194 



Garden and Forest. 



[June 20. iS 



and it should be jealously preser\'ed from the presence of 

 any accessories except those which may serve to enhance 

 its proper character and increase its apparent size. It may 

 be surrounded with trees and shrubs, and, if it is of con- 

 siderable size, a few isolated specimens may be broug-ht 

 forward from such bordering plantations. But a lawn must 

 be very large to admit of any other decoration. 



In his suggestive article in our issue of June 6th, Mr. Olm- 

 sted pointed out the mistake which is so often made, in de- 

 manding that the best rooms of the house shall be on the en- 

 trance front. One great reason why they should not be, is that 

 they should have the best outlook, that either a drive or a 

 walk must give access to the entrance front, and that 

 no matter how simply treated it may be, it cannot fail 

 to detract from the reposeful character of the outlook. 

 Nevertheless we often find that even when the lawn 

 front of a house is not the entrance front, a walk is car- 

 ried past the lawn entrance or by the piazza or the win- 

 dows facing the lawn. A greater mistake could not be 

 made than this. The smallest stretch of gravel or naked 

 earth brought thus into the immediate foreground disturbs 

 the effect from the house of the green expanse — injures its 

 restfulness and decreases its apparent size. And looking 

 towards the house the injury is as great as when we 

 look out from it. Nothing is more pleasing to the e)'e 

 than the foundations of a house springing from the green 

 turf, clothed with vines and broken with low-growing 

 shrubs. Then that most charming of all effects is se- 

 cured — the effect of intimate union between the soil and 

 the tntilding it bears — between Nature's work and man's 

 work. But the smallest line of gravel will ruin this effect 

 if it runs parallel with the walls of the house. And the 

 lawn itself will look infinitely more beautiful if there is 

 no walk running away from the house and cutting it in 

 two. There can rarely be a need for such a walk when 

 the lawn front and the entrance front are not the same. 

 Even if a flight of steps leads down to the lawn from porch 

 or piazza, no path is necessar)^ unless there is a strong 

 temptation for feet to follow one another in a given di- 

 rection. If this is the case, however, a gravel walk is, of 

 course, preferable to a trodden track, which gives an air of 

 neglect to a place. But such a walk should be as short as 

 possible, and it should not be bordered with flower-beds. 



When a place is quite small it is best to make all drives 

 and paths straight if possible. The drive, if there is one, 

 should not approach the street front of the house, and 

 should be carried to the entrance elsewhere in as direct a 

 line as convenience vvill permit. Or if entrance front and 

 street front are the same let there be no drive, let the gate 

 be opposite the door, and let the path run in a direct line 

 between them. Of course, if there are irregularities in the 

 surface of the ground they should determine the course of 

 paths ; but such cases are comparatively rare, and in all 

 others there are many reasons why the straight line shoidd 

 be preferred. Every foot of grass is doubly valuable in 

 very small grounds, and a straight path absorbs fewer feet 

 than a sinuous one ; it is difficult to give a graceful form to 

 a sinuous line unless it is of considerable length ; when the 

 house walls and the street line lie near together their 

 straightness seems to prescribe that, in the interest of har- 

 mony, the connecting line between them shall be straight 

 as well; and the straight line is more simple in effect, and 

 simplicity is the greatest of virtues in the arrangement of 

 small grounds. 



We learn from the Prairie Farmer that the farmers of 

 Iowa have suffered considerable loss from a disease of 

 their nursery stock of Apples, Plums, Rose and other 

 plants. The disease shows itself in the formation of ex- 

 crescences on the roots which are popularly called "can- 

 cers." The origin of the trouble is obscure, some attributing 

 it to insects and others to fungi. There is probably no 

 good reason for thinking that the trouble is due to insects, 

 and, as far as fungi are concerned. Professor T. J. Burrill, 

 who has examined diseased roots from Iowa, states that. 



although there is a considerable growth of the mould-like 

 filaments of some fungus and swarms of bacteria on and 

 in the exterior cells of the old bark, no one can say from 

 this evidence that either of these causes the trouble, and 

 he infers that, if the cause is a fungus, it comes rather 

 from the soil than directly from a diseased plant to the 

 healthy one. . 



The Cultivation of Truffles. 



THERE are two things, truffles and terrapins, which no 

 one dares to dislike, for, even if they are not exactly 

 to our taste, they are always expensive, and we are, of 

 course, willing to make martyrs of ourselves by pre- 

 tending to like delicacies which only the favored few can 

 afford to set before us. But there are a good many 

 genuine admirers of truffles in America as well as in 

 France, and they will be interested in two recent books on 

 the cultivation of truffles — ^' Manuel dn TniJJiculleur " by A. 

 de Bosredon, and " La Triiffe" by Dr. C. de Ferry de la Bel- 

 lone. Of the two, the last-named is the better from a 

 scientific point oj view. M. Bosredon, whose style has a 

 touch of Daudet about it, begins with an account of an 

 interview with an aged rustic, P'ere Chenien The sen- 

 tentious Pire Chenier wags his head gravel)' and enun- 

 ciates the fundamental law of truffle culture: " Setnez 

 lies g'iatids, voiis recolterez des /ruffes." 



The discovery of the law that, if one sows acorns, he 

 will gather truffles, a discovery which has enriched many 

 owners of barren land in some parts of France, was made 

 by accident about eighty years ago. The growth of the 

 truffle has always had an air of mystery about it. When 

 one wants a crop of beans he sows beans. But the case 

 of the truffle may be compared roughly to what would 

 happen if one should get a crop of beans b)'' planting 

 bean-poles. The explanation of this anomaly is well 

 stated in " La Truffe." Every one knows that truffles grow 

 underground, and are hunted, if one may use the expres- 

 sion, by pigs and dogs whose scent is acute. At first, they 

 were not even supposed to be plants at all, but later 

 they were believed to arise from the punctures of roots 

 by insects, still later, to be morbid conditions of the 

 roots themselves, and now they are known to be fungi 

 which are proliably parasitic on roots of different trees, 

 especially Oaks. 



Unfortunately, Pere Chenier's law applies onlj'' to re- 

 gions where truffles occur naturally, and there, by sow- 

 ing aciirns of trees growing in truffle-bearing regions, 

 there can be produced in a few years, seven to ten, 

 crops of truffles which continue so long as the trees are 

 in good condition. Fortunately for the French, the best 

 soil is a thin, calcareous one not of much value for other 

 crops. Dr. Ferry gives a chart showing the localities 

 where truffles can be grown in France, and practicall)^ 

 they are cultivated nowhere else. As all champagne 

 comes from Champagne, so all truffles come from Peri- 

 gord — at least, the labels say so. There is a consider- 

 able number of species of true truffles which belong to 

 the Tubcracei.e, a sub-order of Ascomjcetes, not to men- 

 tion the false truffles which belong to the Gasleroviycetes 

 or puff-ball family, and a pretty full account of them is 

 given in " Za 7> zyfe, " together with some figures which, 

 of course, are not to be compared with the superb 

 plates in Tulasne's classic "Fungi Hypoga:i." 



Commercial truffles have not yet been found in the 

 United States, although a few species of the truffle family 

 ha\'e occasionally been found by botanists* in the East- 

 ern and Southern States. California seems to be much 

 richer in TuberaceLP, and Dn H. W. Harkness has detected 

 a considerable number of species in that State. Apart from 

 their rarity, the American species, so far as known, can- 

 not compete in flavor with the French, and it is hardly 

 likely that truffle culture will soon be undertaken in the 

 United States. 



Dn De Ferry's book is full of interesting details. We 



