H 



Garden and Forest. 



[Marci! 7, iS8S. 



good gardening is the love of nature. To nature the 

 gardener who would be something more than a mere cul- 

 tivator of plants must turn for inspiration. From the study 

 of nature alone can be learned composition, harmony and 

 fitness in arrangement, and without these the gardener 

 can never hope for success in the creation of a landscape. 



To the notes on some American Thorns in another 

 column; it may be well to add that Michigan Thorns 

 give but a faint idea of the value of the different American 

 species of this genus as ornamental plants. The real home 

 of the American Thorn is in the region south of the Red 

 River — that is, in western Louisiana and eastern Te.xas. 

 Here can be found growing a larger number of species 

 of this genus than in any other part of the world ; and 

 here many of our species reach their greatest individual 

 development. Here only can be found the blue fruited 

 C. bracliyacanfha, bordering the low, wet prairies of 

 western Louisiana — one of the largest of the genus, and 

 beautiful in habit, foliage, flowers and fruit. Here, too, 

 the white-barked C. arhorescens, the largest of the genus, 

 the graceful and delicate C. apiifoiia and C. cEstivalis, all 

 reach a development unknown in other parts of the coun- 

 try. The last is one of the most ornamental of the Ameri- 

 can Thorns. Its large flowers appear in February,-and 

 these are succeeded three months later by large, very fra- 

 grant, scarlet fruit, which is gathered and sold in great 

 quantities in some of the markets of the South, where it. 

 is used for making a conserve. This species probably 

 produces the most valuable fruit of any of the genus ; 

 although it must not be forgotten that one of the Thorns 

 of the South Atlantic States (C. flava, var. pubescens) yields 

 a fruit highly esteemed in the preparation of jellies, which 

 when well made can hardly be distinguished from the true 

 Guava jelly. In the Eastern States, C. Cnis-gaHi, all things 

 considered, is the most valuable of our Thorns as an or- 

 namental tree. Its habit, profuse bloom, bright, shining 

 foliage, brilliant autumnal coloring and large, red fruit, 

 untouched by any animal, and hanging upon the trees 

 until February, make this one of the most desirable of all 

 small ornamental trees for American lawns. This, too, is 

 one of the few American trees which seems to thrive in all 

 European climates. A beautiful species of the very largest 

 size, too, is C. Douglasii of our north-west coast and 

 northern California, with foliage resembling that of C. 

 Crus-ga/li, but with black fruit, ripening in August. This 

 tree flourishes at the East, flowering and ripening its fruit 

 freely in Massachusetts. We shall have occasion to return 

 to the American Thorns in future numbers. 



"To gild refined gold and paint the Lily, to throw a per- 

 fume on the Violet" — these are ancient synonyms for lack 

 of judgment and lack of taste, for " wasteful and ridiculous 

 excess." Yet even their century-long citation has not pro- 

 tected us from a sight of the actual follies they hold up to 

 scorn. So far as we know, an effort has not recently been 

 made to improve the Violet's odor, but we almost e.xpect 

 to hear of such an effort, for the Lily is being painted with 

 much ingenuity and perseverance. Carnations with bright 

 green borders, Daffodils likewise edged with green, Lilies- 

 of-the-Valley dyed a pale red and Callas tipped with pink — 

 these are some of the " novelties " which greet us in many 

 florists' windows. If they were shown merely as curios- 

 ities, merely as examples of what can be done in defiance 

 of nature's intentions, the case would be bad enough. But 

 as our readers may have seen in the flower-market report 

 in our last issue, dyed Carnations are in "brisk" com- 

 mercial demand at fifteen cents each and dyed Daffodils at 

 twenty cents ! 



We have no wish to fall back upon theoretic preach- 

 ments in protesting against the lack of taste which this fact 

 implies. There is no reason why we should not attempt 

 to modify the original color of flowers, and this is con- 

 stantly done by skillful hybridizing, cross-breeding and 



culture. But in such cases we work in accord with natural 

 laws, and the result may be beautiful, and certainly it is 1 

 not monstrous. But a single glance at a dyed blossom '" 

 will suffice to prove the artistic brutality of the new pro- 

 cess. The "Emerald" is the trade name for the dyed 

 Carnation, it might better have been the "Arsenic"; the 

 combination of the same arsenical tint with the yellow 

 of the Daffodil is excruciating to the eye ; the pink-edged 

 Calla is almost loathsome in effect ; and all explain them- 

 selves at once as having undergone artificial manipula- 

 tion. We believe the process by which some of them are 

 produced is analogous to that by means of which the hu- 

 man skin may be tattooed, and the result appeals to the 

 same grade of taste. We might as soon have expected 

 to see a lady with a blue anchor on her wrist as with an j 

 " Emerald " Carnation in her buttonhole. 1 



Landscape Gardening. — II. 



TO produce beautiful compositions is the aim of every 

 artist, and the special aim of the landscape gardener 

 is to produce them by arranging the surface of the ground 

 and the plants it bears. It is interesting and instructive to 

 note the points of concord and of contrast which mark his 

 task v/hen it is compared with that of other artists. 



He stands with the sculptor and the painter, in contrast 

 to the architect and musician, in that he takes his inspira- 

 tions directly from nature — works after the schemes and 

 from the models which she supplies. But in some respects 

 he stands quite alone. The painter works with actual 

 colors but merely with illusions of form. The sculptor 

 creates forms but uses colors, if at all, in unnaturalistic 

 and subordinate ways. The landscape gardener depends 

 upon color and form in equal measure and can never dis- 

 pense with the one or the other. 



Moreover, he takes from nature not only his models 

 but his materials and his methods. His colors are those 

 of her own palette, his clays and marbles are her rocks 

 and soils, and his technical processes are the same which 

 she employs. He does not shovif her possibilities of 

 beauty as in a mirror of his own inventing. He helps her 

 in her actual efibrts to realize them — works in and for and 

 with her. 



This fact limits and hampers him in certain wa)^s ; but 

 under fortunate conditions it helps him to achieve what 

 no other artist can — perfection. "The sculptor or the 

 painter," writes a recent critic, " observes defects in the 

 single model ; he notices in many models scattered excel- 

 lences To correct those defects, to reunite 



those excellences, becomes his aim. He cannot rival 

 nature by producing anything exactly like her work but he 

 can create something which shall show what nature strives 



after The mind of man comprehends her effort 



and though the skill of man cannot compete with her in 

 the production of particulars, man is able by art to antici- 

 pate her desires and to exhibit an image of what she was 

 intending." But the landscape gardener is nature's rival, 

 does create things exactly like her own, can compete 

 with her in perfect workmanship — for does not she herself 

 work with him while he is reuniting her scattered excel- 

 lences of idea and obliterating her defects 1 What he can- 

 not do she does for him, from the building of mountains 

 and the spreading of seas to the perfecting of those "par- 

 ticulars " which turn the keenest chisel and blunt the sub- 

 tlest brush — to the curling of a fern-frond and the veining 

 of a rose. Of course she will not everywhere do every- 

 thing. If part of her work is in completing man's, part is in 

 preparing for it, and he must respect the frame which she 

 furnishes for his picture, the general scheme which she 

 prescribes. He cannot ask her to build him mountains in a 

 plain, to change a hill-side rivulet to a river, or to make 

 tropical trees grow under a northern sky. But he can 

 always persuade her to produce beaut)'" of some sort if 

 he is wise enough to know for what sort he should ask. 



This, of course, is theoretic speaking. Theoretically, 



