4i8 



Garden and Forest 



[October 24, iS 



tain slopes has brought upon her, while we, unable to learn 

 from these experiences, allow the timbered lands of our pub- 

 lic domain situated on the western mountain-ranges to be de- 

 stroyed or sacrificed without adequate returns, and with the 

 assured effect of injuring the agricidtural lands below, which 

 depend upon irrigation, and therefore upon the hydrologic in- 

 rtuences of the forest-cover on the mountains. The failure to 

 provide the appropriation of a few thousand dollars for an 

 effective forest protective service now, will most certainly 

 necessitate the expenditure of as many millions for reforesta- 

 tion in a not far distant future. B. E. Fcrnoiv. 



Washington, D. C. 



Correspondence. 



Foreign Plants and American Scenery. 

 To the Editor of G.^rden and Forest : 



Sir. — In Garden and Forest of August ist, page 266, the 

 law seems to me to have been laid down that the introduction 

 of foreign plants in our scenery is destructive of landscape 

 repose and harmony. No exception was suggested, and tlie 

 word harmony was used, if I am not mistaken, as it commonly 

 is in criticism of landscape painting, not of matters of scien- 

 tific interest; not as if the question were one of what, in mat- 

 ters of literary criticism, is called "the unities." 



That a fashion of planting far-fetched trees with little dis- 

 crimination has led to deplorable results, no good observer 

 can doubt. That these residts are of such a character that we 

 shoukl, from horror of them, be led, as a rule, in our land- 

 scape planting, to taboo all trees coming from over sea, many 

 of your readers will not, I am sure, be ready to admit, and if 

 no one else has yet offered to say why, I will ask you to let me 

 assume that duty. 



Suppose anywliere in our Northern Atlantic States an al^an- 

 doned clearing, such as in Virginia is called an "old-field;" — 

 suppose it to be bordered by the alioriginal forest, with such 

 brushwood as is natiu'al to its glades and skirts straggling out 

 upon the open;^suppose that mixing with this there is a more 

 recent, yet well advanced, growth of trees and bushes sprung 

 from seed, of which a part has drifted from the forest, a part 

 from a neighboring abandoned homestead, while a part 

 lias been brought by birds from distant gardens, so that along 

 with the natives, there is a remarkable variety of trees and 

 bushes of foreign ancestry; — suppose a road through more 

 open parts of the old-field, and that on this road a man is pass- 

 ing who, having" lately come from New Zealand (or the 

 moon), knows notliing of the vegetation of Europe, Asia or 

 North America, yet has a good eye and susceptibility to the 

 influences of scenery. 



Now suppose, lastly, that this man is asked to point out, one 

 after another, so that a list can be made, trees and bushes in 

 an order that will represent the degree in which they appear 

 to him to have an aspect of distinctiveness ; No. i being that 

 which stands ovit from among the others as the most of all 

 incongruous, unblending', unassimilating, inharmonious and 

 apparently exotic; No. 2 the next so, and so on. 



The question, as we understand it, is essentially this: 

 Would all of the trees and bushes that had come of a foreign 

 ancestry be noted before any of the old native stock } 



Some of them surely would stand high on the list, and some 

 of mucli popularity, such as Horse Chestnut and Ginkgo and 

 numerous sports of trees in themselves, at least, less ob- 

 jectionable on this score, as, for example. Weeping Beech and 

 most of the more pronounced weepers ; most of the Japanese 

 Maples, also, and the dwarf, motley-hued and monstrous sorts 

 of Conifers. 



But, all ? or, as a rule, with unimportant exceptions? So far 

 from it, to our eyes, that we douljt whether, even of different 

 species of the same genus, the visitor would not point out 

 some of the native before some of the foreign — some of the 

 American IVTagnolias, for example, before any of the Asiatic. 

 We doulit if the European Red Bud, the Oriental Plane or the 

 Chinese Wistaria (out of bloom) would Ije selected before 

 their American cousins. It appears to us that Riibus odoratiis 

 would be noticed before Riihus fruticosus. Passing from the 

 nearer relatives, it seems to us likely, also, that many of the 

 European and Asiatic Ma|:)les, Elms, Ashes, Limes and 

 Beeches would be named after such common American for- 

 est trees as the Catalpas, Sassafras, Liquidamliar, Tulip, 

 Tupelo and Honey Locust ; that the American Chionanthus, 

 Angelica, Cercis, l^telia. Sumachs, Flowering Dogwood, Pipe- 

 vine and Rhododendrons would be placed before some of 

 the foreign Barberries, Privets, Spireas, Loniceras, For- 

 svthias, Diervillas or even Lilacs. We doulit if the stranger. 



seeing some of these latter bushes forming groups spontane- 

 ously with the natives, would suspect them to be of foreign 

 origin, or that they woidd appear to him any more strange and 

 discordant notes in the landscape than such common and gen- 

 erally distributed natives as have been named. We doubt if 

 Barberry, Privet, Sweetbriar and Cherokee Rose, which, in 

 parts of our country, are among the commonest wild slirubs, 

 or the Fall Dandelion, Buttercups, iVIints, Hemp Nettle and a 

 dozen others, which, in parts, are among the commonest wild 

 herbaceous plants, though it is believed all of foreign 

 descent, would ever be thought, by such an observer, out 

 of place in our scenery because of their disreposeful and in- 

 harmonious influence. Two hundred years hence are not 

 Japanese Honeysuckle, "Japanese Ivy" and " Japanese Box " 

 (Euoiiyniiis radicans) likely to be equally bone of our bone in 

 scenery ? 



The forest scenery of northern Europe is distinguished 

 from most of ours by greater landscape sedateness. It is to 

 be doubted if many of the trees that come thence to us, 

 judiciously introduced among our own, provided they 

 are suited with our climate, will not often have more of a 

 quieting than of a disturbing influence on our scenery. 



We have much ground which it is difficult and costly, with 

 any plants natural to it, to redeem from a dull, dreary, forlorn 

 and tamely rude condition. There are parts of the world 

 where, in ground otherwise of similar aspect, plants spread 

 naturally, of such a character and in sucli a manner, that the 

 scenery is made by them interesting, pleasing and stimulating 

 to the imagination — picturesque, in short. Heather, Broom 

 and Furze are such plants in tlie British Islands. It happens 

 that neither of these has yet flourished long with us, though it 

 is said that Broom appears to have got a foothold in some of 

 our exhausted tobacco lands. But if we cannot have these, it 

 does not follow that nowhere in the world are there plants 

 that would serve the same purpose with us. If any such 

 offer, should not every American give them welcome .' The 

 Woad-waxen is a plant inferior to those above named as an 

 element of landscape, but superior in cosmopolitan tough- 

 ness. As a matter simply of scenery is such heroic settlement 

 as it has effected (it is often winter-killed to the ground, but 

 not to the root), upon the bleak, barren fells back of Salem, 

 as lately described in Garden and Forest, a misfortune? 

 We believe that to most persons it adds (and otherwise than 

 through its floral beauty) much to the landscape charm of 

 these hills, while detracting nothing from their wildly natural 

 character. 



Again, may we not (as artists) think that there are places 

 with us in which a landscape composition might be given a 

 touch of grace, delicacy and fineness by the blending into a 

 body of low, native tree foliage that of the Tamarisk or the 

 Oleaster, that would not be supplied in a given situation 

 by any of our native trees ? 



Is there a plant that more provokes poetic sentiment than 

 the Ivy ? Is there any country in which Ivy grows with hap- 

 pier effect or more thriftily than it does in company with the 

 native Madrona, Yew and Douglas Spruce on our north-west 

 coast ? Yet it must have been introduced there not longsince 

 from the opposite side of the world. Would not the man 

 be a public benefactor who would bring us from anywhere 

 an evergreen vine of at all corresponding influence in land- 

 scape that would equally adapt itself to the climatic conditions 

 of our north-eastern coast? 



Imagining possibilities in this direction, let us suppose that, 

 from remote wilds of Central Asia or Africa, we should be offered 

 an herb, or a close-growing, dwarf, woody plant like the Leio- 

 phyllum, as it occurs in tlie Carolina Mountains, that would 

 form a sod with a leafage never rising more than three inches 

 from the roots and never failing in greenness or elasticity dur- 

 ing our August droughts. Would not the jiiatting of many a 

 large, quiet, open space among our trees, with such a plant, 

 favor harmony of scenery much more than it is ever favored 

 by the result of the liest gardening skill, aided by special fer- 

 tilizers, lawn mowers, rollers and automatic sprinklers, in 

 dealing with any of our native grasses ? Such an acquisition 

 we may think too improbable to be considered. But is it really 

 much more improbable than, 200 years ago, would have been 

 a prediction of the present distribution in some parts of our 

 country of Timothy Grass, Red Clover and Canada This- 

 tle, or in other parts cif Bermuda Grass, Alfalfa and Japan 

 Clover ? 



Before agreeing that no addition can be made to our native 

 forest, except to its injury, we should consider that frees for 

 landscape improvement are not solely those that please sim- 

 ply from their fitness to merely fall quietly into harmony wifli 

 such as are already established. Trees would be of no less 



