March 14, tSS8.] 



Garden and Forest. 



27 



human life and welfare. Whatever tends to a better un- 

 derstanding- or appreciation of the value of Trees in their 

 economic, sanitary or sesthetic uses and influences, will 

 help toward the attainment of these objects. 



y. B. Harrison. 



Landscape Gardening. — III. 



THE landscape gardener, we have seen, has a great 

 advantage over other artists in that Nature is his 

 helper as well as his teacher. His work is the same in 

 substance as her own, which means that it includes in 

 equal measure the charms of color and of form, of atmo- 

 sphere and of light. It is alive, and so there lie within it 

 possibilities of infinite variation with their sequence of 

 ever new delights for eye and mind. And it may be as 

 perfect in execution as in general effect, for Nature will 

 give all those finishing touches which are impossible to 

 the hand of man. 



But does not this partnership with Nature liepri^'e the 

 artist of that most essential of all opportunities — the 

 chance for self-expression } Art, after all, is not imitation 

 but creation ; and creation implies the exercise of the indi- 

 vidual will, the revelation of the personal thought. Some- 

 times the artist begins within himself, sets his own ideal 

 and finds his own conception, taking from Nature only his 

 brute materials. The architect takes stones from her and 

 the musician takes sounds ; but she suggests no houses or 

 cathedrals, no symphonies r)r chorals — scarcely so much 

 as a shelter for the human bod)^, scarcely more than hints 

 of melodies and harmonies. At other times nature furnishes 

 ideals and patterns but not the methods by which they 

 must be transmuted into different materials. She shows 

 us what the beauty of woman ought to be, but we must 

 find out for ourselves how to paint it on flat canvas, 

 how to reproduce its vitality and charm in colorless marble. 

 Not in the one case more than in the other — not in the arts 

 of representation more than in those of construction — can 

 the artist copy. He must always interpret. To interpret 

 means that he must invent ; to invent means that he must 

 use his mind ; and, in truth, it is simply in using his mind 

 that he gets the chance to be an artist. The less the 

 beauty of his work depends upon mere imitative efforts, the 

 more it depends upon qualities for which he is himself re- 

 sponsible — upon expression— the higher may be its rank as 

 a work of art; and the more personal is the quality of its ex- 

 pression — the more unlike it is to the expression which other 

 men have put into their works — the higher is his rank as 

 an artist. Now it will be the expression of emotion, told 

 through human forms and faces in moods of supreme in- 

 tensity, moral, intellectual or physical. Now it will be the 

 expression of a feeling for certain peculiar moods and 

 effects of inanimate nature, or of a delight in some par- 

 ticular combination of colors or some especial kind of form; 

 and again, the expression of a craftsman's pleasure in the 

 mere problem : How can this richness of brocade, this 

 sheen of marble, this softness of hair or cheek, be most per- 

 fectly translated into paint It matters not what a man 

 shows us as having been present in his heart while his brush 

 was at work ; — so long as he shows us something that 

 was there, he is an artist. If he could make a literal, im- 

 personal copy from nature it would not be worth the form 

 it imitates. The only value it could have would be his- 

 torical, not artistic — would be a permanent record of the 

 perishable model. To make his work worth while as art, 

 the artist must even the balance b)' putting himself into 

 the scale. 



If the landscape gardener were indeed denied the chance 

 to do this he would merely lie a more or less skillful 

 artisan. But he is not denied it. In fact he cannot escape 

 if he would from the necessity to use or abuse his oppor- 

 tunities for self-expression. It is no truer to say of him 

 than of the painter or the sculptor that he copies nature. 

 Though they simply work after her and he works in and 

 with her, his aim is the same as theirs — to re-unite her 



scattered excellences. Theoretically he could copy her in 

 a very wide sense of the word ; but practically he can 

 copy little more than her minor details and her exquisite 

 ihiish of execution. Composition of one sort or another is 

 the chief thing in art. and the landscape gardener's compo- 

 sitions are and must be his own. Through them he may 

 express his own ideals, and through them he may reveal him- 

 self either as having or as not having clear ideals, either as 

 knowing or as not knowing how they may be realized. If he 

 is Nature's pupil he is also her master. "Nature," writes 

 Aristotle, ''has the will but not the power to realize per- 

 fection." Turn the phrase the other way and it is just as 

 true : '• She has the power but not the will." In either 

 reading it means that the man can aid and supplement 

 Nature's work. He can bend her will in many ways to 

 his though he must have learned from her how to do it. 

 He cannot achieve anything to which her power is un- 

 equal, but he can liberate, assist and direct that power. He 

 could even remo\'e her mountains if the result were worth 

 the effort ; and he can blot them out of his landscape b}' 

 the simplest of devices — by a cluni]) of trees and shrubs 

 which she will grow for him as cheerfully as though the)' 

 were to hide some deformity of his own creation. He 

 cannot make great rivers ; but he can make lakes from 

 rivulets and cause water to dominate in a view where she 

 had meant green grass to rule. And he can even teach her 

 tn ])erfect details of decoration for whose beauty scarcely 

 a liint is found in her unassisted Avork. All "florist's 

 roses, " for example, are not productions to be proud of; 

 but there are some in which, sterile though they be, Nature 

 herself may grudge man's skill its part. 



M. G. van Rensselaer. 



The Suburbs in March. 



T N the suliurljtm districts of our Northern cities this is the 

 -'• most dreary season of the year. The snow is gone oi' re- 

 mams onl}' in patches, the grass is dead and colorless, the 

 houses in their forsaken inclosures seem to shiver — all is 

 dishevelment and nakedness for a whole month at least. In 

 tlie close-lmilt city there is no such unhappy state of filings. 

 In the open country even March has its lieauty. Wiiat is the 

 cause of the repulsiveness of the lialf-way region at this sea- 

 son and wliat is the remedy ? 



f^lainlv we cannot tlirow the blame u])on the severity orfickle- 

 ness of ou r Northern cli mate, for how then could the country-side 

 have any beauty about it at this time ? The cause lies rather witli 

 oiu^selves, who ha\'e built streets and houses througii the fields 

 and woodlands, have in this way destroyed the original lieautv 

 of the land, and have as yet done little or nothing to win back 

 what we mav of it. In these fields and pastures grew a great 

 \-ariety of trees, slirulis and herbs, many of which attained 

 their perfection i>n]\' in summer, while others were especially 

 sticking in winter. OI the former our pufilic and private 

 grounds hold far too few — our sins of omission are surpris- 

 ing^ — l)iit of the latter almost none. Where can be seen plant- 

 ed about homes the richlv-colored Red Cedar, or prostrate 

 Juniper, or Mountain Laurel, or Bayberry with its clustered 

 gray fruits, or red-twigged Wild Roses, or yet redder Cornels, 

 or golden-barked Willows ? How seldom appear White 

 Birches or anv of the American Firs and Spruces ! Where do 

 any of the trailing evergreens cover the ground at the edges of 

 shrubberies ? 'Where are the houses which have bushes 

 crowded about their bays and corners, as the wild bushes 

 crowd the field walls, till they seem to be fairly grown to the 

 ground ? Where is any sug-g"estion of those thickets of 

 mingled twigs and evergreen which so adorn the pastures even 

 in March? Speaking generally, we have reduced our hits of 

 t;round to mere planes of shaven grass, from whicli the house 

 walls rise stiff and unclothed. We expiMid thousands of dol- 

 lars upon the shell of our abode, and indefinite sums upon its 

 interior appointments and decorations; but outside we gvii- 

 erallv leave it all bare and unbeautiful, and spend only tor the 

 gaudy lirightness of Geraniums in summer. No wonder 

 March is ug1v in the suburbs ! 



The reniedy, then, is the planting of appropriate and nu- 

 merous shrubs and small trees. Beware of the " choice sjieci- 

 meiis," manv of which will need to be protected by boai'ds or 

 straw during five months of the year, and avoitl the common 

 mistake of clothing the ground with single plants. This, at 



