September ii, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



361 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY KY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



entered as SHCOND-CLASS matter at the POST-OFFiCE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1895. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGH. 



Editorial Articles : — Unnatural Gardening 361 



The English Oak. (With figure.) 362 



The Pines in a Dry Summer ." Hf>'s. Mary Treat. 362 



Notes on some Arborescent Willows of North America. — I . . . M. S. Bebb. 363 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter W. GoUritig, 364 



Plant Notes 364 



Cultural Department; — Notes on Hardy Perennial Plants. 



R. Cameron, J. H'ood-.^'ard Mantling, ^tt) 



Cannas T. D, Hatneld. 367 



Notes from Cornell University G. Ha roll Finvell. 368 



Isotoma longiflora, Caladium argyrites G, IK Oliver. 368 



C0RRE.SP0NDENCE : — Origin of the Name Sambucus ?F. /C. Gerard. 36S 



Rhus Poisoning Professor T. J. Biirrill. 368 



The Sacred Lotus in Egypt Anna Murray Vail. 369 



R ecent Publications 369 



Notes 370 



Illustration : — Oaks in Sherwood Forest, Fig. 51 365 



Unnatural Gardenino;. 



WHEN Hamlet counseled, the players " to hold the 

 mirror up to nature," he hardly meant that in their 

 acting- they should abandon themselves to unpremeditated 

 impulse. The most natural acting is the most studied art. 

 So a natural garden is not one given over to the sponta- 

 neous and uncontrolled growths of nature, but one in 

 which a finished artist intensifies the effects that nature 

 produces by emphasizing a feature here and there and 

 eliminating every element that distracts from the central 

 purpose of the scene. It is our belief that landscape-art 

 reaches its highest development when it deals successfully 

 with the fundamental and permanent features of scenery, 

 and with a broad handling of a few simple elements pre- 

 sents typical pictures which are instinct with the poetry of 

 nature. In sincere work of this sort there will be no la- 

 bored attempt to conceal the hand of man. An affectation 

 of mere rusticity would strike a jarring note like any other 

 sham. Any landscape to be enjoyed as a work of art must 

 have artificial elements, and the severest taste will never 

 disapprove of good honest roads and walks with trim turf 

 borders simply because they are non-natural. Indeed, the 

 artificial construction may be so arranged as to heighten 

 the charm of the picture and add to our appreciation of the 

 creative genius of its designer. 



Of course, there are other fields of garden art, and a 

 catholic taste has no controversy with any true art. There 

 are contracted spaces to which an ornate and strictly arti- 

 ficial style is adapted. There are architectural terraces 

 and monumental buildings which need the lines of formal 

 planting to supplement and complete them. Along a stately 

 promenade like the Riverside Drive in this city, where the 

 foreground is strictly defined by a parapet, there is an oppor- 

 tunity within this limit for statues and fountains and floral 

 embellishment of the most sumptuous and elaborate kind, 

 and this would serve as a fitting framework for the pros- 

 pect across the broad river with the forest-crowned cliffs 

 and the noble sky-line beyond. Many other places might 

 be named where so-called decorative gardening and geo- 

 metrical arrangements of flowering plants would be desira- 

 ble, and wherever a real artist gives e.xamples of his skill 



in this direction he commands the gratitude of every one 

 interested in garden art. 



All this we have stated before so often and with such 

 fullness of detail that it ought not to be necessary to repeat 

 it. We believe that formal gardening is a legitimate form 

 of art, but it does not follow that we approve of all formal 

 gardens. A design conceived by an artist with a refined 

 sense of color and form, and with constructive ingenuity, is 

 one thing, but a pattern-bed, which is ugly in line and crude 

 in color, is quite another. Every one has seen geometrical 

 flower-beds of such elaborate pattern that they never can 

 be properly e.xecuted with plants as materials. Even where 

 they are not intrinsically bad — that is, where the figure is 

 pleasing and the colors are not constantly at war with each 

 other — they are often placed where they are out of har- 

 mony with the general design and with the special fea- 

 tures about them. Wherever in a public garden the recog- 

 nized canons of art are violated it is the province of a 

 journal devoted to the subject to criticise such displays, 

 and we have not hesitated to appeal to those in authority 

 and who are, therefore, in a substantial way educators of 

 the people, to furnish e.xamples of gardening which will 

 not offend the purest taste. But there are worse sins 

 than those we have named, and there is no occasion here 

 to characterize such efforts as the portraits of eminent men 

 or the maps of different states wrought out on the turf with 

 Houseleeks and Echeverias. Such subjects, with the imi- 

 tations in color of flags and banners, badges and mottoes, 

 are too trivial for serious consideration. They discredit 

 the very name of garden art. Wherever used they can 

 only disfigure our parks, and are accurately described as 

 horticultural abominations. 



Of course, shams of this sort cannot be spoken of vi-ith 

 any toleration. They are on a level with the Weeping 

 Willows made of human hair, which we sometimes see. 

 There is no more excuse for permitting their use in a pub- 

 lic park than there would be for decorating a city hall with 

 the portrait of the Mayor done with little sea-shells. In 

 regard to this spurious art we are led to explain our position 

 once more because so intelligent a person as the editor of 

 The Independent evidently conceives that our sole objec- 

 tion to it is based on the fact that "these floral pictures are 

 not naturalistic," and on this assumption he argues that 

 the same objection lies against every cultivated plant and 

 gardening of all kinds. This statement is in the main true ; 

 but we have often argued that even in the natural treat- 

 ment of a landscape there must be artificial elements 

 which ought to be frankly used. We advocate formal gar- 

 dening within proper restrictions, for the very reason that 

 it is formal. When we protest against wall-paper designs 

 it is not because they are unnatural, but because they 

 violate artistic principles in form and color and location. 

 We need not here repeat the specific exceptions we have 

 taken against some of the displays in the Boston Public 

 Garden and certain western city parks, but it ought to be 

 stated that there are in our view serious objections to 

 these works from economic and other points of view aside 

 from the fact that many of them are puerile, others are 

 discordant in color or whimsical in form, and nearly all of 

 them are badly placed. 



It is argued in favor of these flower-beds that "the taste 

 of the common people approves them." No doubt, there 

 are many persons among those whom the editor of The 

 Independent classifies as "common people" who agree 

 with him in admiring this so-called garden art. It is true, 

 _also, that there arq many persons who take greater delight 

 in the chromo-lithograph of a horse-race than in one of 

 Ivubens' canvases, and yet when a city government 

 founds an art gallery for public enjoyment and instruction 

 it does not fill it with chromos. There are people to 

 whose ears the melody of Grandfather's Clock is more 

 pleasing than the Tannhauser Overture, but when a city 

 furnishes music for the people its aim should be to furnish 

 good music. When a public building or statue or monu- 

 ment is to be erected, the authorities are justly criticised if 



