Septemher 21, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



445 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



I'UIU.ISIIKU WKKKI.Y IIY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Officis: Tkidune Building, New Vouk. 



Conducted hy Professor C. S. Saugent. 



ENTIiiiliD AS SECOND-CLASS ftlAnEK AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORIC, N. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1S92. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Artici-fs :— Elbow-room in the Country 445 



Gaudy Floral Devices 445 



Tlie Woodcock Oak. (With figure.) 446 



Pine Bank Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. 446 



Native Shrubs of California. — VIII Professor Bdward L. Greene. 447 



The Polemoniacece of the Laite Region E. y. Hill. 44S 



Foreign CoRREsroNDENCK : — London Letter IV. Goldring. 449 



Cultural Department; — The Self-pollination of [he Grape. (With figures.) 



Professor S. A. Beach, 451 



Notes on Begonias J. N. G. 452 



Cape O.xalis.— II W. E. Endicott. 452 



Krempfer's Iris E. O. Orpet. 452 



Eschscholtzia Californica IV. M. Munson. 453 



Correspondence :— Autumn Flowers at Passaic, New Jersey f. N. Gerard. 453 



Russian Fruits . . C. L. IVatrotts. 453 



Albino Orchids Mrs. Tliomas Baxter Gresham. 454 



California Roses H. G. Pratt. 454 



Cypripcdium Edwardii Robert M. Grey. 454 



Recent Publications 454 



Notes 455 



Illustrations; — White Oak, near Bedford, Westchester County, New York, 



Fig. 74 450 



The Opening Bud of a Grape-flower, Fig. 75 451 



Pistil and Stamens of a Grape-flower, Fig. 76 451 



Two clusters of the Lindley Grape from the same vine, with abortive 

 fruits showing lack of proper pollination. Fig. 77 451 



Elbow-room in the Country. 



iT is a curious fact tliat the dwellers in rural towns who 

 might easily supply themselves with plenty of land if 

 they were willing- to desert the main street, choose by pref- 

 erence a small lot with closely contiguous neighbors 

 rather than strike out for themselves in a new direction. 

 We can understand that, in the early settlement of a 

 community, the inhabitants would naturally cluster to- 

 gether for companionship and protection, but when a vil- 

 lage is fairly established it seems a pity that people should not 

 realize how much better it is to have room to e.xercise their 

 taste in cultivation, and also a place where the seclu- 

 sion and privacy of a country life can be truly enjoyed. 

 Life on the village street is less retired than in the busiest 

 thoroughfare of a great city, for as there is not much to oc- 

 cupy the mind of the dwellers in small towns, the goings 

 out and comings in of the neighbor are a matter of inter- 

 est and gossip, and one can be pretty sure of a free dis- 

 cussion and intimate understanding of his domestic 

 affairs by the lady over the way or behind the rear fence. 

 Why people should submit to this, when, for the same 

 amount of money, they might furnish themselves with 

 ample elbow-room, is one of the puzzles which our race 

 supplies freely for the philosopher. 



When a man from the city chooses a spot a little remote 

 from the others, he is thought to be living "in the woods" 

 or " out in the lot," and much wonder is expressed that he 

 should find anything in such a distant locality to make it 

 worth his while to build there. A walk of half a mile is 

 apt to preclude anything like " dropping in " in a village 

 neighborhood, and really seems to shut the owner of a 

 considerable farm out of the social current which flows up 

 and down themain street of a village, but rately branches off. 

 People, of limited means do not seem to value the re- 

 sources and delights of country living as they deserve, nor 

 do they readily learn to find pleasure in outdoor pursuits 



nor recognize the quiet satisfactions whicli the thought- 

 ful and practical can alike find in the effort to adorn 

 and make fertile an acre or two of ground. Yet, con- 

 verse with woods and fields, with shrubs and flow- 

 ers, is more valuable to the spirit than village-gossip, nor 

 need it preclude human sympathy of the broadest kind. 

 Possibly our British brothers are right when they set the 

 land-owner above the Philistine, and measure a man's 

 social consequence not by his money but by his acres 



As in most social distinctions, there is some sort of in- 

 stinctive basis for ranking a cultivator of his own acres 

 above a shop-keeper, it implies a different order of facul- 

 ties, a certain dignity of possession, "a stake in the coun- 

 try," as the English put it, so that the first impulse of a man, 

 after he has made his shop-keeping a success, is to own a 

 bit of his tight little island, and thereby establish a claim 

 to some local distinction. Land is so cheap and plenty as 

 yet in this country that we have not begun to value it as it 

 deserves. A man appreciates the number of square feet of 

 his possessions in a city, and by no means lacks apprecia- 

 tion of his ground-rents ; but there ought to be a feeling for 

 the soil of one's native land in the country quite apart from 

 its mercantile value, so that one should start in life with an 

 ambition to possess finally a bit of it, which would save 

 more of our surface for the native American. 



For in the Irishman is born the true passion to own a 

 farm, which is the secret of their prosperity in the rural dis- 

 tricts. It is astonishing to see how, with so many mouths 

 to feed, and such limited means of feeding them, the Celt 

 will acquire his Potato-patch, and hold on to it and add to 

 it under the nose of his indifferent Yankee neighbor, refus- 

 ing to part with it, though sorely pressed, and holding it 

 always at a price he would never be willing to pay for it. 

 This habit which we recognize, and laugh at good-hu- 

 moredly, it would be well for Americans to acquire in time 

 to keep some of the country for themselves. It is not 

 enough to own a house-lot ; it is a good thing to have land 

 to cultivate for ornament if not for profit, if people have 

 money to spend, and are at a loss for steady amusement 

 and occupation. To such the cultivation of a garden 

 promises a new delight — an unfailing interest ; and by a 

 garden we mean not merely shrubs and flowers, but the 

 garden in a larger sense, as the expression of taste and 

 artistic feeling and skillful planning, so that even the useful 

 may contribute to the beauty of a place, and everything 

 form an essential part of a harmonious and pleasing picture. 

 And we urge the acquirement of land by our people be- 

 cause it is a taste that grows upon one. No sooner does a 

 man acquire one acre than he wants two ; give him five, 

 and he desires ten ; a hundred, and he clamors for more, 

 so it is well in purchasing a country-place to get enough in 

 the beginning to make your work worth while, and to keep 

 your lines sufficiently remote from your dwelling to avoid 

 the discomfort of near neighbors, who sooner or later will 

 become an oppression. For the desire for elbow-room 

 grows upoii one as he cultivates ; he ever desires to add to 

 his possessions, to extend his boundaries, to subjugate 

 more and more of the earth to his use or pleasure, and this 

 is a good and wholesome desire, which he does well to 

 gratify, for, according to old Cowley, it is the garden which 

 was God's first gift to man : 



For well He knew what place would best agree 



With innocence and with felicity ; 



And we elsewhere still seek for them in vain ; 



If any part o£ either yet remain, 



If any part of either we e.xpect. 



This may our judgment in the search direct, 



God the first garden made, and the first city Cain. 



A CERTAIN French paper, says an editorial paragraph in 

 a recent number of the American Architect and Building 

 N'ews, "describes a novelty which we commend to the 

 attention of landscape-gardeners and park commissioners. 

 There is now on exhibition in Paris, near the Trocadero, a 

 horticultural clock. This object consists of a bed of 

 Alternantheras, Lobelias, Echeverias and the other proper- 



