

 before him. 



Such an artist is Pierre Loti, a young French naval officer, 

 known in common life as IVIonsiem- Julien Viaud. No one 

 had heard of him until a ""few years ago, when he published 

 the " Roman d'un Spahi," dealing with Algerian life, and tlie 

 " Pecheur d'Islande." He was not a writer by profession, but 

 merely a Ijorn artist wlio had chanced to take to the sea, and 

 now, inspired by strange foreign sights, showed himself at 

 once a master in the art of writing. To say tliis is to say very 

 much of a Frenchman. Almost every Frenchman is a born 

 writer, as compared with Englishmen or Germans. A liter- 

 ary gift seems his by birthright, and when he does what would 

 make instant fame for a man of any other modern race, he 

 merely does what his countrymen expect of him if he dares 

 to put his pen to paper. To say that the charm of Pierre 

 Loti's style instantly gained him a place among the best of his 

 contemporaries means, indeed, that he possesses an extraor- 

 dinary talent. More than once before he published this pres- 

 ent book he had spoken of Japan. But in " Japoneries d'Au- 

 tomne" (one must coin a word in order to translate and say 

 " Autumn Japanesques ") he gives iis something more deli- 

 cious than even "Madame Chrysantheme." It is but a little 

 volume, a brief rambling account of an autumn ramble 

 through a few districts familiar to every tourist. No one need 

 turn to it who wants " information," much less statistics. Yet 

 any one who wants to know how Japan appears had better 

 turn to it than to anything else which we could cite. Pierre Loti's 

 mood is that which has been cleverly called " detached sym- 

 pathy" — the best of all moods for the non-scientific tourist. 

 He neither tries conscientiously to put himself in the mental 

 and emotional shoes of a Japanese, nor to don the shoes of a 

 European bent upon understanding the point of view of Europe 

 by the contrasts offered in Japan. He simply sees and feels 

 with gay spirits, keen perceptions, a lumiorous delight in every 

 oddity, and a genuine artistic enthusiasm for every charm. 

 His impressions are incomparably fresh and vivid, and he re- 

 ports them with incomparable vivacity, wit, good humor and 

 literary skill, and, as an element in this skill should be noted, 

 a brevity even beyond that which marks almost all French 

 descriptive writing. It is impossible to translate any passages 

 from his book ; he is too Gallic in style to be anglicized, even 

 with as much success as one may translate such writers of an 

 earlier day as Gautier. All we can do is to point our readers 

 to the little volume, assuring them of a couple of hours' in- 

 tense amusement, and a clear, abiding picture of Japan to 

 hang in the gallery of their recollections. Of course, there 

 would be no reason to do even as much as this in these col- 

 umns had Pierre Loti not spoken of the gardens of Japan ; 

 but some of his most delightful chapters are devoted to them, 

 and, though his treatment is superficial in the sense of being 

 neither scientific nor categorical, he gives us a more interest! 

 ing and more illuminative account of the Sacred Mountain o 

 Nikko and the tombs of the Samourais than any one who had 

 preceded him in these well-worn paths. Reading other writers 

 we learn what there is in these places ; reading him we learn 

 how it all looks and what the sensitive Occidental feels as he 

 is looking at it. The difference between the two results is 

 immense, and Loti's we get through an hour or two of plea- 

 sure instead of through days of wearying study. This it is to 

 be an artist. When will one arise to do the same service for 

 those who read English only ? 



Meetings of Societies. 

 American Florists at Buffalo. 



'T'HE late meeting at Buffalo proved the most interesting yet 

 -^ held by the society. The attendance was full and the 

 proceedings earnest and business-like from beginning to end. 

 President May argued that more spirit should be infused into 

 exhibitions to make them educational influences, and to the 

 same end he counseled menibers to report their experience 

 in the horticultural press. He also showed the advantage of 

 raising new seedlings in America as more likely to give 

 satisfaction than imported novelties. 



Mr. W. C. Barry, in his essay on " Roses for Garden Decora- 

 tion," said that of 334 varieties sent out in 1887 and 1888 there 



were only fourteen which he considered worth cultivating in 

 this country. He named, among those of conspicuous merit. 

 Sir Rowlruid Hill, Madame S. Rhodocamachi, Vick's Caprice, 

 Bonait, Max Singer, and the new hybrid. A'. Rugosa, (Jeorges 

 Bruant, which has crcani-colored fiowers, borne in trusses of 

 six to eight. He also mentioned, as likely to pro\'e of great 

 value, Mrs. John Laing, Dinsmore and Blanclie Moreau, an 

 almost perfect pure white Moss Rose. 



Mr. Rol)ert Craig, in an instructive pajjer, said that in the 

 fiorists' business, as in other business, it was the specialist 

 who won success. Boston and Philadelphia had been highly 

 favored, as private persons had endowed their hortilcultural 

 societies with fine buildings, and to this fact was largely due 

 their high standing. He spoke in favor of the establisliment 

 of horticultural halls in every city, and urged the construction 

 of a national botanic garden. Mr. John Thorpe advocated 

 the establishment of an experimental garden for comparing 

 varieties and species of plants, for testing various fertilizers 

 and florists' seeds for making trials of insecticides, and pur- 

 suing investigations in every branch of horticulture. A busi- 

 ness representing more than $3,000,000 of capital and directly 

 occupying the attention of 150,000 people, should be entitled 

 to some governmental support. The residt of this paper was 

 a committee appointed to bring the matter before Congress. 

 A paper on "Useful Summer-flowering Plants," by Mr. A. E. 

 Whittle, of Albany, advocated the planting of many varieties 

 of hardy plants for the decoration of American gardens. 



Mr. Forstermann's essay on the " Habitat of Various Or- 

 chids" had a practical value in suggesting the proper tempera- 

 ture needed for their successful cultivation. For example, 

 Phahenopsis houses are often kept at a temperature of from 

 80° to 90° while in their native state they flourish in a climate 

 which ranges in the growing season from 70° to 80°. 



Other papers of importance were read by Edwin Lonsdale 

 and H. H. Battles, of Philadelphia. 



Mr. Wm. McMillan, Superintendent of the Buffalo Parks, 

 read a paper on " Landscape-Gardening," from which we 

 quote some of the opening passages. In a future number wa 

 hope to add further extracts from this paper, which was re- 

 ceived with many marks of approval, and contained much 

 sound doctrine. 



"An ornamental landscape is not merely a composition of 

 choice trees, shrubs, grass and flowers, but includes as 

 well every inorganic element of Nature embodied in the scene. 

 The "lay of the land " — to use afamiliar phrase — is in a double 

 sense the ground-work of the composition. This includes 

 every form or featiu'e which the earth's surface presents to us, 

 from the flat plain to the beetling cliff; every variety of hill and 

 vale, ridge or dell, bare rock, sterile sand, or rich soil ; and 

 also water, flowing or still, of whatever vohune, large or 

 small. Even the atmosphere must be included as a part of 

 every landscape, for the scene varies with every variation of 

 sunshine or shade, dim haze or clear sky, still air or stirring 

 breeze. The lights and shades of a landscape-painting are 

 carefully studied, and whatever is appreciated in the copy is 

 sm^ely of greater value in the original. 



"In the embellishment, then, of any groimds of sufficient ex- 

 tent to have a distinctive landscape-character, the gardener 

 must take into account all the impressive and attractive natural 

 elements of the place. The general aim of his work will be to 

 make a harmonious combination with the dominant charac- 

 teristics which Nature has already stamped upon the site. He 

 will seek a fuller or richer development of the essential lead- 

 ing features, simply softening what is hard, clothing what is 

 bare, filling out what is meagre, and enriching what is beauti- 

 ful, all in harmony with the original type. He will thus avoid 

 all novel conceits, all conspicuous eccentricities, all incon- 

 gruous intrusions, and be guided by his understanding of the 

 laws of Nature as enacted by the ruling Divinity of the scene, 

 and his sympathy with them. 



" I lay special stress on this fundamental principle, because it 

 seems to be so commonly overlooked or ignored in ordinary 

 landscape-gardening. In fact the very opposite rule is 

 followed in much work that is done, and the result receives 

 much popular approval. It is a common thing to value the 

 decorative work on any given site in general proportion to the 

 degree in which it is obviously artificial, new or pecifliar. This 

 unfortunate fashion seems to pervade every branch of land- 

 scape work. Instead of the artificial being subordinated to the 

 natural, it is made specially prominent, and in some cases it 

 even becomes the ' be all and end all ' of the scene. For in- 

 stance, drives and walks are made unnecessarily broad, or 

 sinuous, or prominent, or intrude where not needed. A siiarj) 

 terrace is formed mainly to display its bold lines, or a channel 

 is dug for an artificial runnel, to give occasion for introducing 



