August 7, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



311 



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, AUGUST 7, 1895. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— Doing Too Much. — II :.ri 



Abolition oHhe Government Seed Bureau 311 



The Collection of Funeral Wreaths and Offerings in the Museum of 



Egyptian Antiquities at Giseh Anna Mnrray VaiL 312 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 313 



Entomological: — The White-marked Tussock Moth. Orgjia leucostigma, in 



Western New Yorlt. {With figure.) Victor H, Laivr. 314 



New or Little-known Plants : — Kalmia latitolia, var. myrtiiolia. (With figure.) 315 



Plant Notes 315 



Cultural Department: — Hardy Perennials R. Cameron. 316 



Some July Flowers iV. E. Endicott. 316 



The Gladiolus... , J.N. Gerard. 3.7 



Notes on Onions William Scott. 31 S 



Peas. Strawberries T. D. Hatfield. 318 



Correspondence : — Plant-breeding. -. . .Professor L. H. Bailey. 31 S 



Rhododendrons in a Hard Winter Fredericlc W. Kelsey. 319 



Recent Publications 319 



Notes 320 



Illustrations: — The White-marked Tussock Moth, Orgyia leucostigma,Fig. 43. 315 

 Kalmia latifolia, var. myrtifolia, Fig. 44 '. 317 



Doing Too Much. — II. 



WE spoke recently of the tendency to do too much 

 as one-^&f the errors in our treatment of coun- 

 try places, especially those of small size. Our former 

 carelessness in regard to architectural beauty was suc- 

 ceeded by a period when we believed that it meant as 

 much ornamentation as possible. This belief we are out- 

 growing. In architecture we are beginning to realize that 

 the highest beauty most often means simplicity, and 

 always means fitness, but in gardening we are still 

 in the second period. We think too much of elabo- 

 ration in our small grounds, and too little of ap- 

 propriateness as regards their adaptation either to the 

 house they surround or to the original character and 

 natural possibilities of the site itself. 



When, as is often the case in our more populous summer 

 colonies, cottages and villas for summer residence exist in 

 such numbers that they form actual streets, each house 

 being surrounded by only a small piece of ground, and 

 views of the adjacent country being cut off, then it is 

 proper to treat these grounds as gardens. They may 

 rightly be designed and planted in truly gardenesque ways, 

 and filled as full of beautiful plants of all kinds as is con- 

 sistent with good taste and the depth of the owner's purse. 

 But even under these conditions it is too often thought that 

 the purse must be deeply drawn upon to get an agreeable 

 result, while good taste is constantly outraged by over- 

 crowding, and also by the selection, for their rarity, or, at 

 least, for their individual charms, of plants which do not 

 combine into an harmonious whole. 



Overcrowding is, indeed, an almost universal sin in our 

 small grounds. Perhaps, when the house was built it 

 stood in the midst of a bare expanse, unpleasantly naked 

 in its own effect, and with its windows and piazzas un- 

 pleasantly open to the public eye ; therefore, trees are set 

 out in sufficient numbers to afford shade and protection 

 quickly, vines and shrubs are started to clothe the crude 

 foundations and partially screen the piazzas, and flowers 

 are planted to enliven the general effect and furnish sup- 

 plies for cutting for the house. At first it does not seem 

 that too much had been done, but even if nothing further 

 is done, in a few years, if climate and soil are not 

 very unpropitious, unless some of the trees are cut 



out they will crowd one another to their common in- 

 jury, exclude light and air from the dwelhng, and utterly 

 shut off the view of any world beyond the borders of the 

 small property itself. Unthinned, the shrubs will grow 

 into thickets, which no amount of pruning will keep in an 

 attractive condition ; they will lose their lower branches 

 and they will not bloom as prolifically as they should. 

 And, unless carefully checked and directed, the vines will 

 so swathe the house as to conceal its architectural charac- 

 ter entirely, prevent sunshine and breezes from refreshino- 

 its piazzas, and assist the trees to darken all parts of it. 



This is the condition of many of the cottages of people 

 who inhabit them only during the summer ; and, un- 

 fortunately, this is the condition which seems just now to 

 excite admiration most surely. The passer-by pronounces 

 it picturesque and cozy, and so thinks the owner, grown 

 accustomed to excessive luxuriance, to confusion of effect, 

 and to the lack of fresh air and sunshine. The natural 

 pride which every planter takes in the successful develop- 

 ment of his nurslings is allowed to become an unnatural 

 distaste to using the axe and the shears upon them. The 

 overshaded cottage and the overcrowded place are becom- 

 ing as typical of our summer resorts as were once the 

 wholly naked house and the almost wholly neglected 

 grounds. And when to this general liking for as much 

 foliage as possible is added a special taste for brilliant 

 flowers or for showy exotic plants, then excessive want of 

 harmony is added to excessive luxuriance, and the result 

 is still worse. 



A really good effect can be obtained in places of this 

 sort only when constant study is given to their develop- 

 ment, and this study is more needed in taking care of a 

 small place than in planting it. Errors in planting on a 

 small scale may be retrieved if a careful eye is kept on the 

 progress of the place, and they are soon detected ; but the 

 very best original scheme is surely and quickly injured if 

 overcrowding is permitted to go on for any considerable 

 period. And if thinning is then attempted, all the remain- 

 ing trees and shrubs and vines will present, for a long 

 time, an unattractive appearance, while many of them will 

 be irretrievably ruined. 



The owner should realize from the first just what it is 

 that he wants of his plantations — how much shade and 

 how much sunshine he desires for the house itself and for 

 other parts of his little property ; in what degree he wishes 

 to be shut off from the street and from his neighbors; 

 how much of his house, and just what portions of 

 it, he would like to see garmented with vines, and just 

 what portions he prefers to keep free from them, so 

 that its best architectural points shall remain apparent and 

 its solidity as a whole shall not seem to be impaired ; in 

 how great a measure he wishes his piazza screened by 

 these vines or by the shrubs planted at its base, and in how 

 great a measure left open to the breezes and the sun. 

 When he understands what he wants, all his plantations 

 should be carefully watched from year to year apd en- 

 couraged or checked, in correspondence with his plan. 

 And, of course, when he owns a particOlarly fine tree or a 

 particularly attractive flowering shrub or group of shrubs, 

 he should consider its individual claims as tenderly as he 

 can, without detriment to the general effect of his place, 

 and not allow it to be spoiled by intrusive neighbors less 

 valuable than itself In short, he should not fear to use axe or 

 shears any more than he fears to use the implements of plant- 

 ing. He should remember that his grounds exist for him as 

 truly as his hous^e does. But too often he seems to think 

 that he exists for them, and has no right to protest, no 

 matter how overluxuriant may be the vegetation they pro- 

 duce. And, by virtue of this well-intentioned mistake, he 

 deprives his place of that greatest of all artistic merits — 

 simplicity. 



More than fifty years ago the Commissioner of Patents 

 was authorized to purchase and distribute — under a spe- 

 cific appropriation — seeds of new plants which could prob- 



