September 14, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



433 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUIILISIIKO WEEKLY UY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sarchnt. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MAITER AT THE I'OST OFFICE AT NKW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1892. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article : — Taste Indoors and Out 433 



Promisiiip: Grasses Professor IF. y. Beat. 434 



Iiulian Ricii^e — An Experiment ...Mrs. J. H. Robbins. 434 



Edible Fruits in tlic Pnics Mrs, Mary Trent. 435 



Native Shrubs of California. — Vll Professor hdivara L. Greene, 436 



Notes on tlic Flora of Smytlie County, Virginia. — V. . .Anna I\Iurray Vail. 437 



Nkw or Littlk-known Plants: — A Cliinese Peacli. (With figure.) C. S. S, 438 



Dentirobium Pliala^nopsis. (Witli figure.) IV. IVaison, 439 



Cultural Department : — Water-lilies y, N, Gerard, 439 



Choice Hardy Plants A'. Cameroji. 439 



Fall Work ■ ,.IV, H, Taflin. 441 



Anemone Japonica, Phlox Trioinphe du Pare de Neuilly, Clematis (janicu- 

 lata, Funkia subcordata grand ifiora T, D, Hatfield, 441 



Correspondence: — Water-lilies at Yarmouthport T, D. II, 441 



Scab-proot Apples Professor L, H. Bailey, 442 



The Ten I\f ile Woods of Hartford IVilhelmina Seliger, 442 



Shrubs for a Screen C, B, VI', 442 



The Skimmia L, D. Davis. 443 



Recent Pubucations 443 



Notes 443 



Illustrations : — A Chinese Peach. Fig. 72 ^ ... 43S 



Dendrobium Phalcenopsis, Fig. 73 440 



Taste Indoors and Out. 



NOT long ag-o, in an editorial with the above title, we 

 called attention to the fact that, while the taste of 

 cultivated Americans could be trusted in matters of dress 

 and household adornment, their sense of proportion and 

 appropriateness was not equally developed when it came 

 to the arrangement of their grounds. It was also said that 

 since American men are usually too much occupied to give 

 attention to the planning and planting of their places, it 

 might be well for women to give some serious study to 

 landscape-gardening as an art, so that the surroundings of 

 their houses would be ordered with a taste as sure as that 

 exercised in the selection of a carpet or the hanging of a 

 drapery. 



We have received several letters complaining of the 

 rather ungallant statement that hitherto women had not 

 shown themselves great in creating broad landscape-effects, 

 and in a letter from one of our alert correspondents, pub- 

 lished two or three weeks ago, we were requested to lay 

 down the fundainental principles of landscape-art, so that 

 studious women might master them thoroughly and avoid 

 in the future such errors as had been complained of Now, 

 it is impossible to give adequate instruction in landscape- 

 art in "si.x easy lessons," or to lay down any code of rules 

 which can be adapted to all places and circumstances. 

 Diagrams and planting-plans are useful to illustrate the 

 appropriate or improper treatment of particular places, but 

 they are worse than valueless if they are used like ready- 

 made garments to suit all places which may have many 

 similar features. There are no cast-iron regulations about 

 locating a house or its approaches, or securing the proper 

 proportion and arrangement of grass and shrubs and trees 

 which are to surround it. Perhaps the mistakes which result 

 in spottiness orthegroupingtogether of incongruities do not 

 arise so much from following a bad plan as they do from the 

 fact that the work is done without any plan whatever. The 

 fundamental advice, therefore, to beginners should always 



be to have a well-defined plan and then to take no step 

 which is not a clearly justified effort to carry out this de- 

 sign. If it be objected that this counsel is too elementary 

 and obvious to be needed, we reply that so far as our ob- 

 servation goes it is only in rare and exceptional instances 

 that anything like a well-considered plan for the arrange- 

 ment of private grounds, whether great or small, is studied 

 out and adhered to. Of course, such study should begin 

 with the location and character of the house itself, for no 

 harmonious picture can be developed unless the house 

 and its surroundings are thought out together as a con- 

 sistent whole. But this having been neglected, the desire 

 for decorating the house surroundings usually manifests 

 itself in the search for beautiful trees, shrubs and flowers. 

 Very plainly it is beginning at the wrong end, and yet it 

 is the almost universal practice to collect a mass of such' 

 material as nurserymen's catalogues praise most highly 

 and then wander about the grounds in search of enough 

 open space to hold it all. A composition made in this 

 hurried and haphazard way will hardly have unity, and it 

 will not be likely to satisfy a cultivated taste. When a 

 planter, however, has in mind a clear and vivid picture of 

 the scene he wishes to create, the work of construction is 

 simplified, and his effort to set forth this ideal in lines of 

 living verdure will be a source of constant delight. 



But this simple advice to make a plan does not meet the 

 request to furnish a system of rules for guiding the novice 

 in its construction and for directing him how to avoid 

 errors and make the most of his opportunities. This is 

 true. But one who makes an honest effort to work out a 

 design, for all of whose details an intelligent reason can be 

 given, — which shall make a consistent picture, and yet pro- 

 vide adequately for all the comforts and conveniences of a 

 household in the way of buildings, walks, walls and other 

 constructions, — has taken the surest way to acquire a real- 

 izing sense of the genuine difficulties of the task before him. 

 Such a one will learn at the outset, even before the questions 

 are settled which decide the essential outlines and framework 

 of the scheme, that there are adjustments and adaptations 

 which baffle his skill. The longer he studies the diagrams 

 of his grounds the more the difficulties will multiply and 

 the more ready he will be to ask specific questions and 

 look for help on definite points. At this stage of progress 

 general directions will not satisfy. The learner does not 

 care to be told that his work should be characterized by 

 breadth or simplicity or restraint. This will not instruct 

 him how he can best keep a proposed lawn-space un- 

 broken and yet make room for a necessary road, or how to 

 provide the best foreground for a superb distant prospect. 

 Suggestive hints can be given about certain kinds of work 

 that will be useful on every place, as, for example, the 

 method of inasking house-foundations and connecting the 

 walls with the turf; a few general principles can be stated 

 which should guide in the laying down of roads and paths 

 and matters of that sort, but, after all, each place is a new 

 creation, and must be developed on a motive of its own if 

 it is to have any individual value. 



No doubt, the puzzled planner, if he is intelligent and 

 earnest, will soon find himself longing for the counsel of 

 some landscape-gardener of taste and experience, and he 

 will be in a mood to appreciate and follow instructions. 

 This statement is not made for the discouragement of any 

 who have received with attention our original suggestion 

 to give some study to landscape-art. This is the only 

 proper frame of mind for a learner in any art. There will 

 be abundant room for individual suggestion even after ex- 

 pert advice is accepted, and the only way to have an intel- 

 ligent appreciation of the value of such advice is to give per- 

 sonal study to the problems to be met in any instance. In an 

 early number of this journal (vol. i., p. 3) INIr. Olmsted gave a 

 plan for a small homestead which no one can read without 

 instruction. The specific counsel there laid down may not be 

 available in every given instance, but in a graphic way the 

 treatment of the place calls attention to the class of prob- 

 lems which must be faced whenever a design of any 



