October 17, 1888.] 



Garden and Forest. 



397 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUnUSHEn WEEKLY I)V 



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. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1888. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



EoiTOkiAL Articled : — Sentimental Objections to I'>llin^ Trees. II. — Tiie Miclii- 



ganjack Pine Plains. — The Virgilia or Yellow-wood 397 



A California Garden (with illustration) 39S 



The Serpent Mound Park Charlts C. Abbott. 398 



English Flower Gardens 399 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter IV. Goldriitg. 399 



New or Little Known Plants: — 'Rhododendron (.A/aIca) arborescens (with 



figure) C. S. S. 400 



Cultural Department: — Winter Apples E. IVtUiaius 400 



The Flower Garden G. C. 40.-' 



Japanese Iris (Iris leevigata) from Seed (with figure). . .Arthur H. Fcivf^es, 402 



Chrysanthemums ]VilUam Falconer. 402 



The Cultivation of Phal^nopsis F. Atkins. 403 



A Few Choice Ferns F. Gnldring. 404 



Removing Raspberry Canes — Geraniums, Crane's-Bills : 404 



The Forest : — Forestry in California. IV Abbot Kinney. 405 



Correspondence 406 



Recent Plant Portraits 407 



Recent Publications 407 



Notes 408 



Illustrations : — Rhododendron (Azalea) arborescens 401 



Flower of Iris kevigata 402 



View in the "Arizona Garden," Monterey : 403 



Sentimental Objections to Felling Trees. — II. 



WE spoke recently of that unwise and sentimental 

 affection for trees, which so often interferes with 

 their removal when removal would mean a conspicuous 

 increase in the beauty of their surroundings ; and we 

 argued that its false basis is shown by the fact, that it is as 

 often exhibited in the case of decayed and unsightly trees, 

 as in the case of those which, in themselves, have a 

 clear title to admiration. 



But the most unfortunate effect of this unwise affection 

 remains to be mentioned. The spirit which condemns the 

 axe when the interests of general beauty require it to be 

 raised, refuses it likewise when the interests of the trees 

 themselves make the demand. Every walk we take 

 through public park or private grounds, shows us not only 

 many cases where beauty of general effect is injured by 

 superfluous trees, but as many where the trees themselves 

 are injured by overcrowding. Trees which have started 

 spontaneously, or have been carefully planted by a land- 

 scape-gardener, in such a way that while young they 

 agreeably clothed the spot and usefully nursed one 

 another, have been allowed 'to grow into spindling groves 

 or tangled thickets, which are not beautiful as a whole 

 and contain not a single satisl'actory specimen of tree- 

 development. 



Here, for exaiTiple, is a solid clump which has no beauty 

 of outline and no variety of light and shadow, and in 

 which the colors of the different species are mixed in a 

 confusion that is not true contrast. Thinned out in time, 

 we might have had instead a smaller number of tine speci- 

 mens, each graceful in form, each contrasting agreeabl)' in 

 color vi'ith its neighbors, and all together making a group 

 or a little wood which would have pleased not only by its 

 beautiful outlines; but by its evidence of healthy growth 

 and luxuriant development. Here, again, is a line of trees 

 which were intended to form a screen to shut out some 

 unsightly object or to conceal the limits of the place. 

 When first planted it did form such a screen, although of 

 inconsiderable height, and with judicious thinning it might 

 have remained a screen while its height increased. But 



left unthinned it has grown into a spindling row of bare 

 stems, which carry poorly developed heads of foliage far 

 in the upper air, while between them the undesirable 

 object can be clearly seen. In still another place we find 

 two or three trees growing so close together that their 

 branches meet and the growth of each has been checked on 

 the side towards the other. Of course when they are of the 

 same, or of related, species, and stand very near indeed to- 

 gether, the effect may be agreeable, as being the effect of a 

 single large head, supported by two or three stems. But 

 even when they are of the same species the effect is often bad 

 if the stems are so far apart that we clearly realize we have 

 two or three poorly developed specimens vv'here we might 

 have had a single one in beautiful development. And it is 

 a distressing effect indeed when the trees are of different 

 s]iecies, and inharmonious one with the other. Quite 

 as often as not this is the case when man's hand has 

 done the planting. It is no uncommon thing, for example, 

 io find instances where a tapering evergreen and a round- 

 headed deciduous tree have been allowed to grow so close 

 together that their alien forms and colors and textures are 

 absolutely welded together in a union as unnatural to (he 

 mind as displeasing to the eye. 



It is no new grief to which we thus give voice. Doubt- 

 less there has never been a time when, by unthinking per- 

 sons, it was not regarded as, under any circumstances, a 

 crime to cut down a tree. Certainl}^ the literature of 

 gardening art echoes the complaint of the landscape-artist 

 of to-day, that no difficulty with which he has to cope is 

 as great as the difficulty of making an owner thin 

 out his plantations at the proper time and in the proper 

 way. Brown, the famous English landscape-gardener of 

 the last century, has for generations been bitterly abused 

 for forming close, round, hard clumps of trees and spotting 

 them about on lawn and meadow. But there is no doubt 

 that he intended these clumps to be thinned, so that they 

 might eventually resolve themselves into lighter, more 

 varied and more graceful groups. Therefore, when we 

 read of "Brown's clumps" as synonyms for what should 

 be avoided by the planter of to-day, it is not Brown him- 

 self but his clients who are really put in the pillory. 



It should r>e remembered that no landscape-gardener 

 can protect himself against a similar fate by planting only 

 those trees which he would like to see in the full-grown 

 group or wood of later j^ears. In the first place, few 

 owners would be content to see the spot for a long period 

 merely dotted over with small, isolated ti-ees ; in the 

 second place, young trees must often be planted closely 

 for mutual protection against wind and cold ; and in the 

 third place, as no one can predict with accuracy how any 

 given tree will grow, a margin must be left against pos- 

 sible contingencies, not only of life and death, Init of 

 peculiarity in development. A planter can hardly imagine 

 in detail the group he wants, and then plant for that group 

 and for nothing else. The best he can do is to decide 

 upon the general size and character of his group ; plant in 

 such a way that the probability of getting something near 

 to it in effect will be insured ; and then watch his planta- 

 tion, and thin it out in accordance, on the one hand, with 

 his own wishes, and, on the other hand, with the peculiar- 

 ities of his developing trees. 



Of course such a process as this needs care and thought 

 and taste. But it is just this fact that we desire to impress 

 upon our readers — only by the exercise of care and thought 

 and taste, not only in the act of planting but continually 

 aftervi'ards, can really beautiful results be achieved in any 

 branch of gardening art. After a plantation is made, then 

 the real work of creating it has merely begun : this work 

 must be prolonged for many years, to preserve the beauty 

 of the trees as individuals, no less than to preserve the 

 beauty of the general effect of the scene ; and it must very 

 often consist in larger part of the judicious cutting out of 

 individuals which are not only superfluous but detrimental. 

 Yet the hardest task of an artist is to persuade an owner to 

 cut down trees which were never intended long to remain ; 



