September 5, 18S8.] 



Garden and Forest. 



-^35 



00: 



capable of supporting shade, and which will replace the 

 older trees vvhen these reach maturity ; and 3d, a growth 

 of low undershrubs and seedling trees covering the forest 

 floor, holding the leaves which fall from above, and con- 

 taining the material for future forests. The task of convert- 

 ing the most neglected and unpromising piece of woods 

 into a forest of this character is not difficult in this climate. 

 It requires only a short time comparatively, but it cannot 

 be done without labor, and without careful study of trees, 

 their nature and requirements. — Ed.] 



Correspondence. 



To tlie Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — The admirable words which have appeared in 

 Garden and Forest upon the gardener's art have given 

 birth to these thoughts which, perliaps, are worth a place in 

 your columns : 



The right of landscape gardening to be acknowledged as 

 one of the fine arts, will not be denied by those who have 

 taken time and pains to consider what is comprehended in 

 those two words. 



The first and vital element of success in landscape garden- 

 ing, lies in the character and intelligence of him who under- 

 takes it. There must be in him an intense, innate love of 

 nature which cannot be repressed — a love which delights in 

 all her beauties, which would bind up all her wounds, and 

 which sympathizes in all her varying moods. It is a realitv, 

 and by a strani^e instinct nature recognizes the fact and adeems 

 herself for tlie true hearted. 



Successful tforiculture and arboriculture demand an affec- 

 tion as genuine and self-denying in character as the culture 

 of a little family in the liome nest. Care, watchfulness, ten- 

 derness, are the elements of success, and in both cases the 

 lack of them is not only painfully obvious, Imt a sure cause of 

 failure. We are close akin to the fauna and tlora of earth. 



There is an idiosyncrasy peculiar to the creation of land- 

 scapes. The painter, the sculptor and the architect all deal 

 with dead materials. Every touch of the brush, every stroke 

 of the chisel, will produce effects which will remain until age 

 disintegrates or untoward circumstances destroy them. The 

 landscape gardener deals with living materials, he is tv; rap- 

 port with them, there is a mutual affinity, and if the artist 

 proves faithful to his trust, he will achieve a living picture. 

 His designs are planted, not painted, and it' may be they will 

 not reach their perfection for fifty years or more. They are 

 designs which prefigure the future, and are imique prophecies. 



We must also consider the breadth and extent of his work. 

 A skilled painter may require years to perfect a painting of 

 extraordinary size. What then shall we say of a stretcfi of 

 canvas (so to speak) of hundreds of acres, every foot of wfiicli 

 must be covered with the embodied thoughts, conceptions 

 and imaginations of the artist ? Unfortunately for him, a park, 

 especially in cities or in their immediate suburbs, can rarely 

 be chosen for original beauty of situation, or facility of adapta- 

 tion to his plans. But there is a worse living hindrance — 

 park commissioners and politicians who insert themselves 

 between himself and his designs like gravel between cog- 

 wheels. 



His whole work must be conceived in accordance with the 

 laws of nature, and developed in the most perfect and enticing 

 forms. In his creation no unsightly shadow of ugliness will 

 be tolerated by way of contrast or relief. Contrasts indeed 

 there must be, but such only as come from differing forms of 

 beauty. Delicacy and grace are heightened by Ijoldncss and 

 ruggedness. 



There is another consideration which adds to the complexity 

 of the work of a landscape gardener. No duplication, how- 

 ever attractive the original device may be, is allowable. No 

 groups of trees or rocks, no lake or dell, can " have its 

 brother," save in their natural relation to each other. The 

 broad highways for carriages, the bridle paths and the foot 

 paths, must be all kept severely separated, as the glimpse of a 

 neighboring walk would be an unpermitted suggestion of 

 limitation. 



All these paths must abound with points of beauty — dis- 

 tant views through long vistas, distant views suddenlv re- 

 vealed, groves whose rich, thick foliage forms a leafy screen, 

 indicate paths, cunning snuggeries and " delectable bowers " 

 which those dear ones seek who are all in all to each other — 

 and not the least beautiful, the wondrous effect of light and 

 shadow on rock and fen, on flower and shrub, on lawn and 

 coppice. 



But this same landscape gardener is also an architect, a 

 " pontifex niaxitnus," not in tlie magnitude, but in the number 

 of his bridges and in the variety and appropriateness of his 

 plans. All this wealth of beauty and comeliness is to be 

 created — liorn out of the fullness and richness of the imagina- 

 tion. 



It is a work which none but a true artist could possibly de- 

 sign and achieve. C. Allen. 

 Providence. R. I. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — I have read the two articles on Prospect Park with 

 interest. Their value is impaired by the fact that they seem 

 to be based upon information obtained from the report of last 

 January, or prior to that date. Since January the Commission 

 has been reorganized, and the criticisms upon its spirit and 

 purposes were not pertinent at the time of the publication of 

 the two articles. .llfrcd C. Cliapin. 



Mayor's Office, Brooklyn, August isl. i8S8. 



[The criticisms to which Maj'or Chapin alludes were 

 directed to the ignorance and indifference which are re- 

 sponsible for the deplorable mismanagement of Prospect 

 Park as indicated by the twenty-seventh report of the 

 Brooklyn Park Department. Since the publication of that 

 report the Park Commission has been reconstructed, as 

 the Mayor states, and as suggestive of the spirit and pur- 

 poses with which the members of the new Board will 

 endeavor to discharge the important duties entrusted to 

 them, the Mayor's letter will be read with e.xtreme gratifica- 

 tion. — Ed.] 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Although Washington Square is partially encircled by 

 fine residences, it is seldom crossed by their occupants, and, 

 forming' the boundary line between up-town and down-town 

 streets, is frequented almost solely by what are called the 

 "lower classes." Indeed, one part of it is popularly known as 

 the "Tramps' Retreat." But do these facts supply any reason 

 why the park should be neglected by the authorities and pre- 

 sent a very different aspect from either Union or Madison 

 Sciuare ? If it is frequented chiefly by the poor, and, there- 

 fore, by large numbers of persons to whom it offers their only 

 chance for refreshment and the enjoyment of any approach to 

 natural beauty, should not particular care, instead of a con- 

 spicuous want of care, be its portion ? 



A Down-toiun Xcio Yorker. 



Recent Publication 



s. 



Hhtorie ties Plantes, par H. Baillon, Paris, Librarie Hachette 

 & Co. The ninth vohune of this classical work has appeared. 

 It is devoted to a study of Arlstolocliiacea:, Cactacece, Mese»t- 

 bryantheinacecc, Portiilacea:, Caryophyllacei?, Chenopodlaceee, 

 Eleatinacece, Frankeniacca:, JJroseraceir, TiDiiariacecc, Salica- 

 cea, Batidacecc, Podoslomaceir, Plantaginacea. Solanacece, and 

 Scrophulariacece. This vohmie, like its predecessors, is 

 illustrated with beautifidly executed wood-cuts, quite ecjual to 

 any of the. same character that have appeared in recent 

 French botanical works. Higher praise cannot be given to 

 them. 



Niniiber /jj of the Journal of the Liiimvan Society (\'ol. 

 xxiii.) is devoted to a continuation oi Forbes and Hemslev's 

 useful catalogue of Chinese plants, prepared in the herbarium 

 of the Royal Gardens at Kew, and which is now brought down 

 to Compositas. Great interest is attached to this catalogue, 

 because it contains the new plants recently discovered by 

 Henry and other Englishmen in the central, mountain region 

 aljo\'e the great cataract of the Yangtse, or about 1,500 miles 

 from the coast. This region, which until recently has been quite 

 unknown, botanically, proves to be extraordinarily riclwn new 

 genera and species, and with the Yun-nan district to the 

 south-west of it, of whose richness the Abb^ Delavey has 

 already given us a good idea, is now the best field for botani- 

 cal exploration. It may he e.\pected, too, to furnish a large 

 number of hardy and interesting plants, especially trees and 

 shruljs, to European and American gardens, as the climate, 

 judged bv the latitude and elevation of this region, is proba- 

 iily not very unlike, although somewhat less humid than that 

 of the high Alleghany IMountaiu region of our Southern 

 States. Mr. Hemsley descriljes, in the present issue of the 

 catalogue, seven new species of Viburnums, of which one is 

 said to attain a height of thirty feet, and a new tree with the 



