302 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 227. 



then, the record be humble, since to this lot we come at 

 last. All now are equals before the King-, and efforts to 

 maintain the distinction between lofty and lowly may 

 well be dispensed with on our tombstones. 



us hope, until there will be no place for quacks or pre- 

 tenders in the profession. 



Meantime it is the duty of every one who seeks profes- 

 sional advice in this direction to employ only those who 

 have credentials which guarantee their competency. 



In a recent issue of this paper we spoke of the work 

 of Messrs. Olmsted & Co. at the Columbian Fair, at 

 Chicago, in connection with that of the architects to illus- 

 trate the true function of landscape-gardening or of land- 

 scape-architecture, as many members of that profession 

 prefer to style it. We tried to show that very often the 

 planting of trees, shrubs and flowers was a comparatively 

 insignificant matter, a minor detail of a general design 

 which is meant primarily to solve in a matter-of-fact way 

 serious problems relating to comfort, health and conveni- 

 ence, problems of everj'-day practical and economical 

 moment as well as questions of exterior appearance and 

 adornment. Of course no one is competent to give advice 

 on subjects of such vital importance to the owners of 

 private grounds or to the people who make use of public 

 grounds, without careful training. As we have pointed 

 out, the profession deserves to rank with architecture 

 among the arts of design, that it means something deeper 

 than the making of pretty pictures on the grass, that the 

 questions to answer are so weighty that no one has a 

 right to assume the responsibility of facing them who has 

 not added to an original aptitude and a correct natural 

 taste the expert ability that comes from long- and careful 

 study. And yet there is danger that, as the value of coun- 

 sel in this direction comes to be more generally recognized, 

 there will be no lack of unskilled persons ready to call 

 themselves landscape-gardeners, and to work untold harm 

 upon confiding clients. 



Not long ago a large sum of money was voted in one 

 of our flourishing cities for establishing a park, and the 

 regular administrative body who had the matter in 

 charge promptly selected the foreman of a neighboring 

 florist's establishment to make the design because he 

 offered to do it cheaply. There was no question among 

 these trustees as to his capability, because it was assumed 

 that a man who knew all about the refinements of floricul- 

 ture was master of the coarser work of "laying out 

 grounds." A little reflection ought to have convinced 

 these commissioners that a good design is always the 

 cheapest ; that even in this lower view of the matter the 

 fee of a trained artist will always be saved many times 

 over in the work of construction alone, while, after the 

 plans have been carried out, the park will be constantly 

 growing in beauty and usefulness as the years roll on. A 

 plan which does not take advantage of all the possi- 

 bilities of the situation and adapt them to the special needs 

 of the city will be a disappointment at the outset. This 

 means that the designer should be a man of wide intelligence 

 and foresight as well as an artist in the highest sense of 

 the term. An imperfect design will be a disappointment 

 at the outset, and it will bring about an endless series of 

 makeshift revisions and patchwork amendments, and, in 

 a word, will be a costly failure. And yet there is no se- 

 curity now against the repetition of such mistakes. 



In this profession, as in others, education must ulti- 

 mately come through the improved taste of the people 

 at large. Public works and private places will be at 

 the mercy of journeymen until it is recognized that it 

 is a fine art to design a park or to make the proper adjust- 

 ment between a private dwelling and its surroundings so 

 that the aspect and outlook of the house, its situation and 

 its approaches and all its relations to the grounds shall be 

 consistent, practical and in accord with the highest canons 

 of taste. Even then there vs'ill be incompetent designers 

 in this profession, just as there are architects who constantly 

 sin against the very foundation principles on which true 

 art rests. But the popular taste improves as good build- 

 ings are furnished for observation and comment ; and 

 popular taste in landscape-art will in time be educated, let 



A Corner in Pines. 



'T^HE planting of a bit of woodland teaches a great many vir- 

 -'■ tues, but perhaps its most obvious lesson is that of patience, 

 which it sometimes unexpectedly rewards just when one's ex- 

 pectations have been finally resigned as vain delusions. Such 

 a reward and delight was ours in the result of a broadcast sow- 

 ing of Pine-seeds in the autumn of 1888, so, for the comfort 

 and cheer of those who may be downhearted about their own 

 apparent failures, I wish to record the story of a final success. 



Wlien we started out to reclaim the worn-out old pasture on 

 the hill at Overlea we set out a great many little evergreen 

 trees of different sizes, a fair proportion of which survive in a 

 vigorous condition, the smaller ones, planted when a foot 

 high, being- altogether the most satisfactory in percentage of 

 survival. But Pines are queer ; there is no denying that. 

 Sometimes, when a tall weedy one was brought home, there 

 were many jibes from the head of the family upon the folly of 

 expecting such a specimen to stand the weather even for one 

 season, while the nierits of a stout, stocky, burly bush were 

 highly extolled as a promising contrast. But now and then the 

 burly bush succumbed, while the thin weedy tree pulled 

 through, very i-nuch like some of those scrawny and tall New 

 Englanders, who, though looking as if a high wind would blow 

 them away, prove to possess a tough and staying quality 

 which nothing in their looks presages. 



Now, having had it affirmed as a fact that a hundred Pine- 

 trees to the acre were enough if they all grew, nothing would 

 really satisfy us but to put in a thousand to start with on about 

 an acre and a quarter of stubborn soil. That is the true 

 American spirit — a desire to overdo. Now, the master, having 

 not much confidence in the methods of the mistress of this 

 farm, concluded in true scientific spirit to begin at the begin- 

 ning, and plant Pine-seed by the bushel, as the easiest and 

 most thorough way of producing thousands of trees in a wood- 

 lot. It was in vain to quote to this opinionated person books 

 on forestry, which stated that the results of sowing seed in the 

 reforestization of France and Switzerland had proved less suc- 

 cessful than planting of young trees ; he was satisfied, like Sam 

 Patch, that some things could be done as well as others, and 

 that it was no reason at all that because seed was unsatisfac- 

 tory in the effete countries of the Old World that it would not 

 behave with perfect propriety in the more vigorous and self- 

 respecting climate of Massachusetts, where all the hardy trees 

 and virtues manage to get proper nourishment out of the most 

 forbidding conditions. Therefore, furnishinghimself with a bar- 

 rel of Pine-cones, the doctor went ahead with his experiment. 



It was quite a job to shell the seeds, but the factotum found 

 time for this on rainy days in the late autumn, and when the 

 light snow fell the sower went forth to sow, before the resin 

 had time to harden in the seeds and interfere with their fructi- 

 ficafion. This part of the job accomplished, there was nothing 

 to do but wait for Nature to do her part in furthering the ex- 

 periment. 



Spring came. Up popped little Oaks and Maples and Wal- 

 nuts and Chestnuts that had been freely planted at the same 

 time as the evergreens, but not a Pine condescended to ap- 

 pear. All through the summer belated nuts were putting in a 

 tardy appearance, but still no Pines. Birds and field-mice were 

 supposed to have devoured them, and we dismissed them 

 from our minds. 



A year elapsed. A few unhappy Htde Pines poked up their 

 heads in sheltered holes, six or seven of them huddled to- 

 gether. We paid them frequent visits, encouraged them to 

 live, piled sods about them to shade their poor little spines, 

 but under an August sun in a very dry summer they withered 

 away. By last year (1891) most of them had disappeared, and 

 there was some scoffing on my part and quotation of authori- 

 ties to emphasize the fact that Pine-sowing was no good, which 

 the experimenter bore with becoming meekness, while coun- 

 seling me to wait. But this I concluded was only by way of 

 argument, and because no man likes to admit that he can be 

 beaten by the forces of nature — namely, birds and field-mice. 



But in this year of grace, 1892, lo ! a miracle took place ! 

 When the March winds had ceased to blow and the snow had 

 melted, so that we could walk abroad over the uncut brown 

 grass upon the hill, what should we spy peering up beside the 



