March 9, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



109 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tkiuune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sarghnt. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MARCH g, 1892. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles :— The Proposed Speed-road in Central Park 109 



The Vahie of a Tree no 



Bright Winter Leaves L. Greenlee, no 



Winter Rambles in the Pine-barrens.— Ill E. J. Hilt, no 



Pinus latifolia T. S. Brandegee. in 



Seed-raising in Germany George J'\ Daniels. 1 1 1 



New or Little-known Plants : — Lespedeza bicolor and L. Sieboldi. (With 



figures.) y. G. Jaclc. n2 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 113 



Cultural Department; — The Winter Garden J.N. Geraj-d. 116 



Variegated Abutilon Eclipse IVm. Tricker. 116 



Cypripedium Leeanum and Varieties yoJiit WeatJiers. J17 



Insects in the Soil of Greenhouses Jolin B. Stniili. 117 



Sowing Celery-seed Professor ]V. F. Massey. 117 



Aster acris V. C. 117 



Correspondence :— Constitutional Health of Plants A. W. Pearson. n8 



The Tan Bark Oak Carl Piirdy. n8 



Help Against the Gypsy Moth Franlz H. Nutter. 119 



Exhibitions ;— Orchids at Short Hills, New Jersey 119 



Orchids at the Eden Musee 119 



Notes 120 



Illustrations ; — Lespedeza bicolor, Fig. 18 114 



Lespedeza Sieboldi, Fig. ig ns 



The Proposed Speed-road in Central Park. 



WE sometimes feel like offering an apology to our 

 readers for restating so frequently some of the 

 fundamental principles which should control the design, 

 the development and the management of our city parks 

 if they are to attain their highest possible value. But we 

 are too often reminded that there are many people of intel- 

 ligence and refinement who seem to have no adequate 

 appreciation of the elementary truths upon which all 

 thought and action in park matters ought to rest. Just 

 now certain wealthy gentlemen of this city have revived 

 the project to run a broad, straight and perfectly level road 

 through Central Park along its western boundary line, to 

 be used exclusively for driving horses at speed ; and either 

 they do not understand that this will mean the utter ruin 

 of the park as a place of rural recreation, or, if they do 

 understand this, they consider the use to which they pro- 

 pose to devote it a more important one than that for which 

 it was originally intended. 



The primary purpose of the park was clearly discerned 

 when the land was bought. The projectors of the park 

 realized that the growing city was rapidly obliterating 

 every trace of natural scenery from Manhattan Island, and 

 they deemed it a wise and wholesome provision to save 

 a central area where trees and grass and flowers — a picture 

 of pastoral peace — should be preserved as a refreshing an- 

 tithesis to the rigid lines of stony streets and buildings 

 about it. The city gave bonds to hold it in trust for pos- 

 terity, and for this single use. It was planned, graded and 

 planted to this end alone. Every road and path and arch- 

 way was constructed solely to afford the best opportunity 

 for enjoying the beauty, melody and fragrance of a natural 

 landscape. iUl intelligent men who have given profound 

 thought to this subject are unanimous in their judgment that 

 this was a worthy purpose ; that the city did wisely in ex- 

 pending millions of dollars to secure a park designed with 

 such a motive ; that, indeed, no city of any pretension, and 

 New York least of all, hemmed in as it is by waters, which 



forbid its expansion except to the northward, can afford to 

 be without such a park. And yet these eminent citizens are 

 asking the Legislature to authorize the desolation of a por- 

 tion of this work, and to insure the final destruction of all 

 of it after millions of dollars and the thought and labor of 

 years have been expended in developing its capabilities. 

 It is even said that one of the Park Commissioners has lent 

 his influence to the movement, although his position is that 

 of a trustee appointed to protect from all such assaults the 

 public property which he seems willing to surrender to its 

 enemies. A Park Commissioner, even if he were empow- 

 ered to do so by special law, has no more moral right to 

 give over a portion of the park to a use which is not only 

 foreign to its purpose, but utterly destructive of that pur- 

 pose, than he would have to sell it for building lots. 



The promoters of the speed-track urge that paths have 

 been made in the park for visitors to walk in, a bridle-pad 

 for those who ride, carriage-roads for those who drive, and 

 why not, therefore, a special place for those who wish to 

 speed trotters ? The obvious answer to this is, that the 

 roads and paths were made not primarily as places for 

 walking or for driving, but in order to enable persons on 

 foot, on horseback or in carriages to enjoy the park itself. 

 That is, the roads and paths exist solely in the interest of 

 the park. The aim of the project in question is just the 

 reverse of this. It is not the construction of another road 

 to open new views or give additional facilities for visiting 

 any portion of the park. It means the destruction of the 

 park in the interest of a road to be used for its own sake 

 by the few people who wish to drive at speed. The prin- 

 ciple is utterly vicious. Even if it is the duty of the city 

 to provide a track for the owners of fast horses it does not 

 follow that the park should be sacrificed for it. If the city 

 needs a track for running horses — and if a track for fast 

 driving is provided why not for hard riding and hurdle- 

 jumping — or a military parade-ground, or a field for base- 

 ball, football and other athletic sports, the obvious course 

 is to buy the ground and prepare it for these purposes. It 

 would be the work of barbarians to confiscate Central Park 

 for any one or all of these uses, or for any other foreign 

 use, after it has become famous as the most beautiful, and, 

 therefore, the most useful urban park in the world, and the 

 object of our noblest civic pride. 



We have become so accustomed to apply the name of 

 park to a ball-field, a race-track, a game-preserve, an ar- 

 boretum, a forest, a country fair-ground, or any other place 

 that is not roofed over, that the popular notion of the mean- 

 ing of the word has grown confused, if it ever was distinct. 

 Even intelligent people have to be reminded that many 

 worthy purposes to which open-air resorts can be put 

 would be utterly destructive of the value of a park for rural 

 recreation — that is, the value of a park as a park. It is true 

 that opportunity is offered in Central Park for skating, for 

 lawn-tennis and for some other sports, but these have 

 always been subordinate features — mere incidents which 

 have not been in conflict with the controlling purpose of 

 the work. How far such incidents can be safely multiplied 

 is a matter of judgment; they certainly have never yet 

 been obtrusive or disturbing. Such games are not in 

 themselves inconsistent with the refreshing influence of 

 quiet scenery. No portion of the park has been turned into a 

 desert to make room for them ; no grass has been replaced 

 by gravel, nor has any wide swath a mile long been 

 mowed through the trees for them. Every year since the 

 park was designed some class or interest or movement has 

 made an effort to condemn a portion of it to special use ; 

 but in the main these assaults have been repelled, and when 

 the power and persistence of this pressure is considered, 

 the salvation of the park — that is, its preservation for 

 its original purpose in ever-growing beauty and value — is 

 something of a marvel. 



We have discussed this matter in a general way, present- 

 ing only elementary principles which ought to protect a 

 park from invasion of any disturbing character. Perhaps 

 it should be said that this speed-road project is the most 



