July 4, 1888.] 



Garden and Forest. 



219 



abstract preference for some kind of tree seems much 

 more often to have determined planting than a clear 

 realization of intrinsic characters accompanied by reflection 

 with regard to the appropriateness of one character or 

 another to a special spot. We have known a would-be 

 planter to ask for Elms, and yet not know whether he 

 wanted American White Elms, which would grow up 

 into vase-like, drooping forms, or English Elms, which 

 would assume shapes almost identical with the shapes 

 of Oaks. If a single tree is wanted in a conspicuous 

 position a Sugar INIapIe is chosen, perhaps, because 

 Sugar Maples are known to be "good trees," although 

 it would be less well in place with its roundish head than 

 a Hickory with its taller, narrower shape, or a Hemlock, 

 sweeping the grass with its branches. It is the same 

 when trees are set in masses — little thought is given to 

 the way in which their forms will contrast one with 

 the other, and a distressing confusion results where 

 pendulous Birches, spiry-topped Spruces, round and solid 

 Horse-Chestnuts and straggling Silver Maples work in con- 

 cord only in a single way — each to prevent the others 

 from appearing well and to deprive the plantation as a 

 whole of unity, grace and effective expression. 



But even when facts of outline are borne in mind, facts 

 of structure are constantly forgotten. Yet these are of 

 particular importance when a tree is placed in isolation. 

 Almost any kind of contour is agreeable in an isolated 

 tree, but in certain situations it makes a vast difference 

 whether the eye rests upon an almost imbroken surface, 

 like that presented by the Horse-Chestnut until it has 

 reached a great age, or upon a surface which an artist 

 would call boldly and effectively "modeled" — a surface 

 diversified by those alternations of light and shadow 

 which give variety of form within the limits of the general 

 contour. 



Of course no rules can be laid down in writing with re- 

 gard to the employment of trees of various forms. The 

 only way to use them well is to know them well ; and 

 the only way to know them well is to study them long 

 and carefully. With scarcely a possible exception to be 

 found, nature plants her trees with an artistic eye ; and by 

 studying her methods we may learn how to form our own. 

 From the methods of intelligent men we may also, of 

 course, often learn the same lesson, while from those of the 

 less intelligent, we may gain, if we examine them in the 

 right way, at least the knowledge what not to do. Taste is 

 the guide we need to help us, and taste means the cultiva- 

 tion of our own perceptive powers, not the learning of 

 cut-and-dried Eesthetic formulas. 



agement would insure. This is a matter which should 

 appeal to all Canadians interested in the development of 

 their country, and one which the people of the United 

 States will watch with interest, as an example of what 

 must be attempted in this country if our forests and 

 streams are to escape the extermination which now threat- 

 ens them on every side. It is proposed that the Ontario 

 Reserve shall be known as the Algonkin Forest. 



A movement has been started to induce the Canadian 

 Government to establish a forest-preserve about the head- 

 waters of the Muskoka River, which flows into Lake 

 Huron, and of several of the important streams which feed 

 the Ottawa, and which rise in the same region, Island 

 Lake, the head of the Muskoka, being not more than half 

 a mile distant from Otter Slide Lake, from which springs 

 the Petewawa, a feeder of the Ottawa. This is a pic- 

 turesque and well-wooded country, abounding in lakes 

 and streams and swamps, and still frequented by game 

 and game-fish ; it is, moreover, one of the most important 

 in Ontario as a natural reservoir. The proposed reserva- 

 tion embraces a territory of 330,000 acres, exclusive of an 

 area of about 60,000 acres more of water. What the pro- 

 moters of this scheme desire is that the government should 

 create a public forest and define its boundaries ; and ap- 

 point a forester and assistants to take charge of it ; and 

 cut the timber as soon as ripe under proper rules and regu- 

 lations. There can be no doubt that the preservation of a 

 great forest area at the • headwaters of such important 

 streams would be an immensely advantageous and profit- 

 able investment for the Canadian Government, not only in 

 the influence it would exert upon the water supply, but in 

 increased and permanent lumber crops, which good man- 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



The wealth of hardy tree and shrub bloom this season 

 is marvelcjus, and as we are always seeking for causes in 

 gardening we are inclined to attribute the profuse flower 

 crop to the long period of hot and dry weather last sum- 

 mer, which naturally tended to ripen thoroughly the growth 

 of open air vegetation. The charm of beauty of a richly 

 planted English garden at this time of the year could not 

 probably be rivaled in any other country, our moist cli- 

 mate being so exactly suited to the majority of trees and 

 shrubs from temperate climes. A walk through the gar- 

 dens at Kew just now, which contain representatives of 

 nearly every known hardy tree and shrub, is a great pleas- 

 ure. There you see more clearly now than at any other 

 season the wealth of exotic growth from every temperate 

 country. You see how largely we are indebted to the 

 floras of China and Japan, of Chili and of other regions of 

 South America, of Central Asia, and of southern and cen- 

 tral Europe. But from no country have our gardens de- 

 rived so much of their open air beauty as from the vast 

 North American continent, which we might say has sup- 

 plied us with fully two-thirds of our ornamental trees and 

 shrubs. The list I jotted down at Kew a day or two ago 

 of showy flowering trees and shrubs from North America 

 would alone make beautiful a large garden. Its range of 

 color, of size and habit of growth is so wide that one might 

 plant an exclusively American garden in a most artistic 

 way. The term American garden in England has long 

 been a misnomer. It is commonly supposed that the com- 

 paratively few members of the Heath family, the genera 

 Azalea, Rhododendron, Kalmia, Ledum, Andromeda and 

 the rest of peat-loving plants, comprised all that is worth 

 planting of American shrubs. Happily, however, Kew is 

 showing the public by good culture many others that 

 deserve higher popularity, and our nurserymen are grow- 

 ing wise and propagate the best things largely so as to 

 render them easily obtainable. I note a few of the North 

 American shrubs now in bloom, which are undeservedly 

 neglected by landscape gardeners and other planters in 

 England. 



There is not a lovelier shrub than the Rocky Mountain 

 Bramble (Robtts deliciosus), and of late years it has proved 

 itself perfectly hardy, though for a long time only grown 

 against walls. It makes wide spreading bushes which 

 now are lit up by a profusion of great saucer-shaped flow- 

 ers of snowy whiteness like single Roses. The large nur- 

 series are now getting good stocks of it. Pynts coronaria, 

 though such an old introduction, is rarely seen, though for 

 the beauty of its flowers it has few rivals among ornamen- 

 tal Pears and Apples. Its profuse crop of large rose-col- 

 ored, semi-double blossoms, deliciously fragrant, render 

 it in bloom one of the finest of lawn trees. The new 

 Neviusia Alahamensis is flowering abundantly against 

 a warm wall at Kew. Though not a particularly 

 showy shrub, it is elegant in bloom, the flowers being in 

 tufted feathery clusters of a pale yellowish green. The 

 Californian Ribes speciosum, called here the Fuchsia-flow- 

 ered Currant, is a very beautiful shrub, particularly as a 

 wall covering, though quite hardy enough as an open 

 air bush. There is no Ribes like it that I know and the 

 blossoms look uncommonly like those of some of the old 

 Fuchsias. Very charming in many an English garden now 

 is Choisya ternata, called the Mexican Orange Flower, the 



