October 9, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



483 



" The hills on the west side of tiie valley were also occu- 

 pied by an uninterrupted chain of gardens "from Monte Mario 

 to the southern ridge of the Janiculum. "The banks of the 

 river also had been transformed into a garden by Augustus, 

 Pompey the Great, Domitian, Nero, Caligula and others." 

 And in and around the palace of the Caesars on the Palatine 

 Hill were gardens more sumptuous and varied than all others. 

 Within the precincts of the Golden House of Nero were com- 

 prised " waterfalls supplied by an aqueduct fifty miles long ; 

 lakes and rivers shaded by dense masses of foliage, with har- 

 bors and docks for the imperial galleys ; . . . porticoes three 

 thousand feet long ; farms and vineyards, pasture-grounds 

 and woods teeming with the rarest and costliest kinds of 

 game ; zoological and botanical gardens," and an incredible 

 wealth of works of architectural, plastic and pictorial art, 

 among them banqueting-halls with ivory ceilings, "from 

 which flowers and precious perfumes could fall gently on 

 the reclining guests." After the murder of Nero, Vespasian 

 and Titus gave back to the people the greater portion of the 

 ground which he had usurped for his private satisfaction, and 

 the Colosseum was built on the site of his enormous lake. In 

 short, wherever one looked in imperial Rome " in every direc- 

 tion the architectural masses were broken and enframed in 

 the green of gardens and parks,"* while water was used in 

 canals, fountains, basins and cascades to an extent unknown 

 before or since. 



The design of the Roman pleasure-ground was, in general, 

 strictly formal, and trees and shrubs were frequently cut into 

 the most artificial shapes. But there were exceptions. The 

 poets constantly protested against the reigning fashions, and 

 perhaps it was owing to tlieir words at this time (as it certainly 

 was in the eighteenth century in northern Europe) that a par- 

 tial reaction in favor of more natural kinds of beauty came 

 about. Many portions of the great garden of Nero were 

 naturally disposed, and more than one ancient writer com- 

 ments upon his love for rural, picturesque landscape effects. 

 In the gardens of LucuUus the designs of Oriental pleasure- 

 grounds were imitated. „ ,,. „ 

 New York. M. G. Van Rensselaer. 



The Woods of Mount Desert Island. 



MOUNT Desert Island has an area of about one hundred 

 square miles, washed by the ocean on the south, by broad 

 bays on the east and west, and almost joining the mainland in 

 the extreme north. Its outline is very irregular, like that of 

 the Maine coast in general, with harbors and indentations 

 everywhere. By the largest of these. Somes Sound, a long, 

 deep fiord of the sea, running far into the land between moun- 

 tainous shores, the island is nearly bisected. There are thir- 

 teen or more mountains, mostly bare, rocky summits, vary- 

 ing in height from a few hundred to fifteen hundred feet, lying 

 across the centre of the island, from east to west, like a great 

 belt, with deep, blue lakes nestled between them. To the 

 north, the north-west and south-west the surface is more flat, 

 with lower, more undulating hills. On the south-east and east 

 the mountains approach the shore very closely in a coast of pre- 

 cipitous cliffs and bold, rocky headlands that has made the 

 island famous. Nowhere on the Atlantic coast of this country 

 is there such a wonderful combination of natural scenery ; no- 

 where a spot where mountain and shore are so blended. For 

 years it has been renowned as the crowning glory of the beau- 

 tiful, countless-harbored coast of Maine. 



The destruction of the forests of the island has already done 

 much to mar the beauty of this unique resort, and, certainly, 

 the importance of preserving the woods which still remain, 

 should be admitted by every lover of Nature. The character of 

 the soil, the ruggedness of the surface, the stunting influence 

 of the cold sea winds upon its southern shore, all make the 

 question of economic forestry one of secondary importance. 

 That trees must be spared not for the lumber they yield, but 

 for the beauty they may add to the landscape, should be the 

 argument to the mind of the land-owners of Mount Desert. 

 Wild beauty means summer visitors as long as the island en- 

 dures, and such summer residents have, within the last twenty 

 years, made its fame and fortune. 



Mount Desert is in no sense an agricultural region. The soil 

 is thin, very little of the surface is level, and the lowlands are 

 so wet that the cost of draining would be beyond the means 

 of the owners. A few favored spots in the northern part of the 

 island, where the climate is more genial, can be profitably de- 

 voted to the plow, but the inhabitants of the island could not 

 live by farming alone, and have no excuse for regarding the 

 woods as their natural enemy. 



* Friedlander : " Darstelhingin aus d/y Sittengeschichtf Roms." 



The forests of Mount Desert were once full of wealth, and 

 would still be a source of wealth if the lumberman and the 

 forest-fire had not done their work so well. The first perma- 

 nent settlement on the island was founded on the lumber 

 business, which drags out a slow existence there to-day. 

 While at its best, the business was profitable ; saw-mills sprang 

 up over the island — even between 1865 and 1870 there were at 

 least eight saw and shingle-mills in the three towns of Mount 

 Desert, Eden and Tremont — the brooks ran full and turned 

 the wheels, vessels were built, and the lumber found a ready 

 market. High up on the mountains, through the mountain 

 gorges, along the ponds, everywhere, the great trees growing 

 on the thin but rich wood-soil were taken out, not one by one, 

 but all together, and the forest-fire followed. One of these 

 conflagrations, fed by the dried refuse left by the lumbermen, 

 laid waste much of the central part of the island. To-day 

 nearly every saw-mill is in ruins ; the mountains are bare ; 

 acres upon acres are overgrown only with a poor wood-growth 

 that years will bring to little or nothing ; the soil has been 

 burned off or washed away ; the streams preserve no even 

 flow. There is no longer much to fear from lumbering, but 

 two saw-mills at Somesville are still doing infinite harm to 

 the beautiful Great Pond Woods, and should be stopped with- 

 out delay. If the town of Mount Desert values its attractions as 

 a summer resort, it could well afford to purchase and destroy 

 both these mills, and even support the owners at the public 

 expense if they were unable to earn a living in any other man- 

 ner. 



This great reason for jealously preserving the remaining 

 woods of Mount Desert Island is their infinite value as a part of 

 the wild scenery of the place, and their wonderful attraction to 

 the city-wearied man or woman in search of a summer home 

 and resting-place. With the destruction of the the forest- 

 beauty and the impairment of the scenery will come depre- 

 ciation in land values and diminished attentions as a summer 

 resort. 



First of all it must be understood that here, as on the Maine 

 coast generally, the soil is exceedingly thin along the shores 

 and upon the rocky hills and mountains. If deprived of the 

 protection of the woods this soil is soon washed into the 

 ravines and valleys ; if exposed to fire it is burned like fuel. 

 The peaks of Mount Desert were not always barren and desolate, 

 nor were the rocky islets all along the coast bare as they now 

 are, with hardly a bush to cover them. Some of the moun- 

 tain summits may have been always bare, but it is plain that, 

 as a whole, the mountain masses were well wooded and pro- 

 tected. To-day the steep side of Beech Mountain still shows 

 some of the oldest, most beautiful woods on the island, while 

 upon the sides, almost upon the summits of other greater 

 mountains, we find evidence of great trees gone to destruc- 

 tion years and years ago. What the island was in those early 

 days of its full beauty must be far beyond the conjecture of 

 the tourist of the present time. Some idea of these moun- 

 tain woods may still be gained by visiting the western peak of 

 Western Mountain, the most beautiful mountain of the 

 island. On the other hand, the eastern peak of the same 

 mountain shows, in vivid contrast, the desolation wrought by 

 fire — a mere mound of white rocks, with here and there 

 skeleton trees, a scene only softened by the covering of green 

 that Nature kindly gives the wounds inflicted on her earth. 



In a few localities organizations have been formed to pro- 

 tect the forests from fires, but these should be extended and 

 made efficient, not only to check wood-fires, even the most 

 insignificant, and at the very outset, but to prosecute to the 

 full extent of the law all offenders, whether inhabitants or sum- 

 mer visitors, although, with two or three exceptions, nearly all 

 the wood-fires on Mount Desert have been caused, not by the 

 visitors, but by the gross carelessness of the inhabitants them- 

 selves. 



The system of wood-chopping is most wasteful. Whoever 

 wants fire-wood for home use at once goes into his wood lot, 

 hacks right and left, leaving behind him a desolate tract cov- 

 ered with debris to dry beneath the hot sun imtil it is tinder, 

 waiting for a spark to begin still greater destruction. If he 

 owns land in some convenient spot by the roadside, so much 

 the better for him, so much the worse for the scenery ! The 

 result, of course, is ruin to the very beauty he should do his 

 best to guard. This is especially to be lamented because such 

 destruction is entirely unnecessary. The forest could be made 

 to supply the needed fuel without destroying its wildwood 

 beauty, which must be spared if the island is to retain its charm. 

 Vigorous public sentiment, and town interference where it is 

 possible, should at once put a stop to such wanton destruction 

 as that on Western Mountain, on the Bubbles, and on the south- 

 western slopes of Sargent's Mountain. 



