446 



Garden and Forest. 



[September i8, 1S89. 



the landscape-gardener is called in and asked to adjust its 

 surroundings to a house after it has been built. I'his at- 

 tempt to correct errors that might have been avoided is 

 the most unsatisfactory and thankless of tasks. Too often 

 these mistakes are beyond any suflicient remedy, or the 

 expense of even partial correction may be excessive, and 

 in either case the reputation of the artist and his art is un- 

 justly called in question. 



The American Cidlivalor, of Boston, under the title of 

 "Practical Forestry," publishes some remarkable statis- 

 tics from the pen of Mr. John D. Lyman, of Exeter, New 

 Hampshire. "Taking," he says "the present forest-area 

 of the U^iited States as given in the latest reports of the 

 Agricultural Bureau, and leaving the vas^ forest-covered 

 regions of Alaska out of the question, and only reckoning 

 5,000 feet board measure to the acre, and assuming that 

 our population is now 60,000,000, we have now ready 

 grown and fit to cut 40,500 feet of lumber to every man, 

 woman and child in the United States, or 222,700 to each 

 family." Of the lands considered forest-covered, in the 

 returns made to the Department of Agriculture, a consider- 

 able portion, such, for example, as the wood-lots connected 

 with farms in most of the settled parts of the United 

 States, contains no merchantable timber whatever ; while 

 in those sections of the country, still little changed by 

 settlement or cultivation, the stand of timber over large 

 areas of so-called forest does not average anything like 

 5,000 feet to the acre. Mr. Lyman must have discovered 

 somewhere within the limits of the United States some 

 unusually heavy timber to bring up his average to his 

 moderate amount of 5,000 feet an acre. We should have 

 supposed fifty feet an acre, taking the whole area covered 

 with trees, to be nearer the mark. But Mr. Lyman is 

 evidently accustomed to big timber, for he goes on to 

 doubt, speaking of economic tree-planting in Massa- 

 chusetts, if there is a man "in the state who has grown 

 from seed or from trees set out 50,000 feet, or even 25,000 

 feet, of good timber to the acre." As it is less than sixty 

 years since the first large plantations were made in Massa- 

 chusetts, Mr. Lyman is probably correct. But such state- 

 ments are hardly necessary to enforce Mr. Lyman's 

 position that " the timber-crop per acre can be increased 

 by the practical arts of forestry, the same as our grain 

 supply has been increased, simply by knowing how to do 

 it. The work, however, needs to be done on existing for- 

 ests, and on lands adapted by nature to forest-growth." 

 No one who has studied the forest-question in the United 

 States will now deny that the care and improvement of 

 existing forests, growing upon lands unfit for any purpose 

 but the production of timber, is vastly more important than 

 the creation of new forests by planting trees on lands ad- 

 apted to other crops of more immediate productiveness. 

 But while the forests are being made more productive, 

 there is not a family in the United States, which will not 

 feel happy at the thought that its quota of merchantable 

 lumber is 222,700 feet board measure. 



Drives and Walks. — IL 



T T hcis been shown that, except in rare cases which are not 

 ■•■ likely to occur at all in this country, it is better that the 

 approach to a country house in a place of any size should be 

 curved rather than straight ; but also that it should not 

 meander about in an irrational way, injurious alike to con- 

 venience and beauty. It should not look as though the display 

 of the various beauties of the property or the formation of 

 graceful curves were its main object, while the the conveyance 

 of visitors to their destination was a secondary one ; nor, on 

 the other hand, should it be laid in a mathematical line, straight 

 towards this destination, with a rigid disregard for surrounding 

 objects. A happy mean between these two extremes is what 

 is wanted — a line that is direct enougli to seem sensible, and 

 yet curved enough to be beautiful as well as easy for wheels. 



Sometimes its Ijends will be dictated by conspicuous irregu- 

 larities in the surface of the ground, or by existing trees, which 



it is desirable to preserve. Then they will be evidently rational, 

 and, if well drawn, entirely pleasing to the eye. But some- 

 times there will be no such reasons for ciuvature, and yet 

 curvature vN'ill be necessitated by convenience in driving and the 

 general desire to avoid too stiff a line. In such cases a good 

 landscape-gardener will make the curves seem natural by some 

 device of his own — by altering the surface of the ground or by 

 planting. When his work is done, and time has assisted it a 

 little, the ctfect should be the same as though nature had pre- 

 scribed the line of his drive. The road may have been the 

 Hrst consideration, and the objects which govern its course 

 merely later adjuncts; the curve may have Ijcen the necessity, 

 the hillock, the tree, or the group of shrubs a device to excuse it. 

 But the eye need not realize the fact — the surface irregularities 

 and plants may be made to seem the cause, and the curve the 

 natural consequence. To secure such a result is one of those 

 artifices which are inexcusable_if they fail of the right effect, 

 but which are the highest art — the art which conceals art — if 

 they produce this effect. It is an artistic defect to make too 

 palpable an attempt to disguise the utilitarian character of a 

 road as a means of transit from one given point to another; 

 but it is an artistic triumph to make it look as though, while 

 affording such transit with reasonable directness, it had chanced 

 to take a course that is beautiful, too. Of course, while the 

 careless observer will be deceived by the apparent naturalness, 

 and its methods and results, the student of art will know that 

 chance has had nothing to do with the matter ; but his eye 

 will accept the appearance of happy accident and his mind will 

 enjoy it all the more for knowing that the hand of an intelli- 

 gent man has been at work. 



But to make the curves of a drive look natural it is not suf- 

 ficient that they should have some visible reason for existing. 

 The objects which supply the reason must themselves look 

 natural or the artificiality of the whole arrangement will at 

 once be plain. To throw up a hillock or plant a tree or a 

 group of trees or slirubs in a spot where it will deflect the road 

 will be futile, unless it looks as though, for other reasons, it 

 ought to be there, and to look thus it must compose well with 

 the features around it and play an acceptable part in the gen- 

 eral aspect. The hillock must blend and harmonize with the 

 general conformation of the ground, and the plants must form 

 agreeable masses — not too large for their places, nor so small 

 as to look as though they had been dropped down by accident 

 — and must usually be supported by other plantations in their 

 vicinity. On a lawn, which is large enough to be crossed by a 

 road at all, there will be space for other trees and shrubs 

 besides those which may immediately border the road ; and 

 all should be so arranged that the eye will be convinced that 

 if the individuals which seemingly force the road to curve had 

 been removed the effect of the remainder and of the prospect 

 as a whole would- have sulfered. They should seem to l;ave 

 stood, before the road was built, in places where they were 

 needed as items in an harmonious picture ; and the road 

 shoidd seem to have respected them for this reason. Nor is 

 it needful that every deflection in the road should be excused 

 in just this way. For example, the approach may diverge to 

 the right to avoid a beautifid tree ; if it must then turn again 

 to the left to reach the house in a convenient and pleasing way, 

 this fact is its own sufficient explanation and excuse. 



Whatever the objects chosen to justify the bends in a road, 

 they should not be flower-beds. Anything which forces a car- 

 riage to turn from the direct path should be a real and a per- 

 manent obstacle — something over which wheels could not 

 pass, and whicla could not be removed without destroying it. 

 To make a flower-bed play the part of an obstruction to 

 vehicles gives a deplorable look of triviality and wilfulness ; 

 yet there are few objects so often seen in the bend of a road 

 that crosses a lawn. The truth, probably, is that the road has 

 been curved without thought of supplying a reason for the 

 curve, simply because it could not be carried straight or 

 because of a belief that a curve, managed in any way, would 

 be beautiful ; and then the flower-bed has been thought of 

 because the elbow in the grass seemed to offer a " good place " 

 for it. But its trivial, ephemeral nature is not the only reason 

 why a flower-bed is unsuitable in such a position, A lawn 

 which is large enough to be crossed by a road has a some- 

 what park-like character, and in a park-like landscape a flower- 

 bed is utterly out of place. The crude bright spot it makes is 

 disagreeable enougli in a small expanse of lawn, but doubly 

 disagreeable when there is so much space that an effect of 

 broad unity, of rural repose and peace might be secured. And 

 where a flower-bed is out of place, so, too, of course, are 

 small, isolated plants, and especially those which have evi- 

 dently been brought from the green-house and must soon be 

 returned to it. 



