October 24, 1888.] 



Garden and Forest. 



419 



value to us that, being adapted to our climate, would supply 

 elements of vivacity, emphasis, accent, to points of our 

 scenery, such as v^^e see liappily produced by the Upright 

 Cypress and the horizontally branching Stone Pine when 

 growing out of Ilex groves on the Mediterranean. And this is 

 a reminder that some scholar has said that we can form little 

 idea of what the scenery of Italy was in the time of Virgil 

 from what we see there now. This Ijecause so many trees 

 and plants, which were then common, have since become 

 rare, and because so many, then unknown, have since be- 

 come common. Is there reason for believing that the 

 primitive scenery of Italy was, on this account, more pleasing 

 than the present ? 



The large majority of foreign trees that have been intro- 

 duced with us during the last fifty years, and which have prom- 

 ised well for a time, have been found unable to permanently 

 endure the alternate extremes of our climate, but that there are 

 many perfectly suited with it we have abundant evidence. 

 Does the White Willow flourish better or grow older or larger 

 in any of the meadows of its native land tlian in ours? Was 

 it not under this tree that the most American of our ]>oets 

 sung of the family of trees, "Surely there are times when they 

 consent to own me of their kin, and condescend to me and call 

 me cousin," forgetting that, if so, it was the case of "a certain 

 condescension of foreigners"? How is it with the English 

 Elm, the Norway Maple, the Horse Chestnut ? The Ailanthus, 

 the Paulownia, the Pride of China, all introduced from Asia 

 within the memory of living men, are spreading as wild trees 

 and elbowing places for themselves in the midst of our native 

 forests. The Eucalypti, from Australia, have come, in thirty 

 years, to be a marked (not generally an agreeable) feature in 

 the scenery of California, and while the climate of our 

 Atlantic coast does not quite agree with the Hawthorns, in 

 Oregon, notwithstanding its greatly drier summer, they seem 

 to be as much at home as in Kent or Surrey. 



But on this point of the adaptability of many foreign trees 

 to flourish in American climates, only think of Peaches, Pears 

 and Apples. Frederick Law Olmsted. 



Brookline, Septeinlier, i838. 



[Mr. Olmsted's letter should be read with the greatest 

 care and attention. No man now living has created so 

 much and such admirable landscape, and no man is better 

 equipped to discuss all that relates to his art. The posi- 

 tion which Garden and Forest has taken upon the (]ues- 

 tion of composition in plantations made with the view of 

 landscape effect is embraced in the following sentence, 

 extracted from the article to which Mr. Olmsted refers : 

 "It is certain, at any rate, tliat combinations of plants, 

 other than those which nature makes or adopts, inevitably 

 possess inharmonious elements which no amount of 

 familiarity can ever quite reconcile to the educated eye.'' 

 This sentence was written with special reference to the 

 fact that in Prospect Park, in Brooklyn, various showy 

 flowered garden-shrubs of foreign origin had been massed 

 among native shrubs growing apparently spontaneously 

 along the borders of a natural wood in the most sylvan 

 part of the park. The effect which this combination pro- 

 duced appeared to us inharmonious, and therefore less 

 pleasing than if the plantation had been confined to such 

 shrubs as may be found growing naturally on Long- 

 Island in similar situations. How far the idea of 

 harmony in composition in landscape is dependent 

 upon association it is hard to say. Mr. Olmsted acknowl- 

 edges that trees like the Ginkgo, the Horse Chestnut and 

 the Weeping Beech would look out of place in an Ameri- 

 can landscape — that is, trees which have no prototypes in 

 our natural, native scenery. But would the inhabitant of 

 New Zealand or of the moon, whom we suppose to be 

 totally ignorant of the vegetation of the north temper- 

 ate portions of the earth's surface, find anything to jar upon 

 his feelings in seeing a Weeping Willow or a Ginkgo or a 

 Horse Chestnut growing with and among Hickories, Tu- 

 pelos or Sequoias, which may be taken as the three pe- 

 culiarly North American trees? Piobably he would find the 

 combination an appropriate and pleasing one, and no feel- 

 ing of inharmoniousness would ever cross his mind. For- 

 eign trees with American prototypes, like the Beech, 

 Linn, Red-Bud, Plane, from wliich they can hardly be dis- 

 tinguished except by a botanist, do not jar upon the 



sense of fitness when used in landscape planting here, be- 

 cause for all intents and purposes they are the same as 

 our own species, except that, as a rule, they never grow 

 here as vigorously ; and, therefore, are less attractive ob- 

 jects. The European Oak, if it would grow here, might 

 replace the American White Oak, which it closely resem- 

 bles, anywhere, and this is true of almost every European 

 tree which has an eastern American representative. We 

 certainly did not intend to convey the idea that all Ameri- 

 can trees could be associated together harmoniously. One 

 of the broad-leaved Magnolias of the southern Alleghany 

 Mountains would appear as much out of place, from our 

 point of view, in a northern landscape, as any tree from any 

 foreign land could possiljly do. This same Magnolia, 

 however, amid the broad-leaved evergreens and luxuriant 

 growth of the southern forests, seems to form an ap- 

 propriate and necessary feature of the forest scenery. 

 The fact that the Barberry in New England, the 

 Cherokee Rose, the Pride of China tree, or the Ailanthus 

 in the Southern States, when these plants are naturalized, 

 and have been familiar objects for generations, do not look 

 out of place in the landscape, confirms our idea that fitness 

 comes not from similarity or dissimilarity of form or color 

 or texture, but from mental association. When we have 

 seen certain plants growing together often enough and 

 long enough — that is, when they have been "adopted" by 

 nature, to quote our own words — we become accustomed 

 to the combination. It is only new and startling combi- 

 nations which shock our mental susceptibilities. There is 

 nothing more startling (and whatever is startling can form 

 no part of a restful landscape) than to come upon an 

 Apple-tree, as one may sometimes do in parts of New Jer- 

 sey, growing in the midst of a thick Pine woods, and show- 

 ing that the land had once been tilled. But if Apple-trees 

 grew in our woods, and we had always seen them there, 

 the combination would not seem an unnatural one. 



The truth is that great masters of landscape construc- 

 tion can combine material drawn from many climates and 

 many countries into one harmonious whole, but the mas- 

 ters of the art are not many, and the planter who is not 

 sure of his genius can wisely follow nature in her teach- 

 ings of harmony in composition. Had this reservation 

 been made in the article referred to, our statement that 

 " all attempts to force Nature, so to speak, by bringing in 

 alien elements from remote continents and climates, must 

 inevitably produce inharmonious results,'' would, perhaps, 

 have been less open to criticism. — Ed. ] 



Notes. 



Among Mr. Carman's hybrids between Rosa rugosa and 

 the Hybrid Perpetuals, one has nearly thornless canes, and the 

 foliage is clustered, remarkable in form and very dark. 



The Chrysanthemum Show of the New Jersey Floricultural 

 Society will be held in Orange, at the Harrison s'treet Rink, on 

 Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, November 7th, 8th and 9th. 



At a late exhibition in London were displayed llower 

 clusXers oi Hydrangea paiiiculata grandiflora more than one 

 foot in height cuid almost as broad, and they were cut from 

 specimens planted in May last. 



The New York Chrysanthemum Show will be lield on the 

 corner of Broadway and Fourteenth Street, in a large tent, 

 properly heated. The exhibition will jjrobably open on the 

 seventh of November, and continue for a week. 



Experiments at the Iowa Agricultural College Station seem 

 to prove that when infestetl land is plowed up in order to 

 bury the chinch bug, the furrow, to be eftective, must be cut 

 six inches deep, and when the land is not too hard, an inch or 

 two deeper is advisable. 



The City of Boston has recently acquired trom the Com- 

 monwealth, through the Board of Harbor and Land Commis- 

 sioners, about twenty-four acres of ground in the South Bos- 

 ton district, for the benefit of the public. It will be laid out at 

 once, hu'gelv with lefcrciice to its use as a playground for 

 children, all the central portion, or fifteen acres, being left 

 open for that i)m'r)Ose. 



