470 



Garden and Forest. 



[October 2, 1889. 



Drives and Walks. — IV. 



IT has been said that it is far better that no approach or 

 other drive should cross the lawn in front of a country 

 house. But, of course, the arrangement which is ideally 

 best cannot always be made. In many cases where the 

 road can be kept away from the immediate vicinity of 

 the house-front, it will have to pass it at a greater dis- 

 tance. The roail may then be masked by low plantations, 

 which will, at least, be less disagreeable to the eye than the 

 line of gravel. But plantations will often be undesirable as 

 obstructions m what ought to be a simple extended view, or 

 a broadly treated landscape. It is better, when possible, to 

 sink the road, or to raise the lawn in a gentle slope towards it 

 to such a degree that the eye will not perceive it, so that 

 the stretches of lawn on its hither and further sides will seem 

 to unite without a break. 



If the place is so large that the house is not seen until after 

 one has entered the approach-road, attention should be paid 

 to the first view thus afforded. There is much in initial 

 impressions, and a house may never redeem itself wholly in 

 a visitor's eyes if it fails to do itself justice when they first 

 light upon it. 



With regard to walks, the same general principles hold as 

 with regard to drives. There should be no more of them than 

 are needful; they should neither be so straight as to lack beauty, 

 nor so meandering as to lack ordinary directness and they should 

 be as narrow as convenience will permit, for gravel streaks 

 are not charming objects in themselves, and the greater their 

 breadth the more they decrease the apparent size of the place. 

 They should not be so narrow that two persons cannot pass 

 with comfort, except in retired situations, where pedestrians 

 will certainly be few ; but anything in excess of this should be 

 studiously avoided. A walk six feet wide, where one of three 

 would have sufficed, will dwarf its surroundings to a much 

 greater degree than most owners realize. 



A lawn can be injured almost as much by foot-paths as by 

 drives when they cut across it. A properly kept lawn is as de- 

 lightful to walk upon as to look at, and, in our dry summers, 

 the days are few when it will be too wet even for a lady's shoe. 

 Of course, there may be cases when some distant object — a 

 summer-house that is constantly used, a boat-house or tennis- 

 court — will so constantly attract the feet that, unless a walk be 

 provided, a ragged path will be worn across the grass. Then, 

 a made walk is naturally better, for anything is better than a 

 look of untidiness and neglect in grounds which ought to be 

 carefully kept. But it should, if possible, be carried around 

 the lawn, and, if this is not possible, its presence should be 

 accepted as a disagreeable necessity. 



Paths should never be made across a lawn, simply to give 

 access to flower-beds, for the flower-beds themselves have no 

 business there. A lawn is a place for grass. Its object, whether 

 it be large or small, is to afford a simple sheet of verdure to 

 delight the eye with its reposeful breadth and to supply a 

 proper foreground for the plantations beyond it. To spot 

 bright beds about is to ruin its peacefulness and its unity. 

 There are thousands of country-places in America, from 

 large estates to suburban villas, which would be immeasura- 

 bly improved could all the flower-beds on the lawn, all 

 the fountains and vases, and all the paths — leading no- 

 where but back to the house again — be once and for all turfed 

 over. Flowers can usually be introduced in sufficient quan- 

 tities in other ways — scattered among the shrubberies or ar- 

 ranged in massed beds behind the house or in borders disas- 

 sociated from the lawn. Or, if they are the prime consideration 

 and the place is not large enough for a lawn and a flower-garden 

 both, it is better to give up the lawn altogether and arrange 

 in front of the house an old-fashioned garden with as many 

 beds and walks and Box-hedges as the space will allow. Such 

 a design is consistent and sensible and may be made very 

 pretty, while the more common device of trying to unite a 

 lawn and a flower-garden is illogical and can never result in 

 anything but an artistic monstrosity. 



If there is a lawn, large orsmall, careshould be taken thatno 

 walk, as well as no drive, runs between it and the house. Let the 

 grass come up to the house-foundations, and unite the two by 

 planting a few vines and shrubs. Then the house and its site 

 will be connected and harmonized; the walls will seem to spring 

 from the soil almost like a natural growth, and the picture 

 seen from the lawn will be as charming as that which the lawn 

 presents when seen from the house. Whether there are mere 

 door-steps, or a porch, or a piazza, no path is needed, for this 

 entrance should be used only by those who wish to stroll upon 

 the lawn or to cross it to some spot not otherwise accessible. 

 And even on those sides of the house where a path is needed 



it should not be allowed to run close to the walls. Sufficient 

 space should be reserved for planting against the walls, and 

 thus, if the further side of the path is properly planted too, 

 from a little distance the eye will see only the masses of ver- 

 dure which connect the house with the landscape about it. 



Although curving roads and walks are best in a place of any 

 size, straight ones should usually be preferred in a small villa- 

 lot. Then every inch of space is valuable, and, of course, a 

 straight path occupies less ground than a winding one. The 

 straight lines formed by the house and the street cannot be 

 for a moment forgotten, and it is, therefore, good art to accept 

 them as the basis of the whole scheme and make the paths 

 within the gates correspond with them. Then, too, there 

 should be no drive at all unless there be a stable behind the 

 house. In this case it is best to leave the front free and carry 

 the road in at the end of the lot to a door in the side of the 

 house whence it may continue to the stable-yard. Place for 

 a lawn is thus reserved in front, and the line of gravel will be 

 least conspicuous from the principal windows. But it is bet- 

 ter, when there is no stable, to sacrifice comfort a little in the 

 interests of beauty — to leave the carriage in the street and let 

 but a narrow pathway approach the house. The sacrifice will 

 be a small one, and the gain in the aspect of the place as a 

 whole may easily be great. 



The suggestions in these chapters have not been made with 

 the idea of making "every man his own landscape-gardener." 

 On the contrary, they have been written to show how many 

 things must be considered in the building of the simplest 

 country-house, or the designing of the smallest place; and how 

 desirable it is, therefore, that the aid of an artist should be 

 called in at the outset. 



Native Shrubs of California — II, 



Cercocarpus betuloides, Nutt. (Low & Gray, Fl. i. 427), bears 

 some likeness to the shrubby birches, but has sparser foliage, 

 and, consequently, little beauty to recommend it. This prevail- 

 ing shrub or small tree of the Coast mountains of the Pacific 

 states is, however, of much botanical interest and possibly 

 of considerable economic value. Known to the mountaineers 

 and miners by the <name of Wild Mahogany, its wood is the 

 heaviest and hardiest we have ; and the leafy twigs have a 

 sweet birchy flavor, rendering them choice food for cattle in 

 late summer and autumn when the annual grass-crop has 

 failed. 



Under the name of C. parvifolius, with which species it has 

 been confounded by those botanists who have seen dried 

 twigs only, this shrub is credited with a range in California 

 from San Diego to Lake County, or through the southern and 

 middle parts of the State ; but it is equally common south- 

 ward on the Lower Californian peninsula, and northward on the 

 Siskiyou Mountains in Oregon. That it is a good species, 

 better than Nuttall the author of both of them knew, I indi- 

 cated some years since, in my paper on Santa Cruz Island.* 

 The larger, proportionally broader and nearly glabrous leaves, 

 on which characters Nuttall seems to have relied, are indeed 

 insufficient ; they are inconstant. Small-leaved states of C. 

 betuloides are often met with; but, over and above a certain 

 constant difference in the general bearing or habit, easily seen 

 at a glance, but not easily defined, the stem and bark of the 

 two are strikingly unlike. C. parvifolius, which, by the way, 

 occupies an entirely different region of country, i. e. the Rocky 

 Mountains and adjacent interior districts, not reaching any 

 part of California or Oregon, has a dark-colored, thick, per- 

 sistent and fissured bark. C. betuloides, on the other hand, 

 often much larger every way than the best developed states 

 of C. parvif alius, presents, at most seasons of the year, a clean, 

 smooth trunk with gray bark, and this outer bark is deciduous, 

 falling away in irregular flakes in early autumn. On this char- 

 acter alone, C. betuloides will rest securely as an excellent spe- 

 cies. By the pioneer collector, Mr. Douglas, and by the authors of 

 the Botany of Captain Beechey's Voyage, the small-leaved state 

 of C. betidiodes was mistaken for the real C. parvif alius, and thus 

 began that confusion of the two species which has continued, 

 in our books, to the present. 



During my vacation journeyings of the past summer, I, for 

 the first time met with the curious Fremantia Californica (Low, 

 Plantse Fremontianse, p. 6. t. ii) in its native wilderness. Particu- 

 larly attractive to all botanists as being nearly related to the cele- 

 brated Hand Flower Tree of southern Mexico, eminent systema- 

 tists considering it as nothing more than a second species of 

 Cheiranthodendrati, I had not, from the numerous herbarium 

 specimens I had seen, inferred its highly ornamental character. 

 The foliage, as in most shrubs of our arid mountain disti'icts, 



* Bulletin Calif. Acad, ii., 396. 



