October 12, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



481 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York, 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y, 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1892 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGH, 



Editorial Articles :— Gardening a Human Bond 481 



Women as Landscape Architects 4S2 



Waste from Pine Forests 482 



A Florida Live Oak. (With figures.) Dr. Robert H. Lavihorn. 483 



Shongum.— Ill M. H. P. ^■il 



Oil-makmg in Italy Louise Dodge. 484 



New or Little-known Plants: — New Orchids R. A. Rolfc. 485 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter W, Watson. 485 



Cultural Department : — Tomatoes as a Summer Greenhouse Crop 487 



Garden Annuals E. O. Orpet. 48S 



The Chionodoxas J. N. Gerard. 488 



Seasonable Notes W. H. Taplin. 489 



Correspondence : — Fruits of Eastern Asia T. H. Hoskins, M.D. 489 



The Apple-scab Again Professor L. H. Bailey. 490 



Legislation against Injurious Insects Professor John B. Smith. 490 



Exhibitions :— Fruits and Vegetables at Boston M. Barke 



Recent Publications 



Notes 



Illustrations ; — Live Oak (Quercus Virginiana) in St. Augustine, Fig. 82 



Live Oak (Quercus Virginiana) in St. Augustine, Fig. 83. . 



491 

 491 

 491 

 486 

 487 



Gardening a Human Bond. 



IF there is one pursuit tliat forms a link between human 

 beings of different stations and habits, gardening is cer- 

 tainly that occupation, for whether it be the vocation or 

 the avocation of man or woman, it appeals to so funda- 

 mental a taste that it makes a common ground upon 

 which all can meet with interest and sympathy. It is the 

 primal occupation of man ; the final result and joy of his 

 highest civilization. From the clod we come, to the clod 

 we return, actually and figuratively, our fashioning from 

 the dust of the earth pointing plainly to the fact that man 

 was a graminivorous creation, deriving his sustenance 

 from the grains he rescued from the tropic sands where he 

 originated. It is a theory of the historical philosophers 

 that man first developed into civilization in some rainless 

 and unchanging region like Egypt, or the western slope of 

 the Andes, and that there, under unvarying conditions of 

 climate, he first established communities, and tilled the 

 soil — hence, possibly, this old idea of his evolution from 

 the dust of the earth. 



As the animal with forethought to plant and dig was an 

 advance upon his predecessors, so the agriculturist is a 

 higher development than the nomad who goes in pursuit 

 of his crops instead of waiting for them to come to him; 

 and it is a curious fact that after man has circled the globe 

 in pursuit of wealth or amusement, he comes back to the 

 culture of his own acres as the most dignified and satis- 

 factory ending of his career, the only one which is not an 

 anti-climax. Contented and not inglorious, Cincinnatus 

 returns to his plow, Washington to Mount Vernon, Jefferson 

 to Monticello, and Mr. Gladstone to Harwarden. The spec- 

 tacle of Mr. Pitt, happy in a three-years release from politi- 

 cal life, and enthusiastic in the culture of his garden, is 

 one unfamiliar to the world, which scarcely disconnects 

 him from the great area in which he was the central figure, 

 but is gratifying as an evidence of the humanness of that 



great statesman, and of that solid wisdom of which he 

 gave perpetual proof in his public career. 



Poets and philosophers alike have rejoiced in rural 

 shades, in the charm of pleasant labor among their flowers 

 and trees. Gardening is the delight of royalty and the 

 comfort of the cottager. The greatest ladies in England 

 have taken pride in designing their own parterres, while 

 the game-keeper's daughter rejoices in her little square of 

 flowers. It is an occupation for the very rich, a solace for 

 the very poor. It can occupy acres of territory, it can be 

 carried on within the limits of a grocer)''-box. It is the 

 priceless heritage of man, this right to till the soil, this joy 

 in its accomplishment. Whether the results be utilitarian or 

 aesthetic, the satisfaction is common to all, there is no 

 monopoly of this privilege. In this great half-occupied 

 country of ours, it is easily possible for a man to possess 

 a morsel of territory for his own cabbage or marigold. 

 There comes a period in the lives of most when this primal 

 desire demands accomplishment. Then upon his frag- 

 ment of the earth's surface a man sits down, and content 

 begins. Not idle content, certainly, since only by the 

 sweat of his brow can man overcome nature, but that dis- 

 counted content which is the human substitute for happi- 

 ness. 



Results may disappoint in detail, but the aggregate pro- 

 duces a certain mental well-being which peer and peasant 

 alike share. The triumph of the harvest is for all, and 

 though there may be years when harvests fail, they are the 

 exception. There may be a harvest of the spirit, even if the 

 crops fall short, a gain in health and knowledge from the 

 hours of labor that are a balancing gain for disappointment. 

 It is not only material results we gather in, but the har- 

 vest of experience, the gain of wisdom, the science for the 

 coming years, and in these human benefits there are no 

 hampering trusts. The planter may sell his crops a year 

 or two ahead, and find himself short of the market, but 

 there is no corner in experience which confines it to a 

 chosen few, and of this gain the gardener, be he high or 

 low, may be sure, so that his labor can never be a dead 

 loss. 



Moreover, he who loves his garden is in touch with his 

 kind, whether he find himself in Columbia or Cathay, for 

 on this topic all may meet, the Russian mujik and the Czar, 

 the Egyptian fellah and the Bey, the American traveler and 

 the Daimio of Japan. There are gardens from Babylon to 

 the Golden Gate which have delighted the heart of man 

 from Eden until this day. To be cast out from a garden 

 was the curse of Adam, and the struggle of fallen man ever 

 since has been to repair that primal disaster. A hankering 

 for an Eden is at the bottom of our wandering souls, and 

 we are ever striving to fashion it to our conception of the 

 lost Paradise. The idea is common to all — the expression 

 varies in each individual. If originality inspires the owner, 

 the garden will be original ; if the conventionalities be dear 

 to him, you will find formality in the arrangement of his 

 flower-beds ; the artist will interweave it with his taste and 

 fancy; the poet will seek in it to embody his dream; the 

 practical man will turn it into a Potato-field ; the speculator 

 will plant it with Wheat; a sentimentalist will fill it with 

 Roses and Lilies ; an aesthetic, with Sunflowers. And from 

 whatever clime you come you will read the man in his 

 garden, nor need an interpreter to explain him to you. 



There is no region where man's effort to reclaim the soil 

 does not possess an interest for all other men. No tale of 

 the march of conquering hordes captivates like the story of 

 the founding of a state, and the state's foundations are laid 

 by its plowshares. In Egypt the great river has been har- 

 nessed for the service of man ; in Holland he has fought 

 the sea to win a foothold for his sturdy independence, a 

 garden for his bulbs. With the Romans marched the cul- 

 ture of Europe ; in the wake of their great armies sprang 

 up the cereals and the trees of the forest. Caesar was no 

 less a conqueror of the soil than of opposing armies. He 

 carried in one hand the sword, in the other the life-giving 

 grain. To him, first of all, Britain owes the planting of her 



