May 



Garden and Forest. 



H5 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



runr.isnEri weekly by 

 THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Blulding, New York. 



Conducted bv Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE TOST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, iS 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



I'AGF. 



Editorial Articles; — Rural Improvement Societies. — Labels. — Note H5 



Roadside Beauty Ckas. IV. Garfield. 147 



The Two Types of Ceiueteries J. C. Ohnsicd. 1^7 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter WiUiam Goldrijt.^. 148 



Tlie Banded Hickory liorer {iliustr.itei,!) Professor Heiiic^-t Osborn. 148 



New or Little Known Plants : — Delphinium viride [with illustration), 



Scretw IVatson. 149 



Cultural Department; — How to Prepare a Bed for Roses John N. May. 149 



Hardy Plants for Forcing W, A. Manda. 150 



Forsythias — Campanulas — IVIagnolia sfellata — Arsenical Poisons on Elm 



Trees — A Group of Trees or Shrubs (a suggestion) 151 



Plant Notes : — Japanese Apples (with illustration) C. S. S. 152 



Heuchera sanguinea in i\iexico — Vegetable Soaps 152 



The Rock-Garden in Spring IS3 



Notes from the .-^rnokl Ariinretuin 153 



The Forest ; — The Pennsylvania Forestry Association 154 



Correspondence 155 



Pictures of Japan Mrs. Si:hj/ylt'r I'an Rensst'lacr. 156 



,The Boston Flower Show 156 



Retail Flower IVIaicrets: — New York, Philadelphia, Boston 156 



Illustrations : — The Hickory Borer, three figures i4g 



Delphinium viride. Fig. 29 j 30 



The Double Flowered Japanese Apjjle, I'ig. 30 132 



Rural Improvement Societies. 



IT is now some twenty years since tlie first village Im- 

 provement Societies were organized and the histor)' 

 of many of them justifies every reasonable hope in \\-hich 

 they were founded. Some were established for a single 

 purpose — as, for example, the laying down of sidewalks or 

 the planting of a public square — and when this end was 

 well accomplished they were formally disbanded. Others 

 entered upon a wider ireld of usefulness and there is still no 

 abatement of their beneficent activity. Under tlieir in- 

 fluence public spirit has been stimulated and public taste 

 has been cultivated ; the health of country communities 

 has been guarded by more wholesome surroundings and 

 country life has been made more satisfying and attractive. 

 Need enough there was and still remains for such organ- 

 izations, for it is not alone in city sewers and crowded 

 tenements that the seeds of disease are festering. Heaps 

 of offense reelc in country hamlets and by rural road- 

 sides ; poisoned water pours into country wells and fever- 

 laden gases are generated in village cellars. We can- 

 not hope that much natural beauty will survive under 

 the trampling of a great city's population, but there is no 

 justification for the neglect by rural communities of the 

 natural beauty which appeals to them on every hand, 

 still less can e.xcuse be found for the Avanton disfigure- 

 ment of the native graces of the country by those who 

 should be most concerned in conserving and developing 

 them. The associations which have adhered with intelli- 

 gence and zeal to the purposes for which they were con- 

 stituted have accomplished even more than the most hope- 

 ful could have anticipated, for their work is seen not only 

 in beautified road-sides, in more general cleanliness and 

 health and in lai'gely increased land values, but in a grow- 

 ing local pride as well, in a more alert intellectual acti- 

 vity and in a more elevated social life. 



But there have been failures, too, or at least apparent 

 failures, and these were foredoomed in any communit)' 

 where but comparatively few vv'ere interested. A small 

 band of enthusiastic and well-instructed people can ac- 

 complish much when they have won the help of their 



neighbors, but work of this kind cannot prosper until 

 there is a general co-operation. The effort to overcome 

 inertia and opposition is too costly and wearisome for any 

 but the most courageous and patient. It may be incor- 

 rect to characterize the efforts at reform under these de- 

 pressing conditions as failures, for genuine earnestness in a 

 good cause is never altogether wasted. But in too many in- 

 stances the zeal of the few has been only superficial, or what 

 is quite as batl, it has been uninstructed ; and just here 

 lies the fundamental reason for the most signal failures. 



It requires no special skill to keep streets and yards 

 clean and road borders tidy, but it is an art to build a good 

 road, and unless the construction of a highway is planned 

 and supervised by a trained engineer it will probably be ■ 

 impassable when the frost is leaving the ground the ne.xt 

 spring. Amateur sanitarians make wild work when de- 

 vising a system of drainage for a town, as an outbreak of 

 fever is too likely to demonstrate. Amateur tree-planters who 

 place White Pines in heavy, undrained lowlands, and set half 

 hardy and short lived exotics on bleak and barren knolls, will 

 have a discouraging experience when their cherished trees 

 sicken and die. If the service of an expert is needed for the 

 preparation of a creditable design for the improvement of 

 private grounds, how much more is special training 

 demanded when an entire town is to be treated with a 

 view to the development of its landscape possibilities ! It 

 cannot be expected that the private dwellings of a village 

 will all be remodeled into beauty and harmony under 

 the directions of a competent architect, but the advice 

 of such an artist would be invaluable not only in 

 designing the piublic buildings, but in giving caution and 

 counsel even down to such details as the village fences, 

 the tree guards and the town pump. 



All this means that while the love of order, the good 

 taste and the intelligence of many communities will suffice to 

 make a genuine improvement in village homes and their 

 surroundings, the full measure of the possible usefulness 

 of those associations can only be attained when they are 

 directed by counsel of training and experience. 



It is true that skillful masters in every department of 

 the work to be undertaken are not always available and 

 it would not be wise for every community to postpone 

 action until their services were secured. But it is pru- 

 dent in every case where enterprises of this nature are 

 contemplated to move wdth deliberation and to make a 

 careful study of the entire field before actual work begins. 

 Much can be learned from the experience of other socie- 

 ties. Some of them publish admirable lists of trees for 

 planting. The officers of those that have been most suc- 

 cessful in this direction will gladly explain their methods 

 of planting, and subsequent care of the trees, which is of 

 equal importance. The annual reports of the most pros- 

 perous are full of information and suggestion on many 

 important matters, including the best methods of raising 

 funds and of enlisting the co-operation of the town au- 

 thorities. We learn from one of the interesting letters we 

 have been receiving from the Secretaries of various so- 

 cieties, that a movement has been started to form a New 

 England Association of Village Improvement Societies. 

 The discussions at an annual convention of delegates 

 from all the local oi'ganizations throughout the Eastern 

 States could not fail to be helpful. 



With all these opportunities for instruction, it may be 

 hoped that new associations will be able to avoid cer- 

 tain errors into which the pioneers in this movement were 

 naturally led. And yet the counsel of a trained land- 

 scape gardener would be invaluable in every large en- 

 terprise, even when the most is made of all the means of 

 instruction that have been named. To the objection that 

 such counsel is expensive, the general reply may be made 

 that the best is always the cheapest. And more specifi- 

 cally it may be said that when any considerable outlay is 

 to be made, much more and much better work will be ac- 

 complished when a fair percentage of money expended is 

 paid for the best advice that can be obtained. 



