December i8, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



603 



In the most distant northern countries conquered by the 

 Romans — all along the Rhine, all through France, and in many 

 parts of England — lie the remains of great villas, the archi- 

 tectural magnificence of which must have been supported by 

 pleasure-grounds of corresponding beauty. No excavations 

 can help us to recover, in tlie art of gardening, a single relic 

 of the designs of days so long gone by. We can easily imag- 

 ine, however, how the Roman horticulturist consoled him- 

 self in his exile, now by forcing the products of an alien clime 

 into a likeness with the garden effects that he had loved at home, 

 and now in devising new effects which should display these 

 products in a characteristic way, appropriate to the more 

 northern climate and the wilder landscape. And a sign of 

 his labors everywhere persists in the presence of many trees, 

 now apparently native to the soil, which history or tradition 

 tells us he was the first to introduce.* 



In the history of the eastern and southern provinces the 

 work of the Roman gardener is constantly recorded. Of 

 course it was often modified by those ideas of Greek or Per- 

 sian origin which he found already prevalent, but there can 

 have been no town in the civilized world during the first three 

 centuries of our era which the combined influence of Persia 

 and Rome had not richly ornamented. Ephesus, Smyrna, 

 Miletus and Antioch were especially famous'for their gardens, 

 and at Pergamon, where the ruins of the magnificent temple 

 commemorating victories over the invading Gauls have re- 

 cently been unearthed, the main structure was encircled by 

 vast pleasure-grounds, where stood the library and other 

 public buildings. Even the bitterest enemies of Rome in 

 Asia felt the common impulse. Strabo mentions at Cabeira 

 "the palace of Mithridates, the water-mill, the park for keep- 

 ing wild animals and the hunting-ground in the neighbor- 

 hood ; " and Pliny tells us that the great Parthian king and his 

 people used their utmost efforts to grow the Myrtle and the 

 Laurel, plants everywhere desired for use in religious cere- 

 monials. 



The fullest description of an Oriental pleasure-ground of 

 this period which I have been able to find is the one which 

 Diodorus gives of Panara, in the island of Panchsea, off the 

 coast of Arabia Felix, where, of course, Persian influence had 

 been at work. I quote it as an interesting contrast to the 

 younger Pliny's account of his Tuscan villa : 



"The fields round about the temple are planted with all 

 sorts of trees, not only for fruit, but for pleasure and de- 

 light, for they abound with tall Cypresses and Plane-trees, 

 Laurels and Myrtles. . . . Near the temple there's such a 

 mighty spring of sweet water rushing out of the earth that it 

 becomes a narrow river ; thence it divides itself into several 

 currents and streams, and waters all the fields thereabouts, 

 and produces thick groves of tall and shady trees, amongst 

 which, in summer, abundance of people spend their time. 

 . . . Here are many gardens, sweet and pleasant meadows 

 decked with all sorts of herl)S and Howers, and so glorious is 

 the prospect that it seems to be a paradise worthy of the 

 gods themselves. . . . Here are likewise large and fine 

 Palms and abundance of Walnut-trees, . . . and a multitude 

 of vines of all sorts spiring up on high, and so curiously in- 

 terwoven one amongst another that they are exceedingly pleas- 

 ant to the view and greatly advance the delights of the 

 place."! The temple stood in the middle of this park, with 

 the dwellings of the priests around it. The spot was evi- 

 dently one which nature had especially marked out for man's 

 delight ; yet it must have been carefully arranged and 

 tended to fit it for permanent habitation by the priests, and a 

 certain measure of formality is indicated by Diodorus' men- 

 tion of a great fountain which was " lined on both sides and 

 flagged at the bottom with stone at vast expense." 

 New York. M. G. Van Rensselaer. 



" In making islands we must follow nature very carefully. It 

 is noticeable, generally speaking, how very seldom this is done; 

 I hardly remember to have seen anywhere a made island, 

 whose artificiality was not obvious at the first glance. This I 

 found to be the case even in the small royal garden at Buck- 

 ingham House, where the island looked more like a pudding 

 in its sauce than like any nature ever produced." — Piickler- 

 Muskau, 1834. 



* " Cresar found, in Britain, apples of indifferent quality and a very poor cata- 

 logue of other fruits, such as the Hazel, Bullace, wild Raspberry, Sloe, Elder and 

 Blackberry. The generals who succeeded him left us, at quitting;, the Pear, Peacli, 

 Cherry, Vine, Fig, Mulberry, Damson, Medlar and Walnut, with many ornamental 

 shrubs. They were men of taste and luxury, and some of those who'resided long 

 in this country sent to Rome for any novelty suited to the climate, planted, proba- 

 bly, the first orchards — at least of superior fruits — the earliest Rose-gardens, and, 

 among other trees, the Bay, the English Elm and the Plane, which had passed 

 from Asia into Italy, and had reached the northein shoresof Gaul, as Pliny states, 

 about A.D. 79." — "The Migrations of Plants," Edinburgh Revinu, April, 1889. 



t Blake's translation. 



Holiday Notes in Southern France and Northern 



Italy.— VIII. 



jX/TENTONE must be a dreary spot to the ordinary tourist, 

 -'•'-*■ except during the winter and spring months, when the 

 place is crowded with visitors, attracted by its mild climate 

 and natural beauties. Full details about the climatology of the 

 district are to be found in Dr. Henry Bennett's charming book, 

 " Winter and Spring on the Mediterranean," a work which has 

 run through several editions and is pretty well known in the 

 United States. Without studying the climate it is impossible to 

 understand such a wonderful array of vegetable forms, such a 

 strange mixture of tropical, sub-tropical and temperate plants 

 growing side by side as are seen here. Nowhere in Europe 

 have experiments on the hardiness of tropical plants been con- 

 ducted on so large a scale as on the Riviera, and consequently 

 the northern gardener finds much to learn from both the fail- 

 ures and successes of his brethren in the south. 



On steep slopes near the station at Mentone are groups of 

 such very fine Agaves (or Aloes, as they are called in Italy and 

 elsewhere) that they attract the attention of every passer-by of 

 a horticultural turn of mind. Schinus Molle, the Pepper tree 

 or Poivrier of the French, is a favorite street tree here, as well 

 as elsewhere along the Riviera ; it is of very graceful habit, 

 when not too much cut in, the long, slenderbranches — clothed 

 with dark green, pinnate leaves, and bearing panicles of red 

 fruits about the size of pepper corns, and about as hot to the 

 tongue — droop much in the manner of those of our common 

 Weeping Willow. 



A short avenue, going at right angles to the Avenue du 

 Carei, is. planted with Date Palms and Washi7igto7iia filifera 

 (at the present moment probably the most popular Fan Palm 

 along the Riviera) in alternate pairs. The bed of the Carei— at 

 the time of our visit quite dry and dotted here and there with 

 annual weeds of a southern and unfamiliar type — is flanked by 

 roads, along the sides of which are planted such trees, etc., as 

 Oleander, big Ligustrums, Photmia serrulata, Senecio Petasites 

 and Myoporum IcBtwn. In one garden a bush of Wigandia 

 Caracassana soine fifteen or twenty feet high, with enormous 

 panicles of fruit, was a very conspicuous object from the foot- 

 path. 



The public garden of Mentone is unworthy of the place; it is 

 small, and the flowering shrubs are simply clipped with shears, 

 and are neither pruned nor cultivated in any rational way. 



As a weed on roadsides leading from Mentone to Grimaldi 

 we noticed the Squirting Cucumber {Ecballium Elateritim), a 

 plant which in some parts of England is cultivated for medicinal 

 purposes. On dry, sunny banks Rosemary seemed quite 

 happy, and here and there the Caper {Capparis spinosa), with 

 its long, slender branches, hung down the face of the hot rocks. 

 Fine groves of Olives and Lemons flank the highway, from 

 which beautiful views of the sea and coast line are constantly- 

 appearing. Sometimes Wild Pines {Pinns Ha/epetisis) and 

 the so-called Umbrella Pine (/-". Phiea) clothe the face of rocky, 

 barren slopes almost down to the water, and add not a little to 

 the beauty of the scenery. Part of the side of a hill before 

 Grimaldi is reached is the site of the garden of Dr. Bennett, whose 

 name has already been mentioned at the beginning of these 

 notes. What can be done, even under very adverse circum- 

 stances, by the enthusiastic gardener is obvious here, for a 

 considerable collection of plants has been gathered together, 

 and is cultivated on a site where previously few even native 

 plants could find a living. Magnificent views are obtained 

 from Dr. Bennett's garden, particularly from the top of the 

 Saracen tower on the height behind the house — a building in 

 the Florentine style of the fifteenth century. Among flower- 

 ing plants noticed was a fine specimen of Brunsvigia Jose- 

 phina,\\'\i\\ its red flowers arranged in an umbel more than forty 

 inches across and surmounting a scape nearly two feet high. 

 Amongst the South African farmers who are familiar enough 

 with Brunsvigia in a wild state it is known as the Candelabra- 

 flower. Several, however, to whom I had given the dimen- 

 sions above mentioned had never seen in the native habitats 

 of the plant any inflorescences nearly so fine as that I have 

 described in the gardens of Torre di Grimaldi. 



In a small piece of water on one of the terraces, high up the 

 side of the hill, is a colony of the White Water Lilies (A3'////5/'rt'rt 

 alba); this affords abundance of cut flowere until December, 

 when the Cape Pond Weed {Aponogeton distachyuin), which 

 has been at rest during the hottest part of the year, gets into 

 vigorous growth and continues tlie supply througliout the 

 winter and spring. 



La Mortola. — Across the Italian frontier, about an hour's 

 walk from Mentone by the famous Corniche road — and at 

 about the highest point of the road between San Remo and 



