March 7, 1888.] 



Garden and Forest. 



15 



there is no spot on earth an artist could not make beau- 

 tiful. But some problems would need a life of antedi- 

 luvian length and dollars as plentiful as the sands of the 

 sea. Practically the landscape gardener — like all other 

 men, and more perhaps than most other artists — is lim- 

 ited by questions of time and money. And he is also 

 limited by his partnership with nature as regards not 

 only the sort but the degree of beauty to which he can 

 atfain. Nature may suggest the same sort in two places, 

 but if she prepares lavishly for it in the one case and 

 parsimoniously in the other, the best skill in the world 

 may not be able to make good all her denials and equal- 

 ize its successes. Yet the landscape gardener can always 

 have what no other artist ever gets — perfection in details ; 

 and his general effects, as well as his details, have the 

 great advantage of being concrete and alive. A great 

 advantage indeed— for it means many beautiful results 

 in every piece of work instead of merely one, and per- 

 petual variation in each of the many. His aim is in 

 general the same as that of the landscape painter, who 

 knows that the most potent factors in landscape beauty 

 are light and atmosphere, and who is himself most po- 

 tent as he simulates them best. But no things in the 

 world — not even the color and texture of the human skin 

 — are so difficult to simulate, so impossible really to repro- 

 duce in paint. To the landscape gardener's pictures na- 

 ture freely supplies them, everywhere and alwa}'S, and not 

 merely in the one phase for which the painter strives, 

 but in a thousand — changing them with each day of the 

 year and with each hour of the day. And with the pass- 

 ing days and seasons she changes also his terrestrial 

 effects, so that no part of his work is ever twice the 

 same although, if rightl)'' wrought, it is always beautiful. 

 Thus it gives chance and promise for perpetual renewal of 

 the highest kind, of pleasure. Our judgments are per- 

 sistent but our moods continually vary, and we may 

 expect more days of perfect satisfaction from the variable 

 than from the changeless work of art. If we admire a pic- 

 ture we admire it always, but while it may suit us to-day 

 to the inmost fibre of the soul, to-morrow it may leave 

 us cold. Of course there are drawbacks as well as bene- 

 fits in variability — possibilities of perfect satisfaction are 

 richer in the living landscape, but when realized we can- 

 not keep them for an hour while we are sure of our 

 painting within its narrow range. It will depend upon 

 our temperament which excellence we prefer: limited cer- 

 tainty or uncertain infinitude. But the question does not 

 involve beauty itself — it only involves that finest effect 

 of beauty which means perfect momentary accord be- 

 tween the spirit of the observer and the spirit of the work 

 of art. As regards intrinsic perfection, the best results of 

 the landscape gardener surpass the best painted land- 

 scapes by as wide an interval and for the same great 

 reasons as Pygmalion's Galatea surpassed all the other 

 statues which he may have made. 



21. G. Van JicHSselaer. 



Professor Anton de Bary. 



T T EINRICH Anton de Bary, who was born at Frankfort-on-the- 

 •*^ Main, Jan. 26th, 1831, and died at Strasburg, Jan. 19th, 

 1888, was a striking e.xample of a scientific man who, while 

 pursuing science for its own sake, proved also a benefactor to 

 those engaged in the practical work of horticulture and agri- 

 culture in consequence of his brilliant discoveries in vegetable 

 pathology. His botanical career began immediately after he 

 left the university where he had devoted himself to the study 

 of medicine, and, although at the time of his death he had not 

 passed tlie period of middle age, few have e.xerted so 

 marked an influence in shaping tlie course of the botany of the 

 present day. For a short time he was the assistant of Professor 

 Hugo von Mohl at Tubingen and an instructor in botany. In 1855 

 he was called to Freiburg in Brisgau as Assistant Professor of 

 Botany and Director of the Botanical Garden, where he remained 

 until 1867, when he accepted a professorship at Halle. Shortly 

 after the close of the Franco-German war, in 1872, he was ap- 

 pointed professor in the reorganized University of Strasburg, a 



position which he held until his death, although he had tempt- 

 ing calls to Vienna, Berlin and Leipsic. In the summer of 

 18S7 he was attacked by what proved afterwards to be a tumor 

 of the jaw, and, although he suljmitted to an operation in the 

 hope of relief, he succumlied to the disease after several 

 months of suffering. 



The botanical works of Professor De Bary relate principally to 

 the structure and development of cryptogams, but he was also 

 the author of a number of papers on histological subjects, and 

 his "Comparative Anatomy of the Vegetative Organs of 

 Phanerogams and Ferns," published in 1877 and since trans- 

 lated into English, is the best general work on the subject in 

 existence. A"t one time he was interested in the study of algaj 

 and published important papers on Conjugated', on Oedogoniuin 

 and Bolbocha:tt\ and on the marine species, Acetabularia Medi- 

 tsrranea. We should also mention his important work on 

 Apogamy in Ferns, in which he gave a detailed account of the 

 manner in which the sexual repfoduction in ferns may be re- 

 placed by a non-sexual growth, with remarks on apogamy in 

 other groups. 



But his most important work and that which is of most in- 

 terest to our readers was on the development of Fungi, espe- 

 cially those which produce disease in plants. One of liis earliest 

 publications, in 1853, was " Investigations on the Rust-fungi," 

 especially those which cause diseases of grain and other 

 useful plants. This work was a careful study of a number of 

 species then supposed to belong to Uredinca;, rusts, and Usti- 

 laginea, smuts. At that date De Bary adhered to the views of 

 older writers, and considered that the rust stage, or Uredo, was 

 not connected with the final, or teleutosporic forms, like Puc- 

 cinia. It was not until the publication of Tulasne's paper in 

 1854 that botanists recognized that the red rust, the Uredo, 

 was only a stage of the black rust. In a remarkable paper pub- 

 lished in 1S63, " Researches on the Developmentof some Para- 

 sitic Fungi," De Bary showed by an examination of Uromyces 

 appendiculalits, the Bean-rust, that not only were there two 

 stages, the Uredo or red rust, and the teleutosporic, or black 

 rust, but that a third stage, the yEcidium, or cluster-cup, is 

 found in Fungi of the ruslfamily. In 1865 in his " New Obser- 

 vations on Uredinea:" and in a supplement published the fol- 

 lowing year he gave an account of his experiments in which 

 he showed that the cluster-cup growing on the Barberry is a 

 stage of the Pucciiiia, or blight, found on different grains and 

 grasses. These conclusions, warmly supported by some and 

 opposed by others, may be considered thestarting point of one 

 of the most fascinating, and, from a practical point of view, 

 most important fields of botanical study, tlie metamorphoses 

 of Uredinece. Scarcely less important than the paper last men- 

 tioned is that on yEcidiiim Abictimiiii, in 1879, where a very 

 minute account is given of the different stages of tlie rust on 

 Abies excelsa and Rhododendron fcrriigiiieitm. 



The researches of De Bary on the Potato rot are well known. 

 The Fungus which causes the rot was Ih-st described in 1845 by 

 Madame Libert, a Belgian botanist. De Bary, in i860, de- 

 scribed the method of the germination of the conidial spores 

 and the production of zoospores — an important discovery, 

 practically as well as theoretically. In his " Researches," pub- 

 lished in 1863, to which we have already referred, he included 

 an account of the rots, Pe7-onflsporea:, which is a model of thor- 

 oughness and clearness. Besides these, he published in 1861 

 a paper on the "Present Epidemic Disease of Potatoes," a 

 popular, well written sketch, and in 1S76, " Researches into the 

 Nature of the Potato Fungus," in which he embodied the 

 results of investigations made at the request of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society of Great Britain, in which there is not 

 much added to our knowledge of the subject. 



We can only refer briefly to De Bary's other mycological 

 writings, which appeal rather to the specialist than the general 

 reader. He contributed much to our knowledge of the I^Iyxo- 

 niycetes, a group whose position is still doubtful, some regard- 

 ing them as animals and others as plants, and he published 

 numerous valuable papers on Saprolegniea:, Ascomycetes, and 

 other orders of Fungi. We owe to him the best summary of 

 what is at present known about Fungi. His "Comparative 

 Morphology and Biology of Fungi, Mycetozoa and Bacteria," 

 issued in 1884, and recently translated into English, is an ad- 

 mirable treatise on a subject which attracts more and more 

 students every year. Nor should we forget his " Lectures on 

 Bacteria," of which a second edition has been issued, although 

 the first only appeared in 1885. These lectures present, in 

 a most attractive and readable form, the present state of bac- 

 teriological science. 



De Bary was an excellent teacher, as well as an original 

 investigator. In the lecture room ho was not seen to such 

 advantage as when in his laboratory among a small number 



