578 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 250. 



Llewellyn Park. 



1LEWELLYN PARK has an historical interest from the 

 ^ fact that it was the first attempt on a considerable 

 scale to organize what has been called a "residence 

 park" — that is, an area of ground which is treated as a 

 unit from the landscape-gardener's point of view, and yet 

 is divided up among various property-owners, each one of 

 whom owns his plot, but under certain restrictions in re- 

 gard to its relation to the whole. Llewellyn Park was 

 admirably situated for an experiment of this sort, and it 

 was conceived and planned by a man who had not only 

 a passionate love for nature but also a genius for organiza- 

 tion. This man was Mr. Llewellyn S. Haskell, who saw 

 the possibilities offered by the south-eastern slope of the 

 Orange Mountain, which is adjacent to the city of Orange, 

 and from which the greater cities clustered around New 

 York harbor can be seen, and almost heard, and yet con- 

 tains passages of untamed beauty and sylvan picturesque- 

 ness which are most refreshing to city-wearied senses. 

 Mr. Haskell began to secure land as long ago as 1853, and 

 he soon had possession of six to seven hundred acres in 

 one body, extending from the level at the base of the moun- 

 tain to its summit. Some of the land was rugged, and 

 some forest-clad, although the hard features of most of it 

 had been softened by cultivation for many generations. 

 The prospects toward the south and east are magnificent in 

 their extent and variety, while the land itself was made un- 

 usually attractive by a sunny exposure, diversified surface 

 and fertile soil. 



This park was divided up, and sections of it sold to 

 persons who wished to have homes amid country sur- 

 roundings. The land was conveyed to each resident in fee- 

 simple, but he was restrained from erecting factories or 

 other structures offensive to his neighbors, and he was 

 under obligations to contribute to the general maintenance 

 of the park. Some ten miles of admirable roads, with 

 bridges and other necessary constructions, were made. 

 There are several entrances, the principal one being the 

 subject of our illustration on page 583. The skill with 

 which this has been designed and constructed is a fair sam- 

 ple of the quality of the work throughout the park. One of 

 its most beautiful natural features is a ravine which trav- 

 erses its entire width to the very summit of the mountain. 

 Through this runs a happy little brook, and the land on 

 both sides of it, amounting to some fifty acres altogether, 

 is held as the common property of all the residents of the 

 park, and is to be reserved for all time as a ggneral 

 pleasure-ground. To maintain this "Ramble," with the 

 roads, road-borders, walls, bridges, etc., an annual tax of 

 ten dollars is levied on each acre of land. 



Mr. Haskell died before his plans were fully realized, and 

 the park is not yet thoroughly occupied and improved. It 

 is, however, a place of rare interest and beauty. It per- 

 haps contains no primeval forest, but there were many 

 stately trees here when Mr. Haskell obtained possession, 

 trees more than a century old, and those which he planted 

 have already attained sufficient size and age to give them 

 dignity. In all parts of northern New Jersey the natural 

 forest-growth is very rich in species, and examples of 

 nearly all of the trees which are native in this vicinity are 

 found within its boundaries. Oaks of several species, 

 Chestnuts, Hickories, Maples, Tulip Poplars and Beeches, 

 many of them trees of magnificent proportions, are espe- 

 cially abundant, and the extent of forest and thicket is 

 still sufficient to invest the park with a woodland charm 

 in spite of the many residences, more or less pretentious, 

 within its borders. Indeed, the number of these buildings 

 could perhaps be doubled without destroying its rural and 

 sylvan beauty. 



Llewellyn Park is old enough to have a history. Chil- 

 dren who were born in it are now living there with fami- 

 lies of their own, and there seems to have grown up such 

 an attachment to the place among the residents as men 

 only have for their homes. Their gratitude to Mr. Haskell 



for his conception and its fulfillment has been expressed in 

 the form of a bronze portrait-bust, erected in his honor 

 near the entrance. It is easy to conceive that a community 

 of persons who appreciate the advantages of such an ar- 

 rangement and enter heartily into it might persistently ad- 

 here to its original purpose. If such a park was originally 

 well planned, and if a competent superintendent, who sym- 

 pathized with its aim, could be had to insure its mainte- 

 nance, its beauty and usefulness would steadily grow as it 

 matured toward the realization of its design, and it would 

 be an ideal place of suburban residence. But as time 

 passed new owners would have to be admitted to the circle 

 • — families with different tastes and preferences — so that at 

 last it might be possible to have the park filled with people 

 who cared only for that portion of the land which they 

 owned, and took little interest and no pride in the scheme 

 as a whole. Parks somewhat similar to this in character 

 have been of late years established in various parts of the 

 country, and it would be instructive to know something of 

 the lines upon which they have developed and how nearly 

 they are fulfilling the purposes of their founders. The 

 problems in social science which are here presented are 

 still more intricate than those in landscape-architecture, 

 and we should be grateful to any reader who has had ex- 

 perience in the practical working of such organization for 

 a statement of facts in the case. 



Notes of a Summer Journey in Europe. — XIX. 



A WEEK spent among the living collections at Kew, and 

 devoted almost entirely to the woody plants outside, 

 with scarcely a glance within the greenhouses, is hardly suf- 

 ficient to gain an intimate knowledge of the rich stores in this 

 botanical treasury ; but with well-used time one may acquire 

 some general idea of the place. 



Kew is so often written about and described, and Mr. Watson 

 and Mr. Nicholson have given us so many and such full ac- 

 counts of current events there, that such matters call for no 

 additional mention ; but since it has just attained the jubilee, 

 or semi-centennial, year of its efficient reorganization it is worth 

 while, perhaps, to make a hasty sketch of its development. 



The early history of Kew Gardens, a good r^sum^ of which 

 may be found in the Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Informa- 

 tion for December, 1891, is interesting as showing how this, 

 like so many other scientific and proven useful institutions, 

 had to struggle through a long series of vicissitudes before its 

 value was thoroughly appreciated by the public and it became 

 properly established on a permanent basis. Until within 

 about fifty years Kew may be considered to have been the 

 private domain of tlie sovereign, altliough in the period im- 

 mediately preceding its reorganization its strictly private char- 

 acter had been gradually diminishing, and it became more 

 accessit(le to the public and more of a national charge. But 

 even while it formed a part of die royal estates it was famous 

 in the botanical world of the day, for it was under the superin- 

 tendence of such men as the Aitons, and for a long time Sir 

 Joseph Banks may be considered to have been the director in 

 fact if not in name. The celebrated William Turner, who died 

 in 1568, has left a record of having had a garden at Kew, but 

 of this nothing is really known. 



The beginning of a collection on the present famous site is 

 said to have been made soon after the middle of the seven- 

 teenth century by Lord Capel, a brother of Lord Essex, who 

 introduced a large number of kinds of trees and shrubs from- 

 France. Some of these were probably fruit-trees, and very 

 likely some came from the famous " potager," or Royal 

 Kitchen Garden, at Versailles, which was established at about 

 the same time. In accounts published in the latter part of the 

 seventeenth century we read of Capel's beautiful and well-kept 

 orangery and myrtetum ; his Lentiscus-trees, for which he paid 

 £if> ; his trimly shaped white-striped Hollies, which cost him 

 ^5 each, and his flowery and showy Laurestinuses trimmed to 

 equal regular size. 



"About the year 1730, Frederick, Prince of Wales, obtained 

 a long lease of Kew from the Capel family, soon after which 

 he commenced a fresh arrangement of the pleasure-grounds, 

 which were laid out, and additional plantations made, under 

 the direction of the celebrated Kent, who was also engaged in 

 the decoration of the house itself." This Prince of Wales died 

 in 175 1, and his wife, the Princess Augusta of Saxe Gotha, who 

 died in 1772, is said to have given to Kew Gardens, during the 



