August 24, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



405 



eighteen inches to two feet, and are terminated Ijy tlie liead 

 of blossoms. In the cone-like head of blossoms the llowers 

 do not all open together, so that the llowering season is pro- 

 longed. The individual (lowers are one and a half inches in 

 diameter, and in color bright orange-red, two or three flowers 

 are open together on the same stem, so that when a large 

 plant is obtained they present a showy appearance. IJIce most 

 of the other members of this genus, this species has also 

 beautiful foliage, which is of a bright green color. It can 

 be easily increased in spring by dividing the roots. 



Botanic Gaidon, CambrklKe, Mass. A'. CaiHerOll. 



Correspondence. 



Some Questions About Taste. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — I have read with care your editorial on the subject of 

 "Taste Indoors and Out," and beg to ask a few questions on a 

 subject so fraught with interest to all who seek to beautify 

 their places in the right spirit. 



To begin with : How are we to know what is right and what 

 is wrong ? We do not all have a landscape-architect at hand 

 to consult, and he is at best an expensive luxury, then what is 

 to be the criterion of excellence ? Taste is so much a matter 

 of individual judgment that one person likes what another 

 hates, and we are very unwilling to take another's ideas, un- 

 less we are quite convinced that he is an authority. You are 

 right insayingthat it isagood thing for women to interest them- 

 selves in this subject ; but how are we to know what is un- 

 lieautiful from the highest standpoint ? Our views about what 

 constitutes an attractive drawing-roomarrangement differ very 

 widely, and there we are in a sense at home, but one woman 

 likes ornament and succeeds in it ; another disdains it, and 

 produces a dignified and interesting effect without it ; and it is 

 more or less the same in our grounds. 



Now, can you not tell us what to avoid and what to aim for 

 in our gardens and places, and by what means we can attune 

 our minds to such manliness of conception as shall produce a 

 good result even on an estate ? Are we women to be confined 

 to the petty and the pretty forever, or may we not aspire to the 

 loftier walks of landscape-gardening, even as some of us ven- 

 ture to try issue with senior wranglers in the higher mathe- 

 matics ? 



Admitted that women are deficient in creative ability, 

 where is the school in which we can learn at least the rudi- 

 ments of an art so important as the proper planting of our 

 grounds ? Why can there not be schools of landscape-art as 

 well as schools of architecture for our enlightenment where 

 we can investigate the proper composition of a rockery or the 

 exact formula for planting a bosquet ? 



If there is a rugged old tree in the neighborhood of my house, 

 how am I to knovv whether its picturesqueness is in tune or 

 out of key with its surroundings ? At just what distance from 

 the house should the natural give way to the formal ? If I like 

 a group of boulders on the edge of my terrace instead of a 

 formal wall, how am I to be sure that my taste is faulty, and 

 the authority who prescribes masonry instead of the boulders 

 to be accepted unhesitatingly ? 



I think the trouble is that there is no law, and hitherto no 

 inspired councils. The fact is, the fathers of landscape-gar- 

 dening ought to hold such a council and give us the canon, 

 and let it be infallible. I am not of those irreverent doubters 

 who declare that the wisdom of men in council is no greater 

 than the wisdom of each one taken separately ; I am prepared 

 to accept the faith devoutly, if only our Vatican will speak and 

 let us know what is true orthodoxy. The trouble is, we are 

 kept running after the Lo, heres ! and the Lo, theres ! and a dis- 

 senter's views are pronounced with as much confidence as 

 those of the regular doctors, so that really we can't help get- 

 ting " balled up," as the Andover men did about sheol at the 

 time of the great discussion. 



What is taste is really almost as hard a question to answer 

 as what is truth, and if we once get on the wrong track there 

 seems to be no reason why we should ever be led into the 

 right one except by some happy accident. 



How are we to distinguisli taste from fashion, ephemeral 

 beauty from that which is lasting? What is the test to apply 

 to arrangements of trees and shrubbery, in which there is ad- 

 mittedly great variety permissible? There must be some- 

 thing, as there is in art, which makes things good or bad, ex- 

 cellent or violent, apart from individual fancy or the passing 

 mode, and it seems desirable to find out what is the standard 

 to which the wise and willing may repair with complicated 



problems in composition, and have their doubts solved, and 

 their taste upliKed on the spot. 



Mr. Ruskin says that a person may not consider himself a 

 critic in art until he can.go at full speed through a gallery and 

 know without stopping which pictures in it are important. I 

 suppose, really, the truly cultivated landscape-architect can go 

 galloping through a country-seat and know that it is dreadful 

 without even looking at it, but minor mortals have to take 

 their Louvres and Luxembourgs moderately and think twice 

 before they know an early Rapliael from a Perugino, and it is 

 the same in a garden. I know people who actually like Horse- 

 chestnuts and Purple Beeches, and are capable of planting 

 groups of incongruous trees, and sticking to it that they look 

 well together. How are such to be confounded and reduced 

 to a proper state of mental receptivencss so that they will be- 

 come capable of taking in new ideas ? We all feel that Gar- 

 den AND Forest is doing a great work in that direction, but 

 the more active our minds become the more we are disposed 

 to question our teachers, and ask chapter and verse for the 

 faith that is in them. 



Nor do we do this in any carping spirit, but rather that we . 

 may ourselves lay hold on truth, not tentatively but with pre- 

 cision, growing in security and knowledge. Probably, if the 

 landscape-gardeners could put their theories into words they 

 would not do it, for it might spoil the business, but it would 

 be interesting if we could get them to tell us what guides 

 them in their decisions, and what we ought not to do. 



Most people do not have time to do the requisite thinking to 

 plan then- places successfully, and therefore they relegate to a 

 professional what might be an expression of their own indi- 

 viduality if they would put themselves into it with zeal. There 

 is also the difficulty that trees are unhandy things for an ama- 

 teur to experiment with, and one feels timid about dealing with 

 them in any unconventional way, and so hesitates to make any 

 very unusual disposition of them ; neither can they be whisked 

 about for nothing, but require men and money to deal with 

 them successfully. Shrubs are somewhat easier, and what you 

 aim at is more promptly attained ; but even in the flower-gar- 

 den we fail to see much that shows individuality of treatment, 

 or even novelty of effect. 



If this is to be a business for women, we really ought to be- 

 gin at the beginning and understand how to go to work, and 

 the editor of this paper is just the person to give us a few ele- 

 mentary lessons in the profession we are so eager to practice, 

 and apparently in his eyes so little qualified to adorn. 



I suppose the true way would be for us to begin with the 

 flower-garden as a sort of primary school, and when we show 

 some real aptitude in that we might be promoted to the inter- 

 mediate department of shrubs, while only those who were 

 graduates from both these schools would be entitled to go up 

 higher and deal with trees in their proper relations to each other. 



As to lessons in taste, those would have to be extras. I doubt 

 if this country is far enough advanced to make a school of 

 taste possible, and yet I am not sure but that it would be as 

 much to the purpose as a school of philosophy. In our mod- 

 ern Athens, a peripatetic professor, illustrating his lectures by 

 walks through the Public Garden and the Back Bay Fens, with 

 occasional excursions to outlying parks, that might serve as a 

 warning or example at will, would be deservedly popular, and 

 we feel that we at least have the men competent to enlighten 

 us if only thev had the will. 



Hingham, Mass'. M. C. KobbulS. 



Plant-labels. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — Some years ago I wrote to you for advice on the sub- 

 ject of plant-labels, and received a very courteous reply 

 through the columns of your valuable journal. The subject 

 of labels is such an annoying one to the amateur, and seems 

 still to be so far from a satisfactory solution, that I venture to 

 add a suggestion. I enclose a label that has stood for over 

 two years in a most exposed situation, where it was subjected 

 to the full rays of the sun as well as to the rain and cold. It 

 appears to be as legible as when first inscribed ; and the black 

 writing on the polished white surface renders it most easy to 

 decipher. The label was liought in Paris, and costs seven 

 francs a hundred at retail. It is of ordinary celluloid and could, 

 I presume, be made more cheaply in the United States. The 

 ink is a patented article, and costs i ^^ francs per bottle at 

 retail. The completed label would thus cost about a cent and 

 a half. I have not yet found any other label combining to so 

 great a degree the elements of legibility, durability and cheap- 

 ness. I may add that I have seen these labels used for years 

 in dark and damp wine-vaults without any apparent deteriora- 

 fion in legibility. 



