94 



Garden and Forest. 



[April i8, 



lumber or ties ; the balance represents i3'/< cords of firewood, 

 of which 45 per cent, was split wood. In addition 1 1 cords of 

 inferior brush wood were utilized. 



b. The undergrowth of course yielded only firewood, alto- 

 gether at the rate of 14 cords per acre, of whicli only 20 per 

 cent, was a better class of wood. The total yield of wood per 

 acre was, tlierefore, 4,765 cubic feet. 



Measurements of average trees were then made at the 

 height of I meter, 3 meters, 5 meters and 6 meters with regard 

 to accretion, and the average increase in the area of the trans- 

 verse cut expressed in per cent, ws-s found as follows : 



Durini^ Diirino; 



2nd 1st 1st 2nd 3rd 



Decade Before Ujidert^^rowing. Decade Atler Under^rowing. 



1,02 I. II ' 1.82 1.78 1.58 



The mass accretion expressed in per cent, moved as fol- 

 lows : 



0.98 1. 00 1.82 1.44 1.53 



Now as the total cross section area — that is, the sum of the 

 cross section areas of tlie forty-five oaks upon an acre — was 

 found to be in the average 380 square feet, the absolute in- 

 crease of this area in square feet during each decade was as 

 follows ; 



3.88 4.22 6.92 6.76 6.00 



Similarly of the 3,320 cubic feet of wood found at the time 

 of cutting, the following masses in cubic feet are to be credited 

 to each decade ; 



32.54 33.20 60.42 47.81 50.8 



That is to say, as a consequence of tiie undergrowing there 

 was visible a decided increase of wood piroduction — 2. 70 square 

 feet in cross section area and 27.22 cubic feet in mass ; but 

 this increased production was kept up during thirty years, so 

 that the third decade furnished still 1.78 square feet and 17.6 

 cubic feet more than the decade before the undergrowing. 



B. E. Feriioisj. 



Professor H, M. Ward gives in Nature the following 

 account of an experiment conducted by Professor Hartig : 



"There is a plantation of Larches at Freising, near Municli, 

 with young Beeches growing under the shade of the Larches. 

 The latter are seventy years old, and are excellent trees in 

 every way. About twenty years ago these Larches were 

 deteriorating seriously, and were subsequently under- 

 planted with Beech as foresters say — /. e., Beech plants were 

 introduced under the shade of the Larches. The recovery of 

 the latter is remarkable, and dates from the period when the 

 under-planting was made. 



" The explanation is based on the observation that the fallen 

 beech-leaves keep the soil covered, and protect it from being 

 warmed too early in the spring by the heat of the sun's rays. 

 This delays the spring growth of the Larches : their cambium 

 is not awakened into renewed activity until three weeks or a 

 month later than was previously tlie case, and hence they are 

 not severely tried by the spring frosts, and the cambium is 

 vigorously and continuously active from the first. 



"But this is not all. Tlie timber is much improved: the 

 annual rings contain a smaller proportion of soft, light spring 

 wood, and more of the desirable summer and autumn wood 

 consisting of closely-packed, thick-walled elements. The 

 explanation of this is that the spring growth is delayed until 

 the weather and soil are warmer, and the young leaves in full 

 activity; whence the cambium is better nourished from the 

 first, and forms better tracheides throughout its whole active 

 period." 



Correspondence. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest, 



Sir ; I send you a short list of books and papers which influ- 

 enced, or recorded, the beginnings of the modern art of land- 

 scape gardening. 



The list is headed by Bacon's familiar Essay, in which some 

 directions for the making of a wild garden are given ; but long 

 before Bacon there were plain signs of the coming of the dav 

 of naturalistic gardening. The poetry of Dante (1321) is full of 

 sympatlieticfeelingfor the beauty of the natural world — for mea- 

 dows, woods, streams and flowers, even for the sea and the dis- 

 tant mountains. Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ariosto and Tasso betray 

 no such fresh teelingfor Nature as does their great predecessor. 

 Yet in Tasso's " Jerusalem Delivered " (1595) is the following 

 remarkable description of a garden scene : 



" Everytliing that could be desired in gardens was pre- 

 sented to their eyes in one landscape, and yet without con- 

 tradiction or confusion — flowers, fruits, water, sunnv hills, 



descending woods, retreats into corners and grottoes — and what 

 put the last loveliness upon the scene was that the art which 

 did it was nowhere discernible. You might have supposed 

 (so exquisitely was the wild and the cultivated united) that all 

 had somehow happened, not been contrived. It seemed to be 

 the art of Nature herself, as though in a fit of playfulness she 

 had imitated her imitator." — (Leigh Hunt's translation.) 



But it was in England that the love of Nature took firmest 

 root. Chaucer (1400) and Spenser (1599) sang of the things of 

 nature with a very fresh delight ; and JVIilton, in the fourth 

 book of " Paradise Lost," imagined a garden which was an 

 Eden indeed. 



England also raised up Shakespeare, whose love embraced 

 the 



" daffodils 

 That come before the swallow dares, and take 

 The winds of Marcli with beauty;" 



and Cowley, whose delight was that characteristic one for an 

 Englishman, " a small house and a large garden" ; and, later, 

 Thomson, Cowper, Gray, and Wordsworth. 



Meanwhile the art of landscape painting had been growing 

 up. Titian, its founder, composed the first landscapes upon 

 canvas in the days when Tasso was imagining the garden of 

 Armida ; Claude Lorraine, Salvator Rosa and Poussin were 

 contemporaries of John Milton. 



Well might Wordsworth write (1805) to Sir George Beau- 

 mont : " Painters and poets have had the credit of being reck- 

 oned the fathers of English gardening" ; and he adds, " they 

 will also have, hereafter, the better praise of being fathers of 

 a better taste." 



" Bacon was the prophet, Milton the herald, of modern gar- 

 dening ; and Addison, Pope and Kent the champions of true 

 taste" — thus the Rev. William Mason in 1772, when the sort of 

 landscape-beauty long imagined by the poets was beginning 

 to be realized in the English parks. Addison and Pope, each, 

 in his few acres, practiced what he preached — Addison at Bilton 

 near Rugby, Pope at'Twickenham near London. Bridgeman, 

 a professional gardener of the period, is said to have been 

 converted by Pope's paper in the Guardian, and thenceforth 

 to have abandoned the clipping of trees ; while Kent, a painter, 

 gave up his art to become the first landscape gardener. 



The first complete treatise on the new art was Whateley's 

 still indispensable "Observations," published in 1770, and im- 

 mediately translated into French and German. A few years 

 later appeared Girardin's excellent French work, and Hirsch- _ 

 feld's six volumes printed in German and French. Later came 

 Gilpin's delightful accounts of his English 'tours, which had 

 great influence in waking the popular interest in natural scen- 

 ery, and Knight's and Price's vigorous attacks on the smooth 

 monotony which characterized tlie landscape work of Brown 

 and his iuiitators. 



Shenstone, Whateley, Girardin, Walpole, Knight, Price and 

 Lafiorde, all worked out their ideas on their own estates ; and 

 it is interesting to know that Rousseau, the contemporary of 

 Gray, who yet was the first modern Continental author to write 

 feelingly of natural scenery, was a frequent guest of Girardin's 

 at his Ermenonville. 



To close the list we have the writings of a few of the first 

 landscape gardeners themselves — Repton and Loudon for En- 

 gland, Viart and Thouin for France, Sckell and Puckler-Mus- 

 kau for Germany. 



Mr. Editor, I hope to see printed in Garden and Forest 

 numerous extracts chosen from these books. I am sure you 

 can do us Americans no better service than thus to advance 

 " the better praise" of the founders of the art and their prin- 

 ciples. I am, sir, yours respectfully, 



Boston, 1st March, i8S8. Charles EHot. 



1625. 

 1712. 



1713- 



1731- 

 1764. 



A List of Books on Landscape Gardening. 



Fr.vnci.s B.\con, Lord Verulam. — "On G;irdens," one of his 

 " Essayes or Counsels Civill and Morall." 



Joseph Addison, essayist, Secretary of State. — "On the Causes 

 of the Pleasures of the Imagination arising from thewoi-ks of 

 Nature, and their superiority over those of Art." In The 

 Spctlalor, Nn. 414. — • .-V Descrijition of a Garden in the 

 Natural Style." In The Spectator, No. 477. 



Alexander Pope, poet and essayist. — On Verdant Sculpture. 

 In The Guardian, No. 173. 



An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard, 



Earl of Burlington." London, fol 



William Shenstone, poe and essayist. — " Unconnected 

 Thoughts on Gardening." In his collected works. Lon- 

 don, S\'o. 



