47° 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 241. 



The Islay is an easy plant to cultivate ; it grows with 

 such rapidity that we are told of seedlings in the nursery 

 of the Leland Stanford, Jr., University only three years old 

 eighteen feet in height with heads fifteen feet in diameter. 

 No plant is better suited to form an impenetrable hedge or 

 to decorate a garden, and when California has passed 

 through the stage which every new country e.xperiences in 

 gardening, of believing that exotic plants are better than 

 the native products of the soil, the Islay will become one 

 of the best ornaments of California gardens. Unfortu- 

 nately, it is not hardy in the eastern states or in northern 

 and central Europe, although on the shores of the Medi- 

 terranean it is apparently as much at home as on those of 

 the Bay of Monterey. 



The illustration on page 475, representing a wild speci- 

 men, is made from a photograph which has been obligingly 

 sent to us by Mr. E. L. Woods, of San Francisco. 



served until, from time to time, works of an exception- 

 ally high degree of artistic merit and appropriateness may 

 be offered to the city. 



The danger that the Central Park will be overcrowded 

 with statues and other monuments increases from year to 

 year ; and, despite the fact that greater care is now taken 

 than was taken even a few years ago to exclude those of 

 an inartistic kind, public sentiment is still not sensitive 

 enough on tliis point; and as long as public sentiment 

 does not sustain them, the difficulties with which the Park 

 Commissioners have to contend in deciding with regard to 

 suggested monuments must be ver}'' great. 



No statue ought to be admitted to a public park unless 

 it satisfies the taste of competent judges, for poor works 

 of this kind do injury alike to the memory of those whom 

 they profess to honor, to the reputation of those who 

 bestow them, to the best interests of the public, and to 

 the beauty of the great pleasure-ground itself. Still more. 

 The mere fact that a statue is intrinsically good does not 

 alwaj's justify its admission to the Park ; it must be not 

 only good, but good as an ornament for a park. And, 

 moreover, it must be appropriate to the special site selected 

 for it ; or, to turn this fact the other way, an appropriate 

 site for it must be selected. There are certain situations 

 in a park where no statue or monument would look well, 

 and there are others where a work of one kind would look 

 admirably well, while a work of another kind would 

 injure the effect of its surroundings while not appearing to 

 good advantage itself. 



The more formall)^ arranged portions of a park are, of 

 course, those where works of sculpture or of architecture, 

 or of the two combined, are most appropriately placed. 

 We are glad, therefore, to learn that the Park Board, while 

 recently accepting the suggestion of Mr. Calvert Vaux, 

 their landscape-architect, that a proposed Thorwaldsen 

 statue be placed near the park entrance at Sixth Avenue 

 and Fifty-ninth Street, at the same time approved his 

 general recommendation that the Fifty-ninth Street front- 

 age of the Park be borne in mind as the station for monu- 

 ments which may be offered in the future. Here, between 

 the trees which border the sidewalk in a sj^mmetrical line, 

 such objects can certainly be placed to better advantage 

 than in any of the naturall)'- treated portions of the Park. 

 And, if such a change is feasible, we should be glad to see 

 carried out the further suggestion that some of the statues 

 already standing in the Park be removed to the sidevv'alks 

 around its borders. 



As the Mall is a formally arranged feature of the Park, it 

 likewise offers an excellent station for statues. If a fine 

 row of monuments existed here, alternating with the regu- 

 larly spaced trunks of the overshadowing Elms, and having 

 their pedestals partially draped in close-growing vines, as 

 is the custom with park monuments in Paris, the effect of 

 this long perspective would be beautiful indeed. But, un- 

 fortunately, the few monuments which have already been 

 placed here are poor ones ; to increase their number with- 

 out bettering the quality would be most unfortunate ; and, 

 therefore, these sites should be preserved with especial 

 care by the Park Commissioners, and be jealously re- 



Overland in the Ca3'uga Countr}'. — IV. 



"\^ITHIN two or three miles of Geneva begins the fruit re- 

 ' ^ gion of western New York, which stretches away to Lake 

 Ontario and Niagara Falls on the north-west, and to Chau- 

 tauqua County on the south-west. All this country is not de- 

 voted to fruit-growing, but orcharding is its dominant industry, 

 except in some extensive grain sections like the famous and 

 superb Genesee valley. The fruit-interest is comparatively 

 new here, althougli the Apple-orchards of western New York 

 have been famous for many years. The oldest vineyards are 

 twenty or thirty years old, but most o£ the Grape-interest is 

 comparatively recent. All fruit-growing in this part of New 

 York is flourishing, and is rapidly extending. This is especially 

 true of grapes, plums, and, to a smaller extent, apricots. The 

 small fruits are yearly gaining in importance, as is shown by 

 the reports from the numerous canning factories and evapo- 

 rating establishments. Besides this, the nursery-interest is the 

 largest and most varied on the continent. All about Geneva 

 and many other cities and villages of western New York are 

 nursery blocks, ranging from a few square rods of Quinces or 

 Plums or Berries in some village yard to a hundred acres cul- 

 tivated by the nurseries. The little patches here and there 

 afford a profitable use of bits of land, for the product, if care- 

 fully grown, is sure of sale to the nurseries. Much of this 

 stock is grown upon contract for the nurserymen, who often 

 furnish the buds, and sometimes the seed. Much of the nur- 

 sery stock sold through Rochester firms is grown at Geneva. 

 Many of the fruitmen are graduates from the nursery busi- 

 ness, and their training has made them, as a class, the most 

 acute fruit-growers whom I have ever known. 



T. C. Maxwell & Bros, have several farms in fruit and nur- 

 sery stock, and their places may be considered types of the 

 extensive fruit-culture of this region. At this place they have 

 150 acres of fruit in bearing. We drove through a continuous 

 orchard of Plums of eighty-five acres, every tree heavy with 

 the promise of a bountiful crop. The orchard is scrupulously 

 clean, for all the Geneva growers believe in clean and fre- 

 quent culture. The tops are started four or five feet high. 

 There are some two dozen varieties in these orchards, of 

 which the most profitable are Reine Claude, Purple Egg, 

 Fields (often called Early Bradshaw) and Bradshaw. Other 

 prominent varieties are Purple Damson, Frogmore Damson, 

 French Damson, Farley, King, Guii, Coe's Golden Di-op, Cop- 

 per, German Prune, Smith Prune or Diamond, Middleburgh, 

 and Monarch, the last a very valuable, large, blue, late plum. 

 Here are also eighteen acres of Quinces, of Orange and Rea, 

 the former being the better. Upon another farm across the 

 lake the Maxwells have a block of Quinces of thirty acres, and 

 the orchard is famous among fruitmen. Here are ten acres 

 of sour Cherries, English Morello and Montmorenci. The 

 Montmorenci is a famous cherry in this region, coming in a 

 little ahead of the Morello. This is the Montmorenci ordi- 

 naire ; another variety, the Montmorenci Large-fruited, is an 

 unrehable cropper, and is rarely grown in western New York. 

 The remaining orchards contain Apples, largely Baldwins, and 

 other common varieties. 



All these orchards, of one hundred and fifty acres, are care- 

 fully sprayed for insects and fungi. A hand field force pump 

 carried upon a tank in a wagon and Peerless nozzles are used 

 exclusively. Plums are sprayed two or three times for the 

 septoria or shot-hole fungus, which causes the premature 

 falling of the foliage, but for curculio the sheets are still used. 

 Plums are treated with the ammoniacal carbonate of copper. 

 The knot is fought industriously. Twice during the summer 

 every tree is carefully examined by two men, vv'ho walk upon 

 either side of the row. This examination, together with the 

 search which is made in winter, has thus far kept the knot in 

 check ; but all the growers in this region are apprehensive 

 of this disease, and the new law for its extermination is being 

 enforced with vigor. Cherries are also sprayed with the cop- 

 per carbonate to combat the leaf-blight, a disease which causes 

 the leaves to fall before the fruit matures. The best fruit- 

 raisers recognize the fact that abundant and healthy foliage is 

 essential to a good crop of fruit. Quinces and Apples are 

 sprayed twice with Bordeaux mixture, about a week after the 

 blossoms fall, and again two weeks later. This treatment is 

 aimed at the leaf-blight on the Quince and the scab-fungus on 

 the Apple. For both Quinces and Apples, Paris-green is mixed 

 with the fungicide for the purpose of killing the Codlin-moth 



