494 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 243. 



add materially to their present endowment, and we know of 

 no way in which public-spirited men can render a higher 

 service to their country than by following the example of 

 Mr. Shaw, who founded the botanical garden at St. Louis. 

 Personal fame is not the primary object of liberal citizens 

 of this class, but in no other way could a man rear a mon- 

 ument more creditable or more enduring than by multiply- 

 ing the facilities for instruction and research in the science 

 of botany in its broadest sense at some of our institutions 

 of learning, where an efficient and progressive administra- 

 tion of the gift would be assured. 



A Reclaimed Swamp. 



TO make waste places attractive is one of the self-evi- 

 dent duties usually neglected by the average prop- 

 erty-owner. Our road-sides are too often covered with 

 weeds and rubbish, and well-kept ones are local to cer- 

 tain communities, where an orderly sentiment has been 

 encouraged b}' some energetic resident, rather than general 

 in even the oldest settled sections of the country. But if 

 orderly road-sides are exceptional, still more rare must be 

 the reclamation of waste places, such as swampy lands 

 and sink-holes, so often seen near traveled highways. 

 That such waste lands can be made attractive by well- 

 directed private efforts may be learned by the picture of a 

 reclaimed swamp, whose present beauty is owing to the 

 labors of Mr. S. C. Nash, of Clifton, New Jersey. A few 

 years since, as has already been told in Garden and Forest 

 (vol. v., p. 310), this tract was a low-lying swamp stretch- 

 ing along the main road, and covered with an ugly mass 

 of weeds and unsightly refuse. These have been cleared, 

 the sloping banks graded and covered with soil to smother 

 the strong-growing indigenous plants. The low-lying 

 portions have been widened out into basins with informal 

 edgings, which, as will be seen, have been planted with Irises, 

 Wild Rice, Sedges and noble Grasses. The view (page 499) 

 having been taken from a low level fails to convey an 

 adequate idea of the size and character of the basins which 

 are utilized for the cultivation of Nympheeas. The water 

 in the middle distance — at the outlet — is separated from 

 the more ornamental basins by a low dam, which is made 

 necessary by an occasional backing up of river-water. 

 This section, comprising several acres, has been cleared 

 and planted with surplus Nymphseas, and in its plainer 

 condition is a foil to the section in the middle and left of 

 the picture. The middle basin of about an acre, and the 

 narrower channels leading to it, are planted with a com- 

 plete collection of hardy Nymphasas, some of which have 

 made large masses. The continual flow of spring-water 

 having proved rather cool for tender Nymphseas, these 

 have been provided for in tanks made by sheet-piling. 

 These tanks are marked in the picture, and their banks 

 masked in reality by various aquatic plants and tropical 

 ones, of which the Musas are the most prominent in the 

 view. Mr. Nash has grown and flowered Victoria regia in 

 one of these tanks this summer. The upper section of this 

 park (not shown in the picture) is a cleared space divided 

 by a small stream from a wooded lot, from which issues 

 water which has been led through quiet pools, reflecting 

 many a pleasant picture of sylvan beauty. 



One more feature of this reclamation must be noticed. 

 If the picture were continued to the right the distance 

 would show a most charming wild garden in the best 

 meaning of that well-abused term. The wild garden here 

 is not a plantation for those weeds and gross-growing 

 plants exiled from good gardens, but is a garden which is 

 being gradually planted in a natural way with the best na- 

 tive plants hardy in this latitude. It is a pleasure to walk 

 through a wild garden planted so much in character that 

 one comes across an Orchid, an Iris or some dainty native 

 plant, with very much the same feeling of discovery 

 that one experiences in finding the plant in its native 

 haunts. This seems to me the art which is nature in such 

 gardening. 



The picture on page 499 is a view of one section of the 

 middle basin, and conveys an excellent idea of effective 

 plantings at the edge of the water and a beautiful shore- 

 line. It, at the same time, is a beautiful illustration of Ne- 

 lumbium speciosum, showing its natural habit in all stages 

 and its effectiveness in a clear pool with ample water space. 

 Here may be seen the leaf floating at the surface of the 

 water, as happens when growth is first made, and other 

 leaves in all stages, from the tiny arrow-head-like coil to 

 the broadly undulating, perennially interesting, fully ex- 

 panded specimens. Even in the picture they show the 

 various tones of light which render them so attractive. 

 The rambling habit of the plant is well illustrated in the 

 detached smaller groups, which are from creeping stolons 

 of the main growth. Many illustrations of this Lotus 

 have been published which are not true to nature ; this 

 picture, therefore, showing its true character must prove 

 interesting. 



Mr. Nash's garden, it will be seen, is bounded at the left 

 by the public road, from which it is in full view and easy 

 of access, so that, while it is a private garden, it is practi- 

 call}' a public park, open to all, and an improvement which 

 would be welcomed in any locality. Sucu an example as 

 this seems worth imitation. There are many such spaces 

 whose reclamation would furnish interesting occupation for 

 those fond of nature, aside from the public benefit given. 



A FINE consignment of Palms and Tree-ferns recently left 

 Boston for Chicago, the plants being gifts to the Horticul- 

 tural Department of the Fair, where, under the big dome of 

 the fine building beside the lagoon, it was thought best to 

 establish them before frost set in. 



From the Harvard Botanical Garden went two speci- 

 mens of Livistonia Sinensis, which are about twenty years 

 old. For a number of years their growth was retarded by 

 the use of small pots, but when they were planted out in the 

 new Palm-house of the Botanic Garden they grew with sur- 

 prising rapidity. Their height is now thirty-four feet to 

 the top of the tallest leaf, while at the base of the stem they 

 girth six feet, and the fan-shaped leaves, about fifty in 

 number on each plant, are between five and six feet long. 

 The third contribution of the Botanical Garden is a Sea- 

 forthia elegans about twenty-four feet in height, with a 

 clean smooth stem up to half this height, and leaves about 

 ten feet in length. 



From his famous gardens at Wellesley, Mr. H. H. Hunne- 

 well sent a fine Tree-fern — a Dicksonia regalis, with astern 

 about five feet high and thirty inches in circumference ; a 

 Pandanus reflexus eighteen feet in height, with fifty-five 

 leaves, each about eight feet long ; a Cocos Bonnettii 

 eighteen feet high, with thirty fronds, which spread so 

 widely that it will require a place more than fifty feet in 

 diameter for its exhibition, and two specimens of C. coro- 

 nata, each twenty-four feet tall. All these specimens, we 

 are told, had been growing in Mr. Hunnewell's conserva- 

 tory for at least twenty-five years. 



The consignment was completed by three trees from the 

 private greenhouse of Professor Sargent. These are a 

 Kentia Wendliana, about ten years old, which was raised 

 from the seed by Professor Sargent ; a Chamerops excelsa, 

 forty years or more of age, which is sixteen feet tall and 

 spreads ten feet, and a Phcenix reclinata, nearly thirty years 

 of age, which measures about fourteen feet in height and 

 as much in spread. 



Carefully packed, these admirable plants filled two cars, 

 and as soon as they reached Chicago were to be set in 

 place beneath the great roof, where they will have such a 

 chance as never before to develop as rapidly as they 

 choose. This chance will probably be particularly wel- 

 come to the two Bourbon Palms from the Botanic Garden, 

 as, during last winter, they broke the glass above their 

 heads several times, and when the weather became warm 

 enough for a renewal of the glass to be needless, promptly 

 grew six feet in the open air. 



