May 9, 1888.] 



Garden and Forest. 



121 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY liY 



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, MAY 9, 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGF. 



Editorial Articles : — The Use and Abuse of Public Pleasure Grounds. — Why 

 We Do Not Buy Growing; Plants. — To the Owners of Woodlands. — 



Leasing the State Forest Lands 121 



How the Bald Cypress Converts Lakes into Forests A. H, Curtiss. 123 



April in the Pine Barrens Mrs. Mary Treat. 124 



The Meadows in Central Park (with illustration) 124 



Foreign CoRRESPONDEN'CE : — London Letter William Goldriiig;. 124 



New or Little Known Plants : — Brodisea Bridgesii (with illustration), 



Sercno Watson. 125 



Cultural Department: — Calceolarias Williatn Falconer. 126 



The Rock-Garden in Sprint;.. 127 



Fruits for Market and tor Home Use E. IVilliauis. 127 



Globe Artichokes — Rhododendron Countess of Haddin(^t>n 127 



Plant Notes; — The Wild Fi^ Tree of Florida (with illustration) 128 



Notes from the Arnold Arboretum 129 



Thk Forest: — The Forests of the Yellowstone National Park. . . .Franic Tim-cdy. 129 



Correspondence 130 



Recent Publications 131 



Retail Flower Markets : — New York, Philadelphia, Boston 132 



Illustrations : — The Meadow^s in Central Park 125 



Brodisa Crid^esii, fig. 24 126 



The Wild FisrTree of Florida 128 



The Use and Abuse of Public Pleasure Grounds. 



THE daily papers of this city have recently mentioned 

 the fact that a speculator has applied to the Park 

 Board for permission to erect in the parks " kiosks " to con- 

 tain machines " that will weigh visitors for one cent and 

 drinking water machines that when a cent is dropped in 

 them will deliver a glass of ice water to the thirsty."' It is 

 hardly needful to inquire whether the Board intends to give 

 ear to this enterprising person — we think we can count 

 with assurance upon the fact that it will make short work 

 with his proposal. But the mere fact that such proposals can 

 still be made in any hopeful spirit, that there are still in- 

 dividuals who think they can exploit our public pleasure 

 grounds in the interests of their own pockets, calls for a 

 word of condemnation. Of course all proposals of this 

 sort are made solely in the hope of personal profit. It 

 would be ridiculous to suppose that they were intended to 

 meet any genuine public need. The public, indeed, has a 

 right to ask that it shall be able to drink when thirsty ; but 

 if there is any park or portion of a park where this demand 

 is not already met, it should be met by the erection of 

 drinking fountains of proper architectural character, and no 

 fee, however small, should be charged for their use. And 

 although many idlers would doubtless drop their pennies 

 in a weighing machine should they come across it in some 

 corner of a park, the impulse which would prompt thereto 

 is certainly not one which has a right to respectful consid- 

 eration. Even if there vi'ere no other reason to object to 

 the erection of unnecessary structures, however small, in 

 our parks, reason enough would be found in the obligation 

 to impress upon the less thoughtful part of the public for 

 what purposes parks are created and in what spirit they 

 should be enjoyed. They are not places of amusement in 

 the sense that they should contain facilities for exciting cu- 

 riosity, for spending money, or for idling away an hour in 

 the pursuit of such gratifications as a country fair ground 

 affords. They are places in which to seek fresh air and 

 sunshine, healthful exercise or needed rest, and that re- 



freshment of mind and body and that gratification of the 

 sense for beauty which the contemplation of Nature aftbrds. 

 They are, indeed, places for recreation, but in the primi- 

 tive sense of the word, not in the sense which is most 

 commonly accepted to-day — places for the re-creation of 

 the physical and the spiritual man. It is important that this 

 lesson should be impressed upon the people, and there is 

 no way of impressing it so potent as rigorously to exclude 

 from our parks all features which tend to lead their thoughts 

 and wishes in a wrong direction. When a park is large 

 enough, places should, of course, be set apart for the sports 

 and healthful out-door amusements of children and young 

 people ; buildings should be supplied in which food and 

 drink may be had ; temporary shelters should be erected 

 in inconspicuous spots ; and musical performances may 

 very well be given from tiine to time — they draw the peo- 

 ple into the park, gratify an intellectual craving, and assist 

 the happy influence of Nature herself. But' more should 

 not be done in these directions than can be done without 

 injuring the character of a large park as a scene of natural 

 beauty and a place especially devoted to the enjoyment of 

 this beauty ; and nothing whatever should be done in the 

 way of gratifying the instincts of those lounging adults who 

 seek in a park the same sort of gratification that they seek 

 in the street or the fair-ground. To erect in the Central 

 Park weighing machines of any kind or drinking fountains 

 which work by a trick, would be to run as distinctly counter 

 to the true purposes for which it was created as to build the 

 road for fast driving, of which there has recently been so 

 much said. The actual injury done would, of course, not 

 be a thousandth part as great, but the spirit in which it was 

 done would be essentially the same. And what is true of 

 the Central Park is just as true of all parks, no matter how 

 small they may be or what may be the character of the 

 population which chiefly frequents them. A weighing 

 machine ought no more to be allowed in Tompkins Square 

 than in the centre of the Mall. 



But if the exclusion of these and all other possible de- 

 vices for filling the pockets of speculators and diverting the 

 attention of the public from the beauties of Nature, is to be 

 recommended for the sake of the growth of the public in 

 intelligence and appreciative power, it is just as strongly 

 to be recommended for the sake of the beauty of our parks 

 intrinsically considered. So many things are absolutely 

 needed in them which disturb their repose and injure their 

 beauty, and it is so hard to obtain these in as inoffensive a 

 form, even, as they might be made to wear, that it is ex- 

 asperating indeed to think of the possibility of their num- 

 ber being increased by wholly useless, worthless, profitless 

 additions. It is hard to get even a needed drinking foun- 

 tain, seat or shelter so constructed and so placed that it 

 shall not appear a blot upon the scene. How, then, shall 

 anyone dare propose to put the hideous cast iron "kiosks" 

 of the private speculator in a public pleasure ground, 

 where, if allowed at all, they certainly would be put 

 in the most conspicuous places possible — in the places 

 where they would do the greatest possible amount of in- 

 jury alike to the mood and spirit of the public and to tli4_ 

 beauty of the park itself? 



Why We Do Not Buy Growing Plants. 



WE spoke recently of the difference between Amer- 

 ican dwellers in cities and those of European lands 

 in the matter of using growing plants for the adornment of 

 the home. As was then said, we cannot help regretting, 

 not that so much is spent here for cut flowers, but that so 

 little is spent for more lasting forms of beauty. There is 

 more than one fact to be noted, however, in explanation of 

 our seeming indifference to growing plants. 



We do not mean the fact that such plants are not so freely 

 and attractively offered for sale in our cities as they are 

 abroad ; if there were to be a demand for them a supply 

 would no doubt be forthcoming. We mean, in the first 

 place, the difference in certain customs of domestic life 



