March 27, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



121 



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, MARCH 27, 1895. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles: — The Winter Aspect of Trees. (With figure.) 121 



The Work of Women in Villa<^e Improvement 121 



Trees of Minor Importance for Western Planting;, 



Prq/essor Charles A. Kejffer. 122 



Foreign Correspondence i^London Letter W, W'aiso7i. 123 



Plant Notes 124 



Cultural Department : — Vegetables for Private Gardens S. A, 126 



Flower Garden Notes E. O. Orpet. 127 



Hints on Potting Orchids William Scott. 127 



Chrysanthemums T. D. Hatfield, i-i-j 



Correspondence : — Bordeaux Mixture and Color Tests . . . Professor S. A. Beach. 128 



Forest Fires in Minnesota H. B. A. 128 



Recent Publications 120 



Notes.... - - 129 



Illustration : — Beech-tree in South Hingham, Massachusetts, Fig. ig 125 



The Winter Aspect of Trees. 



IN the eyes of those who have genuine love for them, 

 trees do not lose their beauty when their leaves fall ; 

 and, indeed, for such persons they have an especial attrac- 

 tiveness in the dreariest season of the year. We often hear 

 the coniferous trees, which hold their foliage all the year 

 through, praised for their value in a vi'inter landscape, but 

 deciduous trees, whether taken singly or in groups, have 

 also their uses in the scenery of this season when they 

 reveal beauties which are at other times unseen. There are 

 no richer colors in a winter landscape than the warm 

 browns of a distant wood, and there is nothing for delicacy 

 of tint to match the faint mist of color that hovers above a 

 thicket, a sort of a haze — it may be of violet or rose, 

 or soft gray — composed of the mingled colors of the 

 various twigs in the shrubbery. But, aside from the beauty 

 in color and form of trees in mass, individual deciduous 

 trees never display in perfection the dignity and grace of 

 their framework until after their covering of leaves has 

 fallen, and they then reveal to the careful observer the reason 

 for many of their most striking peculiarities when in full 

 leaf. For example, the attitude and gesture of different 

 trees are quite distinct when under the stress of a high 

 wind. This depends upon the way in which the branches 

 bend and recover in the gale. In the winter one can readily 

 see how the long slender branches of a Sugar Maple, most 

 of which stand out at equal angles from the central stem, 

 will sway in a different way from the sturdy and horizon- 

 tal hmbs of an Oak. We can see, too, how a tree with 

 large and widely separated limbs, like some of the Oaks 

 and Chestnuts, will have the grandeur which comes from 

 an alternation of deep shadows and strong lights, while 

 another tree, like an Ash or a Maple, before it acquires 

 a strongly individual expression with age, will have a 

 smoother and more sunny surface, in which the idea of 

 gracefulness predominates over that of sturdy strength. 



Of course, there are details of the color and texture of the 

 bark of individual trees and the arrangements of their spray 

 which can best be studied in winter. The Beech is one of 

 our native trees whose winter aspect is particularly pleas- 

 ing. Gilpin, in his classical work on Forest Scenery, is 

 inclined to depreciate the picturesque value of the Beech ; 



he pronounces its skeleton deficient in strength and firm- 

 ness, the branches at the best being disproportioned, 

 awkward and fantastically wreathed, while the bushy 

 spray gives it a disheveled look. He admires, however, 

 the trunks of old specimens when "they are studded with 

 bold knobs and projections, and have sometimes a sort of 

 irregular fluting, which is very characteristic." There are 

 no American Beeches which have been so long pollarded 

 as the famous Burnham trees, which are so impressive 

 for the size of their hollowed trunks, even after the mal- 

 treatment which they have suffered. But we are inclined 

 to think that the American Beech is a more impressive tree 

 than the European, although the latter is strikingly beauti- 

 ful, especially in youth. An old American Beech-tree cer- 

 tainly has dignity of form, and the bark is even more 

 beautiful than that of the European Beech. It has a smooth- 

 ness of texture unexcelled by the bark of any other tree, 

 and a blue-gray color which looks still more clean when 

 contrasted with the red-brown and abundant spray. 

 Thoreau notices two of the most beautiful characteristics 

 of our Beech when he says " no tree has so fair a bole or 

 so handsome an instep as the Beech"; for the sturdy way 

 in which the great roots curve out to grip the soil is notice- 

 able in every well-grown tree. In a note in one of his 

 journals in early winter, Thoreau also speaks of the thick, 

 inviting bed which the fallen leaves of the Beech make on 

 the ground : " Beautiful, perfect leaves, unspotted, not eaten 

 by insects, of a handsome clear leather color, like a book 

 bound in calf, crisp, elastic, covering the ground so cleanly 

 as to tempt one to recline on it and admire the beauty of 

 the smooth boles from that position, covered with lichens 

 of various colors. The trees impress you as full of health 

 and vigor as if the bark could hardly contain the spirit, so 

 that it lies in folds about their ankles like the wrinkles of 

 fat in infancy." 



The illustration on page 135 gives an excellent idea of 

 the proportions of a Beech-tree v/hich has reached mature 

 age, and of the peculiarities of its ramifications, although 

 it is at too great a distance from the observer to show the 

 quality of its bark. This particular specimen has a trunk 

 girth of nine feet and a half six feet from the ground, and 

 its branches cover a circle sixty-five feet across. It stands 

 in South Hingham, Massachusetts, and we are indebted to 

 the kindness of Mr. F. W. Brevi'er for the photograph from 

 which our illustration is made. 



The Work of Women in Village Improvement. 



A MERICAN villages are not always desirable places of 

 £\_ residence. With proper attention many of them 

 could probably be made more healthful, and certainly more 

 beautiful — or less repulsive — and they could be so organ- 

 ized as to offer their inhabitants greater social and educa- 

 tional advantages. That the well-being of all who live in 

 country villages could be promoted if more thought and 

 labor were given to their sanitary condition and general 

 appearance is an evident truth, and it was to better these 

 fundamental conditions of life that village improvement 

 societies were originally founded, although from the very 

 outset the originators of the movement conceived the still 

 broader purpose of stimulating the love of nature and the 

 development of artistic feeling. 



Now, it is true that many of these associations have not 

 fulfilled the sanguine hopes of their originators. Many of 

 the promoters of the movement enlisted in it with no defi- 

 nite idea of what was to be done, no realization of what 

 was important and Essential in the project, no adequate 

 knowledge, no artistic feeling, no genuine love of nature. 

 Sometimes there was a lack of earnestness and enthusiasm, 

 and this meant a lack of money to carry on the work. 

 Sometimes there was zeal without knowledge, and this 

 meant too many trees planted, or trees planted in the wrong 

 place, and the invariably fatal results where work which 

 can only be done by an expert is entrusted to a journey- 

 man. And yet the majority of these societies have justi- 



