December 25, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



613 



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. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1889. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles ;— Christmas 613 



The Petit Trianon at Versailles. (With Illustratiun.) 614 



The Great Sequoia » Charles H. Shinn. 614 



Notes Upon Some North American Trees — XV. ..Professor C. S. Sargent. 615 

 New OR Little Known Plants: — Philadelphus Lemoinei. (With Illustration.) 616 



Foreign Correspondence ; — London Letter '/''. Watson. 6j6 



Cultural Department: — Some Wild Flowers of California C.R. Orcutt. 618 



Large Glass in Greenhouses ." IV. H. Bull, big 



Orchid Notes John Weathers, F. Goldring. 619 



Some Good Variegated Plants W. H. Tafilin. 620 



Kniphofias W. Watson, bio 



Coreopsis Druinmondii, Alpine Auriculas T. D. H. 621 



Quercus dentata Thomas Meehan. 621 



Elseaguns angustifolia, Berberis Thunbergii Professor J. L. Budd. 621 



Correspondence: — In the Hickory Matter Professor N. L. Britton. 621 



Destruction of Evei'greens for Christmas Mary Wager-Fisher. 622 



Wanted, A Chart of Standard Colors C. R. Orcutt. biz 



Disappearance of Wild Fowers C. L. Allen. 623 



The National Flower E. S. D. 623 



Recent Publications 623 



Recent Plant Portraits 623 



Notes 624 



Illustrations : — -Philadelphus Lemoinei X, Fig. 154 617 



The Petit Trianon 619 



Christmas. 



ALL through western Europe, even before it had been 

 Christianized, the winter solstice was regarded as 

 the beginning of renewed life in nature, and was cele- 

 brated with joyful observances, and the origin of 

 almost all the secular features of our modern Christmas 

 festival may be traced to one ancient people or another. 

 From the Romans, for instance, we get our practice of 

 making Christmas gifts, such gifts being a feature of their 

 Saturnalia, celebrated at the winter solstice. As conspicu- 

 ous as the Saturnalia in Rome were the Yule-tide festivities 

 of the ancient Teutons. Between the 25th of December 

 and the 6th of January, they believed, their great gods 

 walked the earth, and their footsteps might be traced by 

 those wise enough to see. The meinory of these dates 

 still survives in England, even though the time has passed 

 when the "Lord of Misrule " reigned from All-Hallow Eve 

 till Candlemas, and the land gave itself up to the eager 

 pursuit of jollity. Many plants are mentioned by old 

 writers as figuring in these Christmas celebrations. Chief 

 of all was the Mistletoe, excluded from the church edifice, 

 as its Druidic significance was too clearly remembered, 

 but used profusely elsewhere, and the great joy of mis- 

 chievous youths when pretty maidens were about.* Al- 

 most as high in favor stood the Holly, which to the ancient 

 Germans had been "a sign of the life which preserved 

 nature through the desolation of winter, and was gathered 

 into pagan temples to comfort the sylvan spirits during the 

 general death." Holly was used as a dream-plant on 

 Christmas Eve as well as at certain other anniversaries. 

 The same idea which consecrated the Holly as an em- 

 blem of persistent life sanctified other evergreens too, and 

 from time immemorial many sorts were used for the Christ- 

 mas decoration of church and home. 



* In Irving's "Christmas Day " he speaks of " the parson rebuking the sexton 

 for having used Mistletoe among the greens with which the church was decorated. 

 It was, he observed, an unholy plant, profaned by having been used bv the Druids 

 in their mystic ceremonies ; and though it might be innocently employed in the 

 festive ornamenting of halls and kitchens, yet it had been deemed bv the Fathers 

 of the Church as unhallowed, and totally unfit for sacred purposes. So tenacious 

 was he on this point, that the poor sexton was obliged to strip down a great part 

 of the humble trophies of his taste before the parson would consent to enter upon 

 the service of the day." 



But the great feature of the old-English Christina*; was the 

 Yule-log, often called the " Yule-clog," and described as a 

 block rather than a log. This, too, was an inheritance from 

 paganism, having been considered to sanctify the roof-tree 

 and protect it against evil spirits. It was a sign of ill-luck 

 if the "clog" went out during the festivities ; and a Ijrand 

 from it was always preserved to light its successor at the 

 next year's celebration. Tall "Christmas candles," wreathed 

 in evergreens, were another feature of the English Christ- 

 mas. 



It seems a singular fact that amid the variety of enter- 

 tainments provided and rites observed in England, the 

 Christmas-tree should not have figured, for it is the heart 

 and soul of Christmas in modern Germany and is a legacy 

 of ancient Teutonic paganism. However, the main idea 

 which inspired most of these rites seems to have been the 

 use of evergreen plants and of lights in some shape as 

 symbols of the renewal of life ; and while the English 

 Teuton retained the Yule-log, the tall, green-wreathed 

 candle, and the evergreen decoration of the wall, his con- 

 tinental cousin clung to the evergreen tree with its myriad 

 sparks of light. In "Round About our Coal Fire," an 

 amusing little book on Christmas customs published in 

 1740, no mention is made of the Christmas-tree, although 

 in the middle of the eighteenth century many German 

 customs had been imported into England through the ad- 

 vent of her Hanoverian rulers. And even to-day, although 

 occasionally seen in England, it cannot be called at home 

 there. 



In all parts of Germany, on the other hand, Christmas 

 would not be Christmas without the tree — one could as 

 soon fancy our Independence Day without powder and 

 noise. The festival is strictly a family one, and Christmas 

 Eve, not Christmas Day, is its culminating point. Where 

 the modern Englishman thinks of his Christmas dinner, 

 the modern German thinks of his tree instead. He likes it 

 as tall as his ceiling will permit when it is placed on a 

 table. He does not hang gifts upon it — nothing but lights 

 and pretty ornaments and a little figure of the Christ-child 

 at the top ; but the gifts should lie beneath its sanctifying 

 shade, so he rarely sets it on the floor. But if he cannot 

 have it large and stately he must have what he can, no 

 inatter how poor he be — at least a tiny shrub lit with two 

 or three cheap candles. Cheaper even than this is the arti- 

 ficial tree which can be preserved from year to year, made 

 of a- central stick with radiating wires, all covered with 

 fluffy green paper, the candles being stuck on the upturned 

 ends of the wire. As an example of the affection in which 

 the Christmas-tree is held by all Germans, high and low, 

 young and old, we may recall that when in 1870 King 

 William and his army were beleaguering Paris, a vast 

 evergreen was set up in the great salon of the palace at 

 Versailles. The gifts which had come from home for the 

 officers invited to make merry with their king were kept 

 until it had been lighted, and the military decorations they 

 had deserved were taken from its branches to be pinned 

 on their breasts. 



When Washington Irving describes an English Christmas 

 he mentions no Christmas-trees ; but he does not comment 

 upon their absence, as an American would to-day. Popular 

 as they now are, it is only of late years that Americans 

 have known them. Indeed, the first Americans, at least in 

 the northern states, gave up the observance of Christmas 

 as a rite savoring too much of that ecclesiastical tyranny 

 which they had crossed the ocean to escape. William 

 Bradford wrote of the first Christmas the Plymouth Pilgrims 

 spent in the New World "Ye 25th day began to erect ye 

 first house for comone use to receive them and their goods." 

 And of the succeeding j^ear he wrote "One ye day called 

 Christmas-day, ye Gov'r caled them out to worke (as was 

 used.)" Thanksgiving Day took the place in New England 

 which Christmas had held in Old England ; and in the Dutch 

 settlement at New York, New Year's Day was the chief 

 festival of the year. But gradually the claim of the great 

 December festival reasserted itself until it has ■ been 



