386 



Garden and Forest. 



[NUMBRR 234, 



trees is a distant lK)i.)e that some one will enjoy them in 

 after years ; that tree-planting is a constant sacritlce of the 

 present for the remote future, and that the highest good a 

 tree-planter can hope to attain is a discipline in the virtues 

 of patience and faith. This view is based on the funda- 

 mental error that no tree gives pleasure until it attains its full 

 development, which comes, perhaps, after a century of 

 growth. It would be quite as true to say that parents 

 never enjoy the society of their children until after they be- 

 come of age. The fact is that the planter finds the keenest 

 delight in the companionship of his trees when they most 

 need his care and are constantly expanding into new beauty 

 mider his attention. To the genuine lover of trees the 

 tiniest seedling makes an appeal as direct and personal — 

 though not as strong, of course — as does a Pine or Oak 

 which is crowned with the associations of a century. But 

 even the impatient American, who wants his full-grown 

 forest at once, need not mourn as one without hope. Mr. 

 Hunnewell was approaching middle age when he planted 

 his first trees, and yet they attained stately proportions 

 long ago. They are still improving, and will give increas- 

 ing pleasure to his successors, but to him they have brought 

 their own reward from day to day and from year to year 

 since the hour when the gardens of Wellesley were planned. 

 And what a reward it has been ! A refreshment from the 

 cares of business that has never for a moment palled or 

 failed — a stimulus for the mind, a wholesome recreation 

 for the body. Hundreds of visitors enjoy the beauties of 

 Wellesley every year, but to none of them are these beau- 

 ties as fresh as they remain to the man who has created 

 them and has been for years familiar with their changing 

 phases all the season through. In the stress of business- 

 life active men need some diversion, and certainly it is 

 prudent to choose one of which we are not likely to grow 

 weary. Mr. Hunnewell can testify with regard to the one 

 he selected, that he has enjoyed it with a zest and relish 

 that have grown keener every year. Nature is ever young. 

 All her processes are expansive and replete with promise. 

 One whose chosen companions are growing things has 

 found the spirit of perpetual youth, with all its enter- 

 prise, exhilaration and hope. There was no selfish thought 

 in the design, nor has there ever been a selfish thought in 

 the maintenance of the Wellesley Gardens. For forty years 

 they have been a public means of instruction and delight, 

 and they will continue to attract visitors as long as there 

 is any appreciation of horticultural taste and skill. But, 

 like all good work, this has not been without its appro- 

 priate influence upon the doer — an influence which has 

 helped to give the planter of the Pines of Wellesley the 

 generous enthusiasm, the sunny and hopeful temper, the 

 refinement and simplicity of character which are most 

 thoroughly appreciated by those who know him best. 



An Old House in New Jersey. 



A RECENT number of this journal (vol. v., p. 367) con- 

 tained a picture of the house at Morristown well 

 knovi'n as the headquarters of Washington during the 

 l^evolution. As a companion to this fine example of colo- 

 nial architecture we give to-day (see page 391) one of the 

 few surviving houses constructed in the earlier, or pioneer, 

 period of New Jersey history. Lj^ons Farms is just with- 

 out the suburbs of both Newark and Elizabeth, and although 

 the air vibrates with the roar of two cities this hamlet has 

 been left in an eddy as "improvements" of various kinds 

 have swept by on either side, and it wears an aspect of old- 

 fashioned respectability which is quite in contrast with the 

 upstart suburban smartness which prevails all about it. 

 There are few places in the United States where the old 

 Meeker house would not look out of place, and, to tell the 

 truth, it seems a trifle antiquated even in Lyons Farms. 

 No one knows just when it was built, but its present pos- 

 sessor has evidence that a direct ancestor of his, as well as 

 of the artist who made the drawing here reproduced, was 

 born in it in 1677. It is noteworthy that its present owner 



and occupant, i\Ir. William Grumman, holds it by inherit- 

 ance, as all its former proprietors have done. The property 

 has never been transferred b)'' deed, but has descended 

 directly from parent to child for seven successive genera- 

 tions from the original Meeker, who held his patent from 

 the Crown. 



The roof of the old house has been renewed, but the 

 cedar shingles on the outer walls have remained where 

 they were fastened with curious hand-wrought nails more 

 than two centuries ago to testify to the durability of this : 

 wood. They were rived from the trees which once stood J 

 on the Newark Meadows — a forest whose remnants are 

 remembered by many men still living. Apparently they 

 never have been painted, but they have not decayed. 

 Weather-worn they are, however, until in many places 

 they are almost scoured away by the action of wind and 

 storm, and the texture of their soft gray fuzzy surface bears 

 little resemblance to that of the original wood. The house 

 is still in fair repair within, and the double doors still 

 swing on the heavy strap-hinges on which they were first 

 hung. Some of the rooms are wainscoted with plank of 

 Tulip-poplar and the heavy beams are scarcely seven feet 

 above the floor. 



The surroundings of this relic are quite in keeping with 

 it. The great stone beside the well-curb is hollowed out 

 into an ample basin, in which the family, after the fashion 

 of an elder day, were wont to cleanse their hands and faces 

 in the morning, while the well-sweep, the ancient sun-dial 

 and sundry other details complete a picture which more 

 closely resembles a homestead of the seventeenth century 

 than any other with which we are familiar. 



By Bicycle to the Waverley Oaks. — II. 



T T ERE we are with the Waverley Oaks close by. The stream 

 '^ is Beaver Brook, celebrated by Lowell in one of his noblest 

 poems. And now, as when he wrote, "Warm noon brims 

 full the valley's cup." Some people call it Clematis Brook, but 

 the name by which Lowell knew it is preferable. The brook 

 forms the boundary between the town of Belmont and the 

 city of Waltham, and the Oaks are within the limits of the 

 latter place. The Oaks themselves are not conspicuous from 

 the road, but a striking landmark is formed by a gigantic 

 ruined Elm, with a grandeur like that of a crumbling old castle 

 in its decay. It thrusts up its great gray branches out of a 

 dense thicket by the brookside. 



Mr. Lorin L. Dame describes this tree in Typical Elms 

 and Other Trees of Massachusetts. " At all seasons of the 

 year great trees are good to look upon," he says. "Some are 

 finest when enveloped in clouds of green ; others when 

 stripped, like athletes, their mighty arms bared for conflict 

 with the elements. This tree is most impressive in autumn, 

 when its leaves are turned to bright yellow, and the glints of 

 sunlight play uporr a trunk of singularly tender color — one of 

 the most poetic grays of the New England landscape." 



The place is a typical old New England pasture, with some 

 of the most characteristically beautiful features of such a 

 landscape. We enter on the Waltham side of the brook, leav- 

 ing our bicycles by the roadside, and stroll along the meander- 

 ing course of the striking glacial formation known as a "kame," 

 which forms a remarkable geological feature of the locality. 

 Along the base of the kame Beaver Brook flows on its way to 

 the Charles. We soon come upon the Oaks, dispersed over 

 the undulating fields in informal groups, and with the park- 

 like effect that an open sylvan landscape gives. I can do no 

 better than quote Mr. Dame's description : 



" The Waverley Oaks are scattered over an area of several 

 acres upon the pasture-land sloping to the brook. Some of 

 them drink of its waters, while others grow upon the sides of 

 the long kame, its most appropriate adornment, 'their deep 

 roots piercing the gravel deposits to the alluvium beneath.' 

 While solitary Oaks as large as these are not uncommon, it is 

 not likely there is another group of such noble trees within the 

 eastern states. With one exception, they are White Oaks, now 

 twenty-five in number. Strength, endurance, fixedness are 

 theirs — sylvan virtues conspicuous even more in winter, when 

 the snow lights up the scarred trunks and the great limbs 

 stand naked against the sky. The sturdy individualism char- 

 acteristic of the Oak pushes now and then to the verge of ec- 

 centricity. Each differs from its fellows ; each is worthy the 



