422 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 237. 



Mr. Bigelow believes that, if the reservoir on Fifth Ave- 

 nue can be dispensed with, the library should be erected 

 on the open site w^hich will then embrace the whole area 

 bounded by Fifth and Sixth avenues and by Fortieth and 

 Forty-second streets, and called Bryant Park. The pictures 

 which accompany his article give a pleasing idea of the 

 aspect this square would present with a large library in the 

 centre and four small gardens in the corners, which the 

 cruciform plan of the proposed building would leave vacant. 

 And he is quite right when he says that the situation is so 

 central, and access to it so convenient, that "no site bet- 

 ter adapted for a structure of suitable proportions for a 

 metropolitan library could be carved out of any part of 

 the city than this of Bryant Park." But the suitability 

 of the site for a worthy purpose is not the only thing to be 

 considered. We must weigh what we should gain against 

 what we should lose. A single spacious park covering all 

 this site might be of greater advantage to the city than a 

 library and four little parks, and no one needs to be told that 

 playgrounds for children and breathing-places for adults 

 are of the first importance to the well-being of a large city ; 

 or that New York, below Fifty-ninth Street, is deplorably 

 poor in such open spaces. 



Mr. Bigelow is careful to point out that, if the library is 

 planned according to the pictures he shows, the four gar- 

 dens for which it will leave room will be larger, in the ag- 

 gregate, than the space now actually occupied by Bryant 

 Park, as the reservoir now covers a little more than one- 

 half of the area that is called by this name. But four little 

 isolated gardens, each enclosed on two sides by the walls 

 of the library, would be of much less value than a single 

 wide open space almost equal to them in extent. Fresh 

 air, free vi'inds, an open outlook, long vistas beneath um- 

 brageous trees, considerable lawns where the eye can find 

 refreshment, and extended walks where children can play 

 — these are now to be had in Bryant Park ; and a visit to 

 it on any pleasant afternoon will prove how thankfully its 

 opportunities are enjoyed by hundreds of poor people 

 from the teeming streets which lie to the westward. 

 Can any one think that their needs would be as 

 well served by four gardens, each about one-fourth the 

 size of this park ? Furthermore, it takes a generation for 

 trees to grow to the size now attained by those in Bryant 

 Park. Most of these would perish were the library built, 

 and the present generation of children would be grown up 

 before the corner gardens could assume a shady beauty. 



But the question is not between the four proposed gar- 

 dens and Bryant Park, but between the four gardens and 

 Bryant Park as it might be with the reservoir removed. If 

 this were ever taken down and the vacated area added to 

 the space already open there can be no doubt of its para- 

 mount value for park purposes. There is no other space 

 of such a size available between Madison Square and Cen- 

 tral Park, and to condemn it to any other purpose would 

 be to deprive New York of its only opportunity to meet a 

 most urgent necessity. The city is not forced to 

 decide between the loss of the library and the loss of the 

 park, but between the loss of the park and the erection of 

 the library somewhere else, which might not be a serious 

 calamity. Bryant Park is a good site geographically now, 

 but twenty years from now it will probably be too far down 

 town. And even if the library were driven to some less at- 

 tractive and accessible place, the people of the city could 

 endure that with less regret than they would feel for the 

 sacrifice of another considerable fraction of the scanty park 

 area of the city. It has taken years of earnest labor by 

 many public-spirited citizens to organize a public sentiment 

 in favor of the sacredness of every foot of open space on 

 Manhattan Island. There is reason to believe that the 

 people have become determined to allow no disfigurement 

 or curtailment of their parks, and to tolerate no scheme 

 which diverts them from their primary purpose. It is to be 

 hoped that this sentiment is sufficiently strong to defeat 

 such a precedent as would be established by the covering 

 up of Bryant Park with a public building. 



The Botanical Garden of Dublin. 



AT this time, when there is so much discussion of the 

 establishment of a Botanical Garden in New York 

 City, an account of the Botanical Garden of Dublin may 

 prove of interest. From an article in a recent number of 

 the Gardeners' Chronicle, written on the occasion of the 

 tercentenary celebrations of the University of Dublin, it 

 appears that the present Botanical Garden of Trinity 

 College is to be the third of its kind attached to the 

 University. As early as 1710 there seems to have been a 

 Physic Garden which occupied the site of the present li- 

 brary, or, according to some traditions, that portion of the 

 present Fellows' Garden which lies between the library and 

 the Nassau Street boundary. Between 1791 and 1801 sev- 

 eral attempts to establish a botanical garden which should 

 be common to the University, the College of Physicians and 

 the Dublin Society proved unsuccessful. But, in the mean 

 time. Dr. Hill, the professor of botany, had rented some 

 ground at Harold's Cross for the purpose of a botanic gar- 

 den, and he was assisted to some extent by the college. In 

 1801 a curator was appointed, but it is clear from the col- 

 lege accounts that the plants and houses were to a very 

 large extent, if not altogether, the private property of Dr. 

 Hill, and we also learn from the same source that he was 

 the means of securing for the Dubhn garden, through Sir 

 Joseph Banks, many of the plants and seeds brought to 

 England from the South Seas by the members of the ex- 

 ploring expeditions of the time. The article goes on to 

 say : 



In July, 1806, the site of the present Botanical Garden at 

 Ball's Bridge was leased by the college for one hundred and 

 seventy-five years at a rent of fifteen guineas per acre. The 

 present garden was commenced in the autumn of 1807, and 

 consisted of about three acres of ground as represented to-day 

 by the botanical portion proper — namely, that situated within 

 the old walls — and the oldest and largest of the trees in this en- 

 closure were mostly planted in the spring of 1808 ; so that the 

 fine and graceful American Elm, the tallest tree in the garden, 

 the Copper Beech, the characteristic Cedar of Lebanon, and 

 the Italian Stone Pine, the Manna, or flowering Ash, the weep- 

 ing Elm beside the pond, and other less notable trees have all 

 grown to their present dimensions in a little over eighty years. 



In 1S32 an addition of about two acres was made adjoining 

 the Blackrock Road, now Pembroke Road, so that the finest of 

 the specimen Hollies, the weeping Beech, Finns, Platanus, 

 Oak, Arbutus and Garrya here to be seen are only about sixty 

 years old at the most, and show what has proved possible in a 

 town garden in so short a time. 



The latest addition to the garden was made in 1848 by the 

 further enclosure of about three acres, or less, which now ad- 

 joins the Lansdowne Road, this having been taken in " with a 

 view to admit of a screen being planted parallel to the older 

 north-west wall, and thus afford sufficient protecfion against 

 smoke, buildings, etc." The last extract from a report pre- 

 pared by the first curator and designer of the garden, the late 

 James Townsend Mackay, LL.D., illustrates his ability and far- 

 seeing knowledge as a landscape-gardener, for on these two 

 additions, and the exquisite fitness of their fringe of Ilex or 

 evergreen Oaks and Hollies, depends whatever is verdant and 

 beautiful, and sheltered in the garden at the present time. 



Mr. John Bain, A. L. S., who was assistant-curator in Mackay 's 

 time, afterward succeeded him as curator, and the gardens 

 were much improved under his care. Altogether, Mr. Bain 

 was over forty years employed in the garden. His keenness 

 as a botanist, especially his critical knowledge of native plants, 

 and his remarkable skill as a cultivator, were recognized by 

 the most noted botanists of the time, such as Professor All- 

 man, Dr. William Harvey, Sir W. Hooker, the late Mr. Jas. 

 Veitch, Rev. Wm. Ellis, and Archbishop Whately, who for 

 many years was a constant visitor to the gardens. At this time 

 many then rare plants were grown here with a success per- 

 haps never surpassed. Of such were Vanda cosrulea, the true 

 old Cattleya labiata and C. violacea Harrisoni, Renanthera 

 coccinea, Zygopetalum Mackayi, Mackaya bella (a shrubby 

 Cape Acanthad, founded by Harvey in compliment to Mackay, 

 since called Asystasia by Hooker and Bentham in Gen. Plan.), 

 Erica Mackayana, Saxifraga elegans, etc., were also introduced 

 to public notice by Mackay. Here also Mr. W. Ellis and Sir 

 W. Hooker alike saw Ouvirandra fenestralis, Dionaea Musci- 

 pula, Cephalotus folhcularis, and the North American Sarra- 



