December 2S, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



613 



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, DECEMBER 28, 1892. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGF. 



Editorial ARTia ES : — Road-side Shrubberies. (With figure.) 613 



Our National Parks and Forest Reservations 613 



Picturesque Names for Flowers Mrs. J. //. Rohhi-ns. 614 



A Few Texas Shrubs J. Rererclion. 615 



What Plants may become Weeds? F. H.H. 615 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter ^V. Watson. 616 



Cultural Department :— Tlie Formation and Care of Lawns 618 



Outdoor Cultivation of European Grapes Alex. IV. Pearson. 618 



Irises and their Cultivation. — II J. N. Gerard, bi^ 



Bacterial Disease of Beans. (With fii^ure.) Professor Byron D. Halsted. 620 



The Propaj^ation of Hardy Plants...' E. O. Orpet. 620 



Tagetes signata C. \V. Mathews. 621 



Imantophyllum miniatum Mrs. Danske Dandridge. 621 



Corre'^pondenck : — The Black Knot E. P. Po^vell. 621 



The Spirit of the California Fruit-giowers Charles Howard Shinn. 621 



Early and Late Strawberries '. H. A. Eaton. 622 



Desecration of Natui-al Beauty H, M. A. 622 



New Cypripediums Joseph Manda, Jr. 622 



Plantago media J. Franklin Collins. 622 



Meetings of Societies : — The Kansas State Horticultural Society S. CM. 622 



Recent Publications 623 



Notes 624 



Illustrations : — Roaring Crook Road, Sheffield, Massachusetts, Fig. 105 617 



Pods of Beans showing Bacterial Disease, Fig. 106 620 



Road-side Shrubberies. 



SO much has been written of late concerning' rural roads 

 and road-sides that the paramount importance of the sub- 

 ject can alone justify further reference to it ; but we are con- 

 vinced thatthere is hardly one reform which would add more 

 to the comfort and pleasure of life in the country than a 

 general improvement in the smoothness and solidity of its 

 road-beds and the attractiveness of its road-borders. Only a 

 fortnight ago we took occasion to speak of the needless de- 

 facement of scenery caused by the building of railroads, the 

 opening of mines and the working of quarries, not to 

 speak of the disfigurement of picturesque rocks and other 

 prominent objects by the paint-brush of the advertiser's 

 agent. One of the most flagrant offenders in this way, 

 however, is the path-master, who, under the existing laws 

 of most of our states, is invested with limitless power of 

 destruction when the farmers of his district assemble to 

 work out their road-tax. It is not probable that one path- 

 master in a hundred ever gives a thought to the actual 

 beauty which he destroys or to the possible beauty which 

 he neglects to develop in his work, and yet the road-sides 

 are directly under the eyes of the people more continuously 

 than any other part of the country. These same road- 

 sides, too, furnish unrivaled opportunities for producing 

 beautiful effects with grass and flowers and foliage, so that 

 the sins against good taste which are here committed are 

 almost universally prevalent and of a most aggravating 

 quality. 



If any one in the course of business, as a manufacturer, 

 for instance, violates the sensibilities of his neighbors by 

 poisoning the air with noxious or offensive odors he can be 

 prosecuted for maintaining anuisance. In thesame vvay,ifhe 

 offends by disturbing noises, he is also liable to indictment. 

 Certainly, the sense of sight should be protected from out- 



rage as well as the sense of smell or of hearing, and there 

 is no sufficient reason why the public should not be pro- 

 tected from the depression and annoyance which comes 

 from the destruction of natural beauty. Now, there are 

 many road-sides where a thicket of shrubs or a natural 

 growth of trees and vines should not be allowed to remain. 

 No one can drivethrough the best portions of the farm-lands 

 of Lancaster County or Bucks County, in Pennsylvania, for 

 example, without noting the beautiful effect of the green- 

 svi'ard as it flows smoothly under the open fences from the 

 grain and pasture fields and across the road-border to the 

 very edge of the wheel-way. A weed or clump of bushes 

 here would look as much out of place as it would in the 

 adjoining meadows. But in large sections of the middle 

 states and of New England, where the land is rough, and 

 where the fences are often of stone, nothing could be more 

 beautiful or harmonious than the natural growths which na- 

 ture so bountifully provides. When this border of shrubbery 

 is cleared away and burnt off, nothing is left above the black- 

 ened ground but the stumps, bare rocks and raw banks, so 

 that a desolation is made of this verdurous wall, which 

 always looks, when left to itself, cool and beautiful, and has 

 a fresh interest every rod. 



The illustration on page 617 is simply a passage in a 

 typical Berkshire County road in Massachusetts, from a pho- 

 tograph taken by Mr. G. S. Olmsted, of this city. This road 

 winds its way beside a roaring stream through woods and 

 thickets, with vistas opening here and there to give the 

 view of some distant mountain-range or a nearer view of roll- 

 ing pasture-lands, but it furnishes constant delight to the eye 

 and food for the imagination. Of course, a road- side should 

 not be made a breeding-ground for larval pests or a nursery 

 of plant-diseases. Trees which naturally support injurious 

 insects, or which invite the attacks of black-knot and other 

 fungi, should be cut away just as they should if they were 

 inside the farm-fences. But as the road winds from 

 meadow to upland, through hollows and over ridges, offering 

 every diversity of soil and exposure and degree of moisture, 

 a place will be found for all of our best native shrubs 

 and trees and festooning vines and herbaceous plants, 

 and the richness of our fiora will ensure endless variety. 

 There are few road-sides in the more rugged and hilly por- 

 tion of the country which could not, with a little care, be 

 made objects of beauty, winter and summer, fragrant with 

 flowers in their season, and vocal with the songs of birds. 



Our National Parks and Forest Reservations. 



THOSE portions of the annual report of the Secretary 

 of the Interior which refer to the national parks 

 and timber reservations are not reassuring. We are told, 

 for instance, that a visitor to the Yosemite will pass 

 through a forest within the limits of the National Park, 

 upon which a private individual has some claim, and here 

 he will see magnificent Pines, five feet in diameter and 

 from a hundred to two hundred feet in height, being cut 

 down simply to utilize some twenty or thirty feet of the 

 trunk for shingles. He will find also that the Commission- 

 ers have never taken any counsel with an expert engineer 

 or landscape-gardener for the purpose of making a thorough 

 study of the valley and adopting a systematic plan of im- 

 provement which could be carried on through years ; but, on 

 the contrary, they are making spasmodic efforts to "under- 

 brush " the valley without any regard to the natural beauty 

 of the place. No destructive fires have occurred here this' 

 year, but there is little guarantee of future safety, since the 

 penalty for starting a conflagration is nothing but a flne. 

 The foreign sheep-herders, from whom the danger largely 

 comes, have no money, even if they were convicted, and 

 the damage from fires might be incalculable. In the Se- 

 quoia Parks the ground is covered with fallen timber, which 

 is dead and dry, and the forest-floor is so inflammable that 

 a fire would work immense destruction. The Portuguese 

 and Mexican herders pastured 500,000 sheep last summer 

 in the Kern and King's River valleys, mostly on Govern- 



