ArRiL 7, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



131 



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. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7, 1897. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles —Early Flowers 131 



The Recession of the Yosemite Valley 132 



The Garden in Relation to the House Beatrix Jones, 132 



Foreign Correspondence ;— London Letter W. Watson. 133 



New or Little-known Plants : — Sambucus melanocarpa. (With figure ) 



C. S. S. 134 



Cultural Department: — Chrysanthemums T. D. Hatfield. 135 



Carnation, Chabaud.. ..'. E.O.Orptt. 136 



California Garden Notes C. Ii. Orcutt. 136 



American Shrubs for Ornamental Planting E.J. 136 



Scillas and Chionodoxas J. N. Gerard. 137 



Correspondence : — Notes from West Virginia Danske Dandridge. 1 38 



Nursery Notes from Flatbush, Long Island M. B. C. 133 



Notes 140 



I llustration : — Sambucus melanocarpa, Fig. 16.. 135 



Early Flowers. 



A CORRESPONDENT who writes some pleasant words 

 about the frequent advice given in Garden and Forest 

 to use more shrubs and herbaceous plants which bloom 

 very early in the spring, remarks that while it is delightful 

 to sit in an easy-chair before a grate-fire and read about 

 gardening of this sort, it has many drawbacks in actual 

 practice. There are sturdy little flowers that will brave the 

 frosts of early March in this climate, but human beings are 

 not quite as hardy as Snowdrops, and it is often impossible 

 to enjoy these where they grow without the danger of 

 contracting influenza or rheumatism. In the slow progress 

 of an English spring, March does not differ materially from 

 May, and the garden is not an utterly inhospitable and 

 unwholesome place in February. But the historic blizzard 

 that we all remember swept down upon us in March, and 

 this is the season when the mud in country roads is hub- 

 deep, while the ground freezes every night and thaws every 

 day, with snow-squalls imminent any afternoon, and with 

 rarely more than a few hours together, now and then, which 

 have in them any warmth or genial promise. In the face of 

 such discomforts it requires some heroic determination to 

 tramp over spongy turf in overshoes to hunt up a flower, 

 here and there, from little plants that have been naturalized 

 in the grass or in a wood border. No doubt, there is 

 some force in this view of the case, and elderly persons of 

 rheumatic diathesis and persons of any age with a ten- 

 dency to lung trouble would preferably be in Florida or 

 southern California in the very earliest days of our so-called 

 spring. Again, there are many persons who live in cities 

 during the winter, and it may be advisable not to spend 

 much thought on the decoration of home grounds at a 

 season when none of the family can enjoy them, but to 

 reserve all serious effort to brighten up the garden until a 

 few weeks later. But frost and wind have few terrors for 

 the enthusiast who wishes to test varieties of Reticulate 

 Irises or certain new Scillas, Chionodoxas and others of the 

 very earliest flowers ; and even those who are not enthu- 

 siasts, and only care for a few specimens of the species and 

 varieties which will make the most attractive show, are 



sure to find a certain distinct pleasure in the cultivation of 

 these very early flowers which the later ones never afford. 

 The very hardships which these daring plants endure 

 arouse our sympathy, their fragile appearance increases 

 our regard for them, and, besides the welcome they receive 

 as the forerunners of the abundant beauty which is to come 

 as the season advances, they have a certain grace and re- 

 finement of form and a delicacy and a purity of color that 

 the bigger and more showy developments of summer 

 cannot surpass. 



We must repeat, therefore, that, in spite of the many dis- 

 comforts of the season, every one who lives in the country 

 and has any garden whatever should arrange to make as 

 much as possible of the early flowers, if not the very 

 earliest, and have a spring garden. Many shrubs give 

 a considerable floral display in early April, and these 

 would make an appropriate border for such a garden, and 

 many trees like Prunus Davidiana, our Swamp Maples, 

 and a little later on the Redwood would show well in the 

 background. Corylopsis pauciflora, with its pale yellow 

 flowers, a relative of our Witch Hazel, is among the earliest 

 shrubs to bloom, and C. spicata, which is hardy as far north 

 as Philadelphia, has more showy flowers, with a distinct and 

 pleasing fragrance. The early Jessamine has long arch- 

 ing branches covered with bright yellow flowers, and this, 

 too, is hardy at Philadelphia. The Cornelian Cherry is a 

 neglected shrub which flowers very early, and it is an 

 interesting shrub all the year through, especially in the 

 later season when its abundant cherry-like fruit is well 

 colored. A little later Fothergilla Gardeni, a native of our 

 southern Alleghanies, begins to show tufts of long white 

 stamens at the extremities of its branches before the 

 leaves appear. The Japanese Andromeda, with its pani- 

 cles of elegant white flowers, and our still more beau- 

 tiful Andromeda floribunda, both evergreen shrubs, 

 are sufficiently beautiful for any situation. Neither the 

 Yellow-root, Zanthorhiza, or Leatherwood has very con- 

 spicuous flowers, but they bloom early and would be 

 useful in such a collection, and so would our native Cur- 

 rant, Ribes aureum, as well as R. alpinum and R. saxatile, 

 all of which have handsome and fragrant flowers. For 

 rock-work there is the lovely Trailing Arbutus and the 

 sturdy little Heath, Erica carnea, and other shrubs might be 

 named, like Daphne Mezereum and the bush Honeysuckles, 

 Lonicera fragrantissima and L. Standishii, the Forsythias 

 and our native Spice-bush, but these will suffice to brighten 

 the shrub border until Spira-aThunbergii and the great mass 

 of spring-flowering shrubs begin to bloom. 



A few of the hardy, herbaceous plants which were 

 brightening Mrs. Dandridge's garden a fortnight ago are 

 named in another column. Mr. Gerard has been telling us 

 for weeks that there are many Irises of singular beauty and 

 effectiveness, not to speak of the hundreds of varieties of 

 bulbous plants which can be counted on for a display at 

 this season. Many of these flowers are the perfection of 

 delicacy in form and color, and they seem all the more 

 satisfying because there are no other flowers to distract 

 our attention or to compete with them for notice and admi- 

 ration. A little garden of these early flowers in some shel- 

 tered spot never fails to please, and when no separate 

 place is provided for them, and they are tucked away here 

 and there at the base of a rock or along a wildwood path, 

 they give us the added pleasure of a surprise as we come 

 upon them unexpectedly. We have so often named the 

 species most suitable for this climate that readers are 

 referred to the indices of former volumes of this journal. 

 Bulbophyllums, Grape Hyacinths, Spring Snowflakes and 

 Frittilarias ; Anemones, Violets, Trilliums, Bellworts, Globe 

 Flowers, Adonis, Corydalis, Cowslips, Primroses, Ranun- 

 culus, Epimediums, Eranthis, Iceland Poppies — these are 

 the names, in addition to those mentioned elsewhere in 

 this number, which will first occur to one who thinks of a 

 Spring Garden, and most of them are found in many varie- 

 ties. But what the novice needs most is to make a begin- 

 ning, and the time will soon come when his anxiety will 



