5. I895-] 



Garden and Forest. 



221 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Offich ; 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, JUNE 5, 1895. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article'^ : — Street-lrees 221 



Small Parks tor New York 222 



Some Unusual Androgynous Flower-clusters. (With tiCTure.)..5'^ G. Jack. -21^ 



Two Wild Vegetables of Merit Professor F. IT. Card. 223 



Foreign" Correspondence : — London Letter IK lVa.iso7i. 224 



Plant Notes; — Lilacs 224 



Cultural Department: — The Russian Tree Fruits in Ameiica. — L 



T. H. Hoskins, M.D. 226 



Pelarf^oniums (With figure.) iV. N. Craig. 226 



IMiltonia vexillaria E. O. Orpet. 227 



Some Herbaceous Perenii'als Robert daueron. 228 



Correspondence : — Is Parsnip Poisonous? Fro/essor L. H. Finnutel. 228 



A^^aves in Southern California F. Fra)iceschi. 22S 



At the South Oranj^e Nurseries y. N. Cerani 228 



Meetings of Societies; — Meetings of the American and Newjersey Forestry 



Associations 229 



Notes 230 



Illustrations : — Some Androgynous Flower-clusters, Fig. 33 223 



Pelargonium, Amethyst, Fig. 34 227 



Street-trees. 



ONE can hardly think of a tree planted in the border 

 of a city street without some feeling- of pity. The 

 air in which its leaves grow is polluted vi'ith dust and 

 smoke, whicli impede their healthful action, and the soil 

 in which it stands is often sterile, usually paved over, so as 

 to prevent sufiicient moisture from getting to its roots, and 

 this aridity is intensified by sewers vi'hich hurry the vi'ater 

 away as quickly as possible. In the majority of cases no 

 attempt is made to protect it from horses which gnaw its 

 bark, or insects which devour its foliage, and even if the 

 tree survives these hardships it will be mutilated by tele- 

 graph linemen or amateur surgeons who will lop off its 

 limbs, and thus invite the attacks of various fungi which 

 will soon carry decay to its heart. Of course, the very 

 hardships to which a street-tree is sul)jected ought to sug- 

 gest the greatest care in selecting promising individuals of 

 the species which have proved the most able to endure 

 uncongenial surroundings, which means that only carefully 

 grown nursery-trees of the best form and habit should be 

 planted in the most approved manner in the richest soil 

 that can be secured. But, in spite of all that has been 

 written on the subject, we rarely find that the original 

 work of selecting and planting has been done in a way 

 that is anything like satisfactory. 



These things have been said over and over again, so that 

 we feel like making an apology to readers for once more 

 repeating such elementary truths. But what we have seen 

 within a few days past gives evidence that instructions 

 can hardly be given too frequently or too fully. Through 

 a neighboring city and its suburbs for a distance of 

 more than a dozen miles a macadamized pleasure-drive has 

 lately been constructed. Advertisements for proposals to 

 plant the borders of this road with Maples or Poplars were 

 made, and the contract vi'as let to the lowest bidder, who 

 agreed to furnish trees from ten to twelve feet high, to dig 

 circular holes three feet in circumference and two and a half 

 deep, to fill these holes with good loam and plant the trees 

 properly in this fertile soil for eighty-five cents a tree. Of 

 course, it is not possible to buy good trees and plant them 

 properly for that sum. As a matter of history, the trees 

 planted for the city were of the required height and trunk 



diameter. A band of Italians dug holes of full contract 

 dimensions, and then, in most cases, enough good soil to 

 honestly fill them was dumped beside them. The trees 

 were then distributed, one being laid by each hole, and it 

 usually remained lying and drying in the sun for several 

 hours, often for a whole day. These trees were mostly 

 Cottonwoods and White Maple, both of which will endure 

 a good deal of hard usage without dying outright. They 

 were generally bare poles with two or three large prong- 

 like roots a few inches long, and no small roots vi'hatever. 

 They were set up in the mold, and this was trodden firmly 

 about them, but they were left without any stakes or 

 guards. Where the holes were made in the hard pan the 

 first heavy rain saturated the soil in the tight basin, and it 

 became in many cases as soft as porridge, so that the 

 slightest touch would tilt over the trees, and, although they 

 have only been planted a month, a large per cent, of them 

 lean more or less from the perpendicular. Most of them 

 are dead at the top, and are putiing out a few leaves along 

 the trunk and larger branches. If the season is not too dry 

 many of them will survive — that is, they will not die out- 

 right, but will linger out a sickly e.xistence. Of course, 

 there is no hope that any considerable portion of them will 

 ever develop into noble and uniform specimens befitting 

 the stately character of this avenue. 



The utterly disreputable character of this work from the 

 very beginning is emphasized by half a dozen trees along 

 this same boulevard, where the owner of the land received 

 permission to do his own planting. He made e.xcavations 

 si.x feet square and three feet deep, and filled them in with 

 good soil in the early autumn, heaping up this soil to 

 allow for its settling. After a winter of freezing and 

 thawing, this soil had become firm and compact. Norway 

 Maples, with well-formed heads, good roots and uniform 

 size, were bought from a reputable nursery and properly 

 planted the next spring. They were surrounded w-ith a 

 wire netting, and they have now passed through one try- 

 ing summer and winter. This year they are making a 

 vigorous growth, and stand as an object-lesson to show 

 what the street might have been if intelligent care had been 

 bestowed in making and carrying out the original con- 

 tract. It is never worth while to plant street-trees at all 

 unless they are planted in this way. The first essential 

 quality of a good street-tree is the beauty of health and 

 vigor. It is better to have no trees at all than to have 

 those which are doomed to disease and premature death. 



Of course, in formal planting like this only one variety 

 should be used. The beauty of a country roadside is 

 enhanced by the diversity of its growth, where constant 

 change of form and color gives ever-renewed pleasure to 

 the wayfarer. But when trees stand like a row of columns 

 between parallel lines of buildings, the true formal and 

 architectural effect can only be secured by continued repe- 

 tition. It is this uniformity which makes an avenue of 

 American Elms so effective. It is not the beauty of a sin- 

 gle tree which causes this charm, but it is the multiplied 

 effect of a thousand units which combine to make this a 

 long colonnade supporting its Gothic roof. Of course, the 

 American Elm is not the oidy tree which can be used to 

 advantage, for in a different way an avenue of stately 

 Tulip-trees may be quite as beautiful, while a row of Pin 

 Oaks would have an effect distinctly their own, but une.x- 

 celled in grace. If all these trees were mingled together 

 the effect would be dissipated and lost, as there would be 

 no continuous line extending through the whole vista to 

 give it unity of expression and consistenc}'' of purpose. 

 This incongruity would be seen at once, and it would be 

 exaggerated with each succeeding year, not only as the 

 trees vary in rapidity of growth, but their peculiarities of 

 form and size and expression would grow more striking 

 and more contradictory every year. 



The sum of the matter is that everv city should plant its 

 own trees as much as it should pave its own streets. The 

 work, of course, should be superintended by experts, who, 

 to do the best work, should have a municipal nursery, as 



