November 27, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



565 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1889. 

 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— Central Park and the Exposition. — Rare trees at Pal- 



lanza. — The Botanical Garden at St. Louis 565 



The Exhibition Grounds at Paris. (Illustrated.) 566 



Amonj; the Pines of Northern Michij^an — II Professor W. J. Beal. 567 



Holiday Notes in Southern France and Northern Italy. — VI. 



George Nicholson. 567 



New OR Little Known Plants : — ^ Yucca elata. (With figure!) C. S. S. 568 



Acanthopanax ricinifolia 568 



Cultural D epartment : — The Pecan Tree Charles Mohr, M. D. 569 



Rose Notes '. W H. Taplin. 570 



Tufted Pansies 7- N. Gerard. 571 



Orchid Notes "Calypso," F. Goldring. 572 



Urceolina aurea ..W. Watson. 572 



Work in the Vineyard E. Williams. 572 



Brussels Sprouts C.L. Allen. 573 



The Japan Persimmon Joseph Meehan. 573 



Correspondence: — The Abandoned Farms of New Hampshire. y. B. Harrison. 573 



Native Shrubs C. W. L. 574 



Forest Fires H. B A. 574 



Recent Publications 574 



Plant Portraits 575 



Notes 575 



Illustrations : — Yucca elata, Fig. 146 569 



Grounds of the Paris Exhibition from the Platform of the Eiffel Tower,... 571 



Central Park and the Exposition. 



TWO or three vi^eeks ago the committee whose duty it 

 is to select a site for the World's Fair, to be held in 

 this city in 1892, formally abandoned their plan to include 

 a portion of Central Park in the exhibition grounds. This 

 step seemed necessary on account of the opposition which 

 the threatened occupation of the Park aroused — an oppo- 

 sition which grew stronger every day, and resulted at last 

 in the resignation of several members of the committee and 

 a public declaration by a large majority of the legislators 

 elected from this city that they would vote against a repeal 

 of the law which now protects the park from any invasion 

 of this kind. We are not surprised at this result, for the 

 park has been rescued from similar dangers many times 

 before by the power of public sentiment when opportunity 

 has been offered for full discussion. And yet this renewed 

 manifestation of jealous regard for the park and intelli- 

 gent appreciation of its purpose and value is an encourag- 

 ing fact If this action of the committee is final it will not 

 only establish another precedent against future assaults 

 upon Central Park, but it will give additional security to 

 every acre of park area in every city of the United States 

 for all time to come. On the contrary, if our chief city 

 should allow the most famous park in the country to be des- 

 olated when it is only approaching mature development and 

 has hardly begun its career of usefulness, there would be 

 little hope that parks in other cities would be able to with- 

 stand the pressure for admission constantly brought to bear 

 upon them by all sorts of enterprises foreign to the purpose 

 for which they were created. 



It is well to remember that the conversion of Central 

 Park into an exhibition ground would be more than a mere 

 local calamity. Public-spirited men in other cities who are 

 helping by their moral support to avert such a calamity are 

 strengthening the barriers which protect their own parks 

 against intrusion. They are helping to give security to 

 every public pleasure-ground, national park and botanic 

 garden in the country, and they are encouraging the estab- 

 lishment of other institutions which must live and grow for 

 long years before they attain the full measure of their 

 usefulness. And the people of this state should remember 

 that they can bring their influence to bear directly to this 

 end by instructing their representatives in Albany to oppose 



any relaxation of the law which now protects the rights of 

 the people in the park against invasion. 



The recent wise action of the Site Committee is no guar- 

 antee that some scheme to capture a portion of the park for 

 the Exposition will not be revived. If the fair is held on 

 the site now designated, it will reach out for room in every 

 direction. Even now it is proposed to change the law so 

 as to include the Museum buildings and Harlem Mere. 

 But no amendment to the statute should be tolerated. The 

 law was passed deliberately, not only with the sanction 

 but in accordance with the urgent demand of every repu- 

 table paper in this city. It was passed just after the 

 park had been threatened by one World's Fair, and for the 

 express purpose of protecting it in precisely such an emer- 

 gency as the present. The more imposing the proposed 

 fair, the greater the danger to the park. The fiercer the 

 rivalry and the wilder the enthusiasm, the more need of 

 safeguards erected in quiet times and with cool judgment. 

 The law will never be able to do better service than it is 

 doing on this particular occasion, and certainly this is not 

 the time to repeal it, when the first opportunity is offered to 

 prove its value. It is no time to open it for amendment, 

 for one exception will make room for another. There is 

 absolute safety while the law stands as it is — and absolute 

 safety is what every friend of the park should insist upon. 



Mr. Nicholson describes on another page his visit to 

 Pallanza, on the shore of Lake Maggiore — a spot which 

 has perhaps no equal in Europe for the rare and beautiful 

 trees, especially coniferous trees, which abound in its 

 neighborhood and thrive in a manner quite unknown in 

 less favored regions. Here may be seen growing side by 

 side, in perfect health, species from the Alps of Europe and 

 the Andes of South America ; from the mountains of north- 

 ern Africa and the hills of southern China ; from the pla- 

 teau of Mexico and the plains of Canada ; from the Hima- 

 laya and the Sierra Nevada ; from our southern Pine-belt 

 and from Japan ; from Asia Minor and the mountains of 

 Brazil. The best specimen in Europe of the curious 

 Keteleeria of southern China is growing in Signor Rovelli's 

 garden near a plant of the hardly less curious Pseudolarix, 

 which has no rival in cultivation, except in the finer speci- 

 men still to be seen in the old Parsons Nursery at Flushing. 

 Across the bay from Pallanza, on Isola Madre, is one of 

 the most perfect natural gardens, in which our White Pine, 

 with a robustness of growth and depth of color almost 

 unknown in its native forests, towers high above Yews and 

 Evergreen Oaks of extraordinary dimensions. There are 

 Canadian Hemlocks in this Borromean garden which it 

 would be difficult to match anywhere, growing among 

 Himalayan Rhododendrons, Mexican Yuccas ; and here, 

 perhaps, is the finest Californian Incense Cedar in Europe, 

 and a Himalayan Fir unsurpassed in its loveliness. On 

 the curious but far less attractive and interesting Isola 

 Bella the tree-lover will find in the court-yard of the palace 

 a plant of the American Persimmon, of a size almost un- 

 heard of in Arkansas even, where the Persimmon attains 

 to its best estate ; and on the terrace not far from the group 

 of great White Pines, which make every American feel 

 proud, is a remarkable specimen of the Evergreen Carolina 

 Cherry of our southern states. 



Large specimens of several Mexican Pines are interest- 

 ing features in many of the gardens on the shores of Lake 

 Maggiore, where they find apparently the congenial con- 

 ditions necessary for their growth. Here the variable 

 Pinus Montezume, always healthy and sometimes hand- 

 some, appears under many grotesque and unfamiliar 

 names. Pinus palula displays the beauty of its slender, 

 graceful, pale green foliage, and in the garden of the Grand 

 Hotel of Pallanza, Pinus Ayacaliui/e, the White Pine of 

 Mexico, produces freely its enormous cones. A short 

 hour's drive from Pallanza will carry the lover of trees 

 to the garden of the Villa Ada, in which Prince Tru- 

 betzkoy planted his remarkable collection of conifers, 

 rich in specimens of Retinospora of remarkable size, in 



