March 23, 1892.J 



Garden and Forest. 



135 



tered externally. In this way a more substantial effect is 

 gained, and the considerable expense of periodical repainting 

 may be avoided. It would also greatly increase the warmth of 

 a house in winter. Plaster has been proven to stand our cli- 

 mate admirably, and it seems the best possible material for 

 country-house exteriors. . A variety of effects may be gained 

 by using either rough-cast or smooth plaster-work, or by mix- 

 ing any desired coloring matter, like brick-dust, for instance, 

 in the plaster. The surface may also be colored by wash or 

 paint. Painted wood when weather-beaten looks shabby ; 

 painted plaster becomes picturesque with its delicate tones, 

 like the effects in Spanish-American cities. Another advan- 

 tage is the freedom with which climbers cling to the surface, 

 while they have usually an unconquerable repugnance for 

 painted wood. Next to plaster comes a shingled and un- 

 painted exterior, which, assuming very quickly a soft stone- 

 gray, makes a house look as substantial as stone, and gives it 

 a rightful place in a rural landscape. Climbers will cling 

 readily to the shingles. Pleasant effects are also gained by the 

 use of stains on the shingles, which may be easily renewed, or, 

 better still, may be left to blend under the weather. But a 

 shingled exterior should never be tidied up with paint. Clap- 

 boards are almost hopelessly prosaic in effect. 



The piazza on the easterly side of the house makes substan- 

 tially an outdoor room for summer afternoons and evenings. 

 It is of generous width, and covered at the entrance. Adjoin- 

 ing the living-room, which communicates with it bycasements, 

 it is rootless, but an awning affords all necessary shade. A 

 piazza should never be permanently covered on the sunny 

 sides of a house where there are windows. 



Here on the piazza there are blossoming house-plants, to- 

 gether with a large Oleander in a tub. A rug is spread beneath 

 the awning ; there are tables and chairs, and supper is some- 

 times served here. The view is a source of unwearying de- 

 light. So abruptly does the southward slope fall off that the 

 immediate foreground is not visible except from the edge of 

 the balustrade, making the effect of the piazza much like that 

 of the hurricane-deck of a steamboat. The range is from 

 Nahant to the eastward, around to the Menotomy Hills, in Ar- 

 lington, to the westward. The central point is the State House, 

 with its glittering gilded dome, five miles away as the crow 

 flies. The great city spreads on all sides, its political limits in- 

 distinguishable as it merges in the mass of the Greater Boston 

 that extends to our feet. Our hill-side forms part of the ancient 

 rocky coast of the Boston basin, and a rise of but a few feet 

 would again bring the salt-waters of the bay up to its former 

 shores. It is hardly more than a stone's-throw down into the 

 level of the \vlde alluvial plain over which the tides once 

 rolled. This plain spreads away to the blue gleam of the Mys- 

 tic. When the house was built it was an almost unbroken pas- 

 toral expanse, dappled here and there with trees, and broken 

 with woodland areas, the successors of the noble Oaks that 

 went long ago to form the timbers of the East Indiamen 

 launched from the Medford ship-yards. Last year all but a 

 patch of the woodland vanished before the axe, for it was there 

 that the Gypsy Moth began its ravages, and the remedy was to 

 destroy the trees. 



Very soon after the occupation of the hill-side the plain be- 

 gan to be checker-boarded with streets, and houses began to 

 dot themselves over it. The effect of these packing-box struc- 

 tures was most discordant at first. But as they multiplied, their 

 isolated ugliness vanished as they became merged in the mass 

 that soon covered the ground and joined itself to the sea of 

 buildings that spreads in broad undulations over the hills and 

 valleys of our rapidly growing suburban city, blending indis- 

 tinguishably with the neighboring municipalities that ultimately 

 must become one. The commonplaceness of urban edifices 

 gives way to a striking impressiveness when beheld in a mass, 

 with a confusion of roofs and gables intermingled with the ver- 

 dure of tree-tops that nearly bury them for half the year, visi- 

 bly symbolizing the efforts of Nature to overwhelm the works 

 of man and reconquer the ground he has made his own. 



There is one broad space where the sea of houses holds 

 back — a wide expanse of salt-marsh like a grassy lake. At 

 times the silvery threads of its embroidering creek swell and 

 spread until the marsh becomes for a brief time a veri- 

 table lake — a beautiful vision as ephemeral as the sunset's 

 glow. 



The view includes some notable historic details. Less than 

 a mile away by the Mystic's side may be seen the roof and 

 chimneys of a brick dwelling, the oldest house in New Eng- 

 land, and in the United States outside of the once Spanish do- 

 mains of Florida and New Mexico, the mansion built for 

 Governor Cradock, but never occupied by him. Near by was 

 launched in 1632 the Blessing of the Bay, the first vessel 



built in New England. Beyond the Mystic rises the picturesque 

 old pre-revolutionary powder-tower in Somerville. 



In Charlestown the great shaft of Bunker Hill monument is 

 rivaled by the moreslenderchimney of the Navy Yard machine- 

 shop. About the huge bulks of the grain-elevators in Charles- 

 town and East Boston are congregated the masts of the ship- 

 ping in the harbor ; the harbor itself cannot be seen from here, 

 but the long blue line of the Atlantic shows over Nahant from 

 the ledge above. At night the red glimmer of Egg Rock light 

 may be seen from the piazza, and from the upper windows are 

 visible the steady glow of the lighthouse on Long Island head, 

 and the intermittent flash of Boston light at the harbor mouth. 

 The contrast between the life and stir of the metropolitan 

 landscai)e in front, where the city is backed by the majestic 

 wave-lines of the Blue Hills, is great. The smoke rises from 

 countless factory-chimneys ; the fleecy steam-drifts mark the 

 flying shuttles of five lines of railway ; the incessant hum of 

 traffic comes faintly to the ear ; then the almost absolute se- 

 clusion roundabout, with the sylvan wilderness rolling away 

 behind. By our neighbor's house, just below and across the 

 way, the pioneer of our friendly group of three, there nesfles a 

 pretty lakelet among the fells, its calm surface glimpsed from 

 the piazza above the tops of the Apple-trees that happily cut 

 off the sight of a row of prosaic dwellings. This lakelet, which 

 occupies a former swamp and forms a reservoir for the great 

 factory of our suburb, occupies the hither end of a valley along 

 which there is a vista to some hills — far enough away for a soft 

 haze to intervene — that stand in a park now private, though 

 likely some day to become a public domain. 



The changes of the day and night lend constant charm to the 

 landscape from this piazza — its aspects under sunshine and 

 cloud, under summer verdure and winter snows, the flushing 

 tints of spring-time leafage that seem prophetic of the vivid 

 tones of autumnal glory ; the sweet languor of summernights 

 with a mystery of darkness below and above, the city lights far 

 and near repeating the firmament's constellations almost as 

 though mirrored in a lake, and the enchantment of the moon- 

 light scenes, under which the plain sometimes becomes trans- 

 formed into a white sea of mist, with the dim and vaguely out- 

 lined bulks of trees and buildings rising darkly from the surface 

 like the islets of an archipelago. 



Boston. Sylvester Baxter. 



Notes of a Summer Journey in Europe. — X. 



TI^ROM Berlin an excursioa was made to Copenhagen with 

 -*- the object of comparing the dendrological collections of 

 this northern station with our own, so that, if found worth while, 

 arrangements for exchanges might be made. Although Copen- 

 hagen is situated in a latitude which corresponds to that of 

 north-eastern Labrador, it enjoys a somewhat insular situation 

 •and reaps much benefit from the modifying influence of the 

 great Gulf Stream. From the character of the vegetation I was 

 prepared to find indications of a winter climate somewhat similar 

 to, ora little colder than the winters in eastern Massachusetts. It 

 was quite a surprise, therefore, to find here trees of the English 

 Walnut, good specimens of Sequoia gigantea, to be told that 

 Vitis vinifera matured fruit in some favorable situations, and 

 to see thick borders of Fuchsia Riccartoni and F. gracilis, two 

 or three feet high and in full bloom, which remain out all win- 

 ter with only a moderate covering of leaves and rubbish. 

 Even the Fig can be grown against walls if afforded winter 

 protection. When the mercury falls to about zero of Fahren- 

 heit at Copenhagen the weather is considered extremely cold. 

 Therefore it is possible to grow here many trees and shrubs 

 which will not survive the winters of eastern Massachusetts. 



There are practically two botanic gardens in Copenhagen, 

 each being under the control of separate institutions. These 

 are the University Botanic Garden and the gardens of the Royal 

 Agricultural and Horticultural Academy. The first presents 

 no novel features and few remarkable plants, or plants which 

 are not to be found in the other. It was of interest to note here 

 both the typical and the yellow or amber-colored fruited Choke 

 Cherry (Prunus Virginiana), sixteen or eighteen feet in height 

 and with thick single stems. In many parts of America the 

 Choke Cherry is counted as a mere shrub, but in some places 

 it really becomes a neat single-stemmed tree, so that, from its 

 habit, it might almost be counted a distinct species from the 

 shrubby race. The yellow-fruiting form is apparently quite 

 uncommon, and to it has been given the varietal name of 

 erythrocarpa. In this garden there are fine shrubs of Jamesia 

 Americana, while handsome masses of the so-called Oregon 

 Grape (Berberis Aquifolium) were bearing an abundance of 

 fruit. Lonicera alpigena, about seven feet in height, was 

 very showy, with large rich red fruit. The plant which inter- 



