6i4 



Garden and Forest 



[December 25, 1889, 



recognized by all denominations. The English Christmas 

 dinner, the Roman custom of gifts and the German 

 Christmas-tree have become familiar facts in every part of 

 our land. We, too, decorate church and home with ever- 

 greens. Our chief dependence, next to the boughs of 

 Spruce, of Fir and of our beautiful indigenous Hemlock, 

 are plants which seem to have been made for the purpose 

 and which Europe does not know — the so-called Ground 

 Pine and other Club Mosses, which are easily woven 

 into garlands. Our Holly is not so handsome as the 

 English, but it is rapidly growing in favor, and of recent 

 years Mistletoe has been brought from New Jersey and the 

 south to our northern towns. The scarlet fruit of the Black 

 Alder, Mosses of several kinds and colors, the evergreen 

 foliage of the Kalmia and the Rhododendron, the bluish 

 gray berries of the Juniper, dried grasses, and the handsome, 

 parti-colored fruit of the Bittersweet — all these are now 

 lavishly used at Christmas, although it is not half a century 

 since the first " Christmas green" was sold in New York. 



From the vast numbers of Germans who within this period 

 have landed on our shores we have learned to know and 

 love the Christmas-tree. Middle-aged Americans can re- 

 member a time when they had never seen one, and the 

 trade in them began in New York in 1851, when two sled 

 loads of young Balsams were brought from the Catskills 

 and sold at the corner of Vesey and Greenwich Streets. At 

 least 150,000 trees have been sold in this city this year, 

 about half of them coming from Maine, and the rest from 

 the Berkshire Hills, the Adirondacks and the Catskills. The 

 Balsam Fir is the favorite, and the Black Spruce is 

 next in demand. The great west naturally gets its supply 

 at home, and there the Blue Spruce is the.chief dependence, 

 the trees being sold at wholesale at prices which vary fronci 

 $10 a hundred for specimens from four to six feet in height 

 to $60 a hundred for those which reach twelve to fourteen 

 feet. Sold at retail in the large towns such sums are more 

 than quadrupled, and particularly fine specimens, perfectly 

 symmetrical, tapered to a single leader, full in foliage, and 

 fresh in color, may bring any price within the means of the 

 buyer. 



The Petit Trianon at Versailles. 



'X'HE palace called the Petit Trianon in the park at Versailles 

 -^ was built for Louis XV. in 1766 (nearly a century later than 

 the Grand Trianon which Louis XIV. built for Madame de 

 Montespan), but is most intimately connected with the mem- 

 ory of Marie Antoinette, who created its famous " English 

 garden " and Swiss chalets. These lie on one side of the 

 building, while its main fagade, shown in our picture on p. 619, 

 has always looked out on a "French garden " connected with 

 the grounds of the Grand Trianon. Although the details of 

 this garden have been altered in recent times, it expresses as 

 clearly as in its first estate typical French ideas with regard to 

 the arrangement of grounds in the vicinity of a stately build- 

 ing. 



There are avenues of clipped trees, straight paths and long 

 rectangular flower-beds to harmonize with the lines of the 

 architectural mass, to lead the eye directly toward it, and to 

 show it, above the wide central lawn, as though set in a digni- 

 fied and appropriate frame, while the curve of the great basin 

 agreeably relieves the prevalence of right angles. It is evi- 

 dent that such an arrangement is far better in keeping with a 

 building of this character than a "natural" landscape design 

 would be. But it may be pointed out that its whole effect 

 would be ruined had flower-beds or " ornamental " plants 

 been allowed to intrude on the lawn. It is the simplicity of 

 this that throws the bright-colored beds and the masses of 

 foliage, as well as the building itself, into effective rehef, and 

 that gives breadth, repose and unity to the scene as a whole. 



The Great Sequoia. 



THE first white man who set eyes on the Sequoia gigantea 

 was probably General John Bidwell, now one of the 

 best known of the CaHfornia pioneers. He has told me in a 

 verysimpleandcareful way the incident in his journey across 

 the continent in 1841. He was a mere boy in years then, but 

 a man in experience. The adventures of the party would fill 



a volume. All that concerns the Sequoias is to this effect. 

 The explorers were on the summit of the Sierras, worn out 

 and anxious to descend into the valley. They were in an 

 Indian country ; the game was very scarce, and Bidwell 

 went ahead to hunt and explore the region. Late in the 

 afternoon, while in the midst of the deep cations of Cal- 

 averas, and hastening to reach the river gorge to rejoin his 

 companions, young Bidwell passed through the Calaveras 

 grove of Sequoias. He was in such haste that he only 

 noticed the immense size of the trees as he stood a mo- 

 ment beside one of the fallen giants. He said nothing of 

 his discovery; but afterward, when in the employ of Gen- 

 eral Sutter at New Helvetia, he planned an exploring party 

 to find the great trees he had seen at dusk that afternoon 

 in 1 84 1. Other business delayed the expedition. Then 

 came the war, the conquest of California and the discovery 

 of gold. Bidwell went first to the mines, and then was 

 busy in securing his great Rancho Chico, and had no time 

 to look for his big trees. 



At last, in the spring of 1852, A. T. Dowd, a hunter of 

 Murphy's Camp, Calaveras, while following a wounded 

 grizzly, passed through the forests of Pinus Lamheriiana and 

 Pintis ponderosa, and came upon the Giant Sequoia-grove, 

 since so famous. He was laughed at when he told his 

 story ; but the next Sunday he rushed wildly down the 

 hill and called to "the boys" that he had "shot an enor- 

 mous grizzly." They went with him to the base of the 

 largest tree in the grove : "There, boys," he said, "is my 

 grizzly ! " When General Bidwell heard the story of the 

 discovery he said at once : "Those are my big trees; I am 

 very glad they have been found." 



The California Academy of Sciences received specimens 

 of foliage, bark and cones of the Sequoia from the Calave- 

 ras grove before June, 1852. The late Dr. Kellogg for- 

 warded specimens to Professor Asa Gray and to Dr. John 

 Torrey, who at once recognized a second species of 

 Sequoia. Veitch had some time before sent William Lobb, 

 as a collector of plants, to the Pacific Coast. He was then 

 at Monterey, I think, with Dr. C. C. Parry. Dr. Kellogg 

 told him about the Sequoias, and he procured specimens 

 for Dr. Lindley, who, failing to understand its true relation- 

 ship, described the tree in the Gardeners' Chronicle of 

 December 24th, 1853, as Wellingtonia — the name by which 

 it is still almost universally known in English gardens. 



When I was in Fresno, two years ago, I was told by the 

 proprietor of the leading newspaper of the county that he 

 had just returned from the Redwood-forests in the Sierras, 

 and that there were thousands of acres of timber wait- 

 ing to be taken up. "It is better timber than the Red- 

 wood of the Coast Range," he said, " and constitutes one of 

 the great resources of Fresno and Tulare Counties. There 

 are several mills at work in the forests, and we shall have 

 a narrow gauge railroad there in a few years." I looked 

 further into the matter, and discovered that the Redwood 

 referred to was the largest and finest forest of Sequoia 

 gigantea in California, and that it was rapidly passing into 

 private ownership and was being cut into lumber and split 

 into fence posts. During the past two years the destruction 

 of these forests has gone on with accelerated speed, owing 

 to the rapid settlement of the foot-hills by farmers, who are 

 far removed from the railroad, and find it cheaper to get 

 Sequoia gigantea Redwood from the mountains than Sequoia 

 senipervirens Redwood from the coast. 



There are ten groups of Sequoia gigantea in the Sierra 

 Nevada Mountains, and the descriptions of most of them 

 are found in the writings of Muir, Whitney and Clarence 

 King. Beginning at the north, these groups are named as 

 follows : The Calaveras grove, the South Calaveras grove, 

 the Tuolume grove, the Merced grove, the Mariposa grove, 

 the Fresno grove, the Dinky grove, the King's River 

 grove, the new King's River grove and the large Kaweah 

 groves. The latter consists of a number of small Sequoia- 

 forests extending over a belt of country five miles wide and 

 fifty miles long. It is in this region that the Kaweah 

 colony of Socialists have secured most of the timber lands^ 



