January 13, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



1 1 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



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. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1897. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Article : — Park-making as a National Art 1 1 



Classification of Varieties of Peaches. (With figure.). .Professor R. H. Price. 12 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter //'. liaison. 13 



New or Little-known Plants: — Aster lardillonis, L. (With figure) 



Merritt L. Fernald. 14 



Cultural Department : — Tender Sub-aquatic Plants G. IV. Olk-er. 16 



Seasonable Work T. D. Hatfield. 16 



Garden Phlox E. O. Orpet. 17 



Seedling Orchids William Magee, Jr. 17 



Correspondence : — Orange Groves as an Investment William M. Tisdale. 17 



Need of Instruction in Experimental Plant Physiology, 



Prof essor Fred W. Card, is 



Chrysanthemums Out-of-doors Paul Le Hardy. iS 



The' Palmetto Scale Professor T. D. A. CockerelL 19 



R ecent Publications 19 



Notes 20 



Illustrations : — Peach Pits, Fig. 3 13 



Aster tardiflorus, L , Fig." 4 15 



Park-making as a National Art. 



THE Atlantic Monthly for January contains a note- 

 worthy article under this title by Mrs. M. C. Robbins, 

 who is well known to the readers of this journal. Her 

 thesis is that the desire for the creation of beauty in 

 America will find its fullest expression in the design and 

 construction of public parks rather than in painting, sculp- 

 ture or architecture. We have already done well in these 

 latter fields, but our craving for liberty, and for enlarged 

 and untrammeled utterance, can only be satisfied by bring- 

 ing under control the mighty forces of nature and com- 

 pelling them to develop and make manifest our artistic 

 ideas. It is a significant fact that America has already 

 produced one preeminent artist in this field, and that the 

 park systems of several American cities are unrivaled for 

 grandeur of conception. 



The article presents a specific phase of a more general 

 subject discussed by Mrs. Robbins in the December num- 

 ber of the same magazine under the title of "The Art of 

 Public Improvement," a phrase meant to include in a large 

 and raiher vague way every effort of individuals aiidcom- 

 munities to preserve and transmit to posterity what is most 

 beautiful and interesting in nature. This tendency is 

 manifested in the reservation of tracts of forest land, the 

 increasing number of parks and playgrounds, the improved 

 care of towns and villages, the rescue of beautiful land- 

 scapes from defacement and the preservation of objects of 

 historical interest. This inclination is in accordance with 

 the genius of the English race, and especially with the 

 fresh young branch of it which has found itself with a 

 continent to work upon. In our youthful exuberance we 

 long for something that will appeal to all the people — 

 something colossal and distinctly American — and this so- 

 called Art of Public Improvement will find full scope in 

 treating vast areas of mountain and cataract and forest in 

 works of sufficient moment to need the support of sovereign 

 states, or even of the Federal Government, and which need 

 an army to protect them. This art must be democratic to 

 suit the American character, large and simple, so that it 

 may be intelligible, not only to a cultivated class, but to 

 the average mind. We have room enough to give free 

 hand to our desires, for with little cost we can secure 

 public reservations of enormous extent, yet of remarkable 



natural beauty, for we still possess square leagues of 

 primeval forest which are incomparably more impressive 

 than the planted trees of European woodlands. That a 

 sentiment like this is growing and seeking to find expres- 

 sion in every direction is seen in the establishment of 

 the great forest reservations in the west ; in the rescue of 

 such places as Niagara, Yosemite and Yellowstone for 

 public use ; in the preservation of the battle-fields of the 

 civil war as "mementoes of the most tragic period in our 

 country " ; in the foundation of societies for preserving in 

 more than one state beautiful anil historical places ; in the ' 

 purchase of spacious game preserves by clubs ; in the es- 

 tablishment of the Arnold Arboretum and many botanic 

 gardens ; in the greater simplicity shown in the orna- 

 mentation of rural cemeteries ; in Arbor Day ; in village 

 improvement societies ; in improved roads and school- 

 grounds. Mrs. Robbins' conclusion is that " there is every- 

 thing in the United States to nourish a great art — wealth, 

 enthusiasm, generosity, a sense of boundless capacity, the 

 verve and spring of youth and unlimited aspiration. In 

 the Art of Public Improvement, the dreamer and the utili- 

 tarian can combine, the nation's beauty and the nation's 

 wealth can in it be united, ami our achievements may be 

 such as to satisfy even American ambition." 



In the article devoted more specifically to park-making, 

 it is pointed out that the ancient pleasure-grounds of the 

 Old World originally belonged to sovereigns and were 

 paid for by taxes wrung from the people who could not 

 enjoy them. In this country, however, all parks of any extent 

 have been designed for the people, and although they have 

 been created within a single generation they are a constant 

 source of delight to all, and the}' rank in extent and beauty 

 with any resorts of the kind in the world. The rapidity 

 with which the acquisition of park lands by cities has been 

 going on will be understood when it is remembered that in 

 1869 there were only two well-advanced rural parks in the 

 United States. Fifteen years later there were twenty, and 

 now there is hardly a city of consequence in the country 

 which has not made the beginning of a system of parks 

 and parkways. It is true, as Mrs. Robbins says, that when 

 the schemes now begun have been fully carried out we 

 shall have public reservations reaching, in what is practi- 

 cally an unbroken series, from the eastern seaboard to the 

 shores of California. "The idea of such a continuous 

 reservation, a national parkway from the Atlantic to the 

 Pacific, leading from one beautiful pleasure-ground to 

 another, or passing through great tracts of woodland con- 

 trolled by Government foresters, is not inconsistent with 

 the genius of our country, which ever seeks a closer union 

 between its parts ; while the gradually enlarging park 

 systems of our cities indicate the way it may be brought 

 out in the linking together of suburb to suburb by great 

 boulevards, which tend to bring civilization to distant 

 homes by affording safe and easy communication between 

 them." 



Our people have not always been wise in selecting their 

 grounds, but they have usually developed them in an artis- 

 tic way and have held the necessary constructions in true 

 subordination to the natural character of the scenery, and 

 in this way they have been an educating influence in the 

 growth of popular taste. An attractive park stimulates the 

 desire for appropriate home surroundings, and a visitor to 

 these well-kept pleasure-grounds carries away lessons 

 which are put to practical use at home. In this way the 

 park becomes the common school where the first lessons 

 are taken in the distinctive art of the nation. Hundreds ot 

 thousands of people, for example, who saw at the Colum- 

 bian Exposition how quickly miles of newly made shore 

 could be fringed with beautiful vegetation went away with 

 memories of that fairy-like scene which will never be 

 effaced, and with new ideas of what can be accomplished 

 by refined and restrained art in waterside planting. Every 

 example of the kind tends to chasten and purify taste, and 

 to furnish ideals which will be realized in years to come in 

 private and public grounds all over the country. 



