190 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 217. 



and climbing vines about its foundations, and the sunny beauty 

 of a summer sky behind. It is thus that the occupant of cities 

 pictures a country house, it is thus that he sees it, and to this 

 surrounding aU mere summer cottages and houses may wisely 

 be adapted. 



But your true dweller in the country is faced by a different 

 problem, having, unless his home stands in a bower of ever- 

 greens, to see it most of the time bare against a dull and low- 

 ering sky, with tall gray trunks of trees and a network of dark 

 branches in relief against its surface, and frequently a snowy 

 foundation and roof, to try its complexion still further. When 

 the short and chilly days come, white and cold-colored houses 

 have a shivery air, like lasses clad in summergowns in a snow- 

 storm. The green blinds make black spots against the pre- 

 vailing whiteness, and the whole effect is apt to be disconsolate. 

 Under these conditions a little red farm-house or school-house 

 gives one a sense of satisfaction, of warmth and comfort, 

 which shows that, after all, a dash of vigorous color does not 

 come amiss in a New England prospect, which is sombre, if 

 not dreary, for nearly three-quarters of the year. 



Probably it was not aesthetics that our forefathers considered 

 in their choice of colors, but economy, yellow ochre being the 

 most enduring of colors, and white being the only pigment that 

 permits refreshment of a buildingin the stained and disfigured 

 portions, without making painting the whole a necessity. But 

 it is one thing to have a white house in the south, surrounded 

 by Oleanders and Camellias, with Palms and Eucalyptus to 

 tieck it with shadows even on winter days, and another to see 

 a house of this color staring bleak and cold under the shade- 

 less gloom of a New England January. 



The south of France and Italy show masses of foliage all win- 

 ter long. The Live Oaks cast their dense shade, the glossy 

 Camellias form clumps of verdure. Cypresses and Stone Pines 

 are everywhere, the Eucalyptus is green in December ; there 

 are leafy hedges in the gardens always. In February the 

 ground is dappled with Anemones and Violets. Winter there 

 is but a nap of the blooming earth, not the syncope of the 

 north, which sometimes almost makes one doubt whether the 

 spring will ever come again, to loosen the cold slumberer from 

 the iron bands in which the winter has bound her. Therefore, 

 though our sun shines, and our skies are of pale blue, the con- 

 ditions are widely different, and those gayly painted and fres- 

 coed exteriors, so amusing and pleasing amid the smiling 

 winter surroundings of the Riviera, would seem as strangely 

 amiss against our solemn Firs, and funereal Junipers, as a Pu- 

 ritan in motley. 



For the same reason it seems to me that while light tints are 

 agreeable in isolated summer houses, a country town must 

 needs have more variety and warmth of color for those houses 

 which are to be occupied at all seasons, and that there are 

 many places where something warm and solid composes with 

 the surroundings better than a light tint. The superiority of 

 stained shingles over painted clapboards comes from the fact 

 that the color surface is broken as it is in nature, and there are 

 no broad stretches of one unvarying tint, which is of necessity 

 inartistic. Stone and brick, plaster and unpainted wood take 

 on a variety of shades that break up monotony, and uncon- 

 sciously give satisfaction to the eye, which wearies of same- 

 ness ; but neither stone nor brick nor plaster makes desira- 

 ble country houses for all-the-year-round occupation in New 

 England, for they gather dampness, and require artificial heat 

 to keep them dry, except in the very middle of our short sum- 

 mer. Hence we are forced to the consideration of some artis- 

 tic variety in the treatment, not only of wooden dwellings sur- 

 rounded by grounds, but also of villages of frame-houses, 

 which are even harder to manage, since one's neighbor's idea 

 of color may be in direct conflict with one's own, or, what is 

 perhaps even more trying, one may promptly find his care- 

 fully selected hue reproduced on a dozen different buildings, to 

 which it may be inappropriate. 



It is possible that in future days villages may be painted 

 artistically to order, by contract, in sections that agreeably har- 

 monize with each other, while affording some variety of gen- 

 eral effect. At present the variations on the original yellow 

 theme of colonial houses have reached a maddening variety, 

 scaling froni orange to straw color, with such intermediate 

 shades of banana, and chrome, and lemon-yellow as happen 

 to appeal to the proprietor's more or less educated eye. 



This phase, too, is passing, but its succeeding fashion will 

 also pass, and thus forever the old order changes, giving place 

 to new, and while we are grateful to the wise ones who shed 

 light upon our darkness, we mistrust the infallibility of any 

 rule or any fashion as applicable to all situations, and all 

 seasons, and seek for more light upon this difficult subject, 

 which shows the same complications as the effort to make a 



house serve with equal comfort as a winter and a summer 

 dwelling. 



Hingham, Mass. M. C. Robbins. 



Sweet Peas 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 

 Sir,— Is it too late to plant Sweet Peas ? „ , 



Albany, N. Y. R. A. 



[It is not too late in the latitude of Albany, but, as a rule, 

 the earlier Sweet Peas can be put in the ground the more 

 vigorous will be the plants. They should be planted just 

 as soon as the ground can be worked in spring, and there 

 need be no fear of injury from frost. The ground should be 

 worked deep, say eighteen inches or even two feet, and fairly 

 good garden-soil will give an abundant yield. It is well 

 to plant thinly in a furrow some five or six inches deep, 

 covering the peas with about three inches of soil and draw- 

 ing the earth up to the plants as they grow until the bed is 

 level. Give them tall brush or a wide trellis of wire-fencing 

 to run upon and cut the flowers every day, and they will 

 keep on blooming until frost. — Ed.] 



Sand Dunes. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — I should like to offer a plan for protecting water-fronts 

 from shifting sand that suggested itself to me while examining 

 a harbor on Lake Michigan. 



In Garden and Forest (vol. iv., p. 503) Mr. J. B. Harrison 

 speaks of the necessity of Iseginning near the water's edge. 

 There may in places, however, be serious objections to planting 

 theouter row of Cedar-saplings suggested by him. A quicker 

 and cheaper plan would consist in driving sharpened boards, 

 six or eight inches wide, and, according to circumstances, 

 from three to six feet long, into the sand in a continuous. row, 

 thus making an obstruction that would catch the moving sand 

 in drifts. As these boards become uncovered they could be 

 driven deeper, and if buried could be raised by hand. In this 

 way enough protection would be given that the spontaneous 

 growths would be given an opportunity to gain strength, and 

 it would be easy to make the shelter permanent by planting a 

 close shelter belt behind this fence, if I may so call it. On the 

 Lake Michigan shore the best deciduous tree would be the 

 Balm of Gilead ; it thrives well on exposed sandy shores, and 

 could be cheaply propagated from ripe wood driven into the 

 sand. The proper evergreens to plant with it are the White 

 Cedar and the White Pine, the former for a permanent low 

 screen, and the latter to eventually succeed the Balm of Gilead. 



It can readily be seen that a screen of this character would 

 cost very little. A couple of men could cut down Balm of 

 Gilead or similar trees and cut them up into cuttings two or 

 three feet long, and plant these very quickly. It would require 

 about sixty-five feet of cull lumber per rod of fence. This 

 lumber would cost, hereabout, not over forty cents. It would 

 be interesting to know what it would cost to protect a mile of 

 shore-front, and, if it has been tried anywhere, readers of 

 Garden and Forest would like to hear the result. 



Milwaukee, Wis. Charles L. Mann. 



The subject of the fixation and reclamation of sand- 

 dunes is one which has attracted the attention of engineers 

 in the Old World for years, and a large literature and 

 record of experience exist ; but of valuable works on the 

 subject I know but one, the classic treatise of Joseph 

 Wessely, Der Europcsische Flugsand und seine Kullur (The 

 European Shifting Sands and their Cultivation), Vienna, 

 1873, which, while treating the subject with special refer- 

 ence to local conditions in the desert of Hungary, yet en- 

 larges upon the principles which rule everywhere, and 

 should be in the hands of any one attempting the solution 

 of such problems. 



The difference between the shifting sands of the interior 

 and those of the seashore is, that in the first case a great 

 mass of sand is in question, which once fixed is fixed for- 

 ever ; while in the latter case the sea is constantly bringing 

 up new material, and hence the work of fixation is never 

 entirely done, and requires more or less constant watching 

 and renewal. Mechanical works, such as fences, covering 

 with brush, straw, turf, will be less effective and less per- 



