July 20, 1S92.] 



Garden and Forest. 



337 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



PUIJLISIIED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



OfFiCK: Tkiuunk Building, Nhw York. 



Conducted by 



Professor C. S. Sakccnt. 



ENTSKED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFKICK AT NHW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 1892. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article :— The Lovcot Nature 337 



Tim Gardens at Welleslev, Massachusetts Mrs. f. H. Rabbins. 338 



The Old-time Southoin Garden O. \V. Blackimlt. 340 



In the Company of Trees Airs. Danske Dandridgc. 340 



Tlic Manufacture of Perl^urnery at Grasse 340 



Plant Notes : — Some Recent Portraits 341 



New OR Little-known Plants : — Corylopsis pauciffora. (With tig;ure.) 341 



Cultural Def-artment : — Fruit Notes E. P. Ptrivci/. 342 



Notes on Shrubs y. G. Jack. 343 



Cyclamens and Chinese Primroses IV. H. TapUn. 343 



Pereimial Larltspurs E. O. OrJ>et. 344 



Melianthus major, Jatropha podagrica, Geranium Henry Cox, Linaria 



cymbalariai Berteroa mutabilis, Ipomoea Bronsoni y. N> G. 344 



The Forest: — Our Land Office System H. B.Ayres. 345 



CoRREsroNDENCE : — f-'lant Diseases in West Virginia, 



diaries Frederick Millspangh. 345 



How Cold Air Settles in Hollows C. L. Blann. 346 



The Rose FHll Nurseries *.G. 346 



Recent Publications : — The Silva of North America Professor L. H. Bailey. 346 



Notes 347 



Illustration :— Corylopsis paucillora, in Dr. Hall's garden, in Bristol, Rhode 



Island, Fig. 59 342 



The Love of Nature. 



ONE of the noticeable characteristics of this century- 

 is a growing love of natural scenery, but it may- 

 be questioned whether the love of nature is also grow- 

 ing, for a distinctiofi must be made between the 

 two. The first is a simple emotion — an instinct rather 

 than a faculty — and, like all primitive instincts, it lies at 

 the very foundation of being, having its roots somewhere 

 in that mysterious region below consciousness. Perhaps 

 it is stronger atnong the savage than it is ainong the civil- 

 ized races of the world, but it is yet the birthright of every 

 healthy child. 



The appreciation of natural scenery, on the other hand, 

 is a complex emotion which involves thought, memory 

 afid imaginatiofi, and as it rarely manifests itself in child- 

 hood it probably did not exist in the childhood of the race. 

 Wherever this appreciation is found, whether among mod- 

 ern nations, among the Hebrews as itidicated in their 

 literature, or amoi-ig the Greeks arid Rofxians, as is evidetit 

 from the skillful way in which their architectural creations 

 were placed with reference to their riatural surroundings, 

 it is the outcome of an advanced, perhaps of a decaying, 

 civilizatiori. The towering mountain stirs the itnagination 

 of the boy, but it is to deeds of exploration and adveriture. 

 The dense forest lures him, but its chief attractiofi is the 

 game it covers. The brook which sparkles through the 

 meadows delights him, because it turns his water-wheel or 

 excites his hope as ati angler. And yet, blind as he may 

 seem to the grandeur of the one or the beauty of the others, 

 mountaifi, grove and strearn, each plays its part in mold- 

 ing the boy's taste and character, and iti after years he will 

 be drawn to them by a deeper love, because they are in- 

 separably blended with the careless happiness of childhood 

 and youth. It is through some experience like this that 

 the race has passed. Earth first ministers to man's neces- 

 sities ; in so doing it develops his faculties and awakens 

 new powers, until at last, when he has gained dominion 



over it, the ability to discern its beauty comes with the 

 leisure to enjoy it. 



The pleasure which springs from the contemplation of 

 a beautiful landscape differs in kind with each spectator. 

 It may have fio deeper source thari the mere love of beauty, 

 atul it is then refreshing to the jaded spirit siinply because 

 the beauty is pure and appeals to no sordid or material 

 interest. But when to the beauty of a landscape is added 

 the charm of romantic and historic association, the pleas- 

 ure -it awakens is lifted above the region of the purely 

 sensuous into the realm of sentiment and imagination. To 

 the inan of religious spirit, to whom the visible universe is 

 but the thought of God made manifest, the mountain 

 gloom and the mountain glory speak first of the majesty 

 and dominion of the Most High ; while the smiling land- 

 scape, with its suggestion of happy homes and sheltered 

 lives, brings terider thoughts of Him who notes even the 

 sparrow's fall. Among the same scenes the man of science, 

 if he has not sacrificed all the poetry in his nature in the 

 search after material truth, will be lost in wonder that the 

 tufiiultuous and conflicting forces which have lifted the 

 mountains from the depths of the sea and crowned them 

 with everlasting frost can yet in obedience to the safxie 

 immutable laws subdue their might to offices of tender 

 grace, can stoop to paint the lily and add perfume to the 

 violet. And so to each the landscape has its mission ; to 

 the dilettante it brings a fresh sensation ; to the man of 

 feeling a noble emotiori ; to the man of religion, thoughts 

 of devotion and gratitude ; to the man of science, reverent 

 wonder at the mystery and majesty of natural law. 



The love of nature, at first an instinct, springs from a 

 deeper source than the admiration of scenery, and it may, 

 when disciplined and chastened, awaken a still more pro- 

 found delight. The heaven which lies about us in our in- 

 fancy may be at first only a dim consciousness of the 

 universal life of nature, that life which throbs in every tree 

 and shrub, the instinct in every clod "which comes to a 

 soul in grass and flowers." It may be an inheritance from 

 some far-off age, when man was f-iearer nature's heart than 

 now, some memory of which haunts the mitid of the grow- 

 ing boy and brings much of the uncotiscious joy of child- 

 hood. Most of us know too well how this "vision splendid" 

 fades into the light of commori day, but when in some 

 fortunate individual it is retained through manhood, is 

 assimilated by the intellect and shaped by the imagination, 

 it becomes " the vision and the faculty divine," the rare gift" 

 of the poets of the race. Every one who retains it as a con- 

 scious possession is at heart a poet though he may lack the 

 poet's gift of expression. The lover of natural scenery is 

 wont to talk with eloquence of the pleasure he finds in the 

 contemplation of landscape beauty, but the true lover of 

 nature says little of his joy. He cannot measure or de- 

 scribe it, but wheti alone in the dense forest or in some 

 sunny glade a mysterious sense of kinship with the silept 

 forces working all about him, or a dim consciousness of a 

 haunting presence, comes to him unbidden and ravishes 

 his soul with suggestions of a more awful beauty some 

 day to be revealed, and after such hours of communion 

 with nature he can return to the noisy world refreshed in 

 spirit and strengthened for the inevitable conflicts of life. 

 It is only the chosen few whose early affection for nature 

 has become a controlling passion who enjoy in full 

 measure this vivifying power. 



Since the love of natural scenery may be cultivated, why 

 may not the child's love of nature be preserved ? Like 

 other fine instincts, it requires delicate handling. It too 

 oftefi vanishes early, crushed out by hard necessity or 

 crowded out by the insincerities of an artificial life. Nature 

 does her utm^ost to retain her hold upon the child, the flick- 

 ering sunbeams tempt hin-i, and every moving shadow has 

 a charm even in his mother's arms. The flowers of the 

 field are his chosen playfellows as he grows ; trees whisper 

 to him their secrets ; all the myriad sights and sounds of 

 earth and air woo him with their promises of happiness, 

 and while the enchantment lasts the little traveler needs no 



