September 22, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



369 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building. New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sa 



ENTERED AS SHCOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK. N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY. SEPTEMBER 22, 1897. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Article: — The Massachusetts Trustees of Public Reservations 



The Swamps of South-eastern Missouri Professor William Trcleasc. 



Sun-scald and M*-ans for its Prevention Professor E. S. Golf. 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter IV. Watson. 



The Chestnut in Bloom. (With figure ) XI. L. Dock. 



Cut tural Department :— The Flower Garden in September W. N. Craig. 



Some Showy Annuals and Perennials Robert Cameron 



The Cultivation of Dutch Bulbs T. D. Hatfield. 



Russellia juncea William Scott. 



Garden Plants in Autumn T. D. H. 



Correspondence : — Notes from the Ozark Fruit Regions. . .Fanny Copley Seavey. 



Fruit-trees in Arkansas. A. R. Plank. 



The Marsh at Rose Brake Danske Dandridge. 



Native Plants for Ornamental Planting Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. 



The Jewel-weed for Cutting. Ellen E. Learned. 



Recent Publications 



Notes 



Illustration : — A Chestnut tree near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Fig. 48 



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The Massachusetts Trustees of Public Reservations. 



THE work of the Trustees of Public Reservations in 

 Massachusetts continues to maintain the important 

 and interesting character that has distinguished it from the 

 start, six years ago. This public-spirited corporation fur- 

 nishes a striking instance of what can be accomplished by 

 furnishing a nucleus for the aspirations and the efforts of 

 those who have at heart any special line of action for the 

 common good. In such work the greatest factor, perhaps, 

 is the obtaining of an adequate leverage from which things 

 can be moved. The Trustees of Public Reservations have 

 supplied such a leverage for the lovers of "beautiful and 

 historic places," to quote the happy phrase with which the 

 late Charles Eliot expressed the aim of the movement at its 

 inception. The corporation has done little more than furnish 

 this leverage ; the friends of its work have done the rest. 



The Massachusetts trustees are the pioneer body in their 

 peculiar line of activity, and their example has been suc- 

 cessfully followed in other parts of the world. For instance, 

 when the work of the Massachusetts corporation became 

 known in England, it was felt that this was just the sort of 

 instrumentality for the accomplishment of a much-needed 

 work there, and the result was the organization of an influ- 

 ential society with similar aims, called the National Trust 

 for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. On this 

 side of the ocean the Appalachian Mountain Club, of 

 Boston, has been endowed by legislative enactment with 

 similar functions ; the desirability of action for the preserva- 

 tion of notable features of mountain scenery in New 

 Hampshire led to this step, and the club, therefore, as a 

 rule, pursues its activities in this line outside of Massachu- 

 setts, where the work of the Trustees of Public Reservations 

 amply covers the ground. In other parts of this country 

 organizations have been formed on lines similar to those 

 of the Massachusetts corporation, and good results are re- 

 ported from them. 



The work of the Trustees of Public Reservations in 

 Massachusetts has been of two kinds — suggestive and 

 administrative. Although composed chiefly of persons of 

 means and influence, the corporation has no large funds 

 directly at command. But when work of an incentive 



character has seemed desirable the necessary means have 

 been forthcoming, and the supplying of needed funds has 

 been an essential preliminary for the undertaking of any 

 special piece of administrative work. Its work of incentive, 

 or for purposes of public information, has been particularly 

 desirable. Of this kind were the notable investigations 

 concerning the public open spaces in the shore towns of 

 Massachusetts which the trustees caused Mr. J. B. Harrison 

 to make, the results of which were first made public in the 

 pages of Garden and Forest ; also the full and accurate 

 statistics concerning public open spaces in the cities and 

 towns of Massachusetts contained in the second annual 

 report of the trustees ; and finally, the report on the open 

 spaces in the shore towns made by Mr. H. B. Hastings, sup- 

 plementary to the work of Mr. Harrison, given in the third 

 annual report. 



It is largely due to the incentive of this corporation that 

 the legislation was obtained instituting the Boston Metro- 

 politan Park Commission, whose work is transforming the 

 country about the New England metropolis into scenes of 

 remarkable and enduring beauty. And when the vexed 

 question of the Province lands at the extreme end of Cape 

 Cod came up for consideration the Trustees of Public 

 Reservations were selected by the Massachusetts Legisla- 

 ture to investigate and report upon the subject. In conse- 

 quence, after a controversy of nearly two centuries, the 

 residents of the greater part of Provincetown were for the 

 first time given full title to their holdings and a scientific 

 policy was adopted for the administration of the many 

 hundreds of acres of state lands there, including the reforest- 

 ing of the great sand-dunes that were threatening the town 

 and the harbor with ruin. 



Invaluable information has been given by the investiga- 

 tion, under the auspices of the trustees, of the public's 

 rights upon the seashore. There are other lines of investi- 

 gation which might profitably he entered upon, such, for 

 example, as the rights of the public in small streams and in 

 ponds ; any young student interested in these lines of re- 

 search might do real public service by bringing to light 

 the various curious and instructive provisions concerning 

 such matters contained in the old colonial and provincial 

 laws. The Trustees of Public Reservations would doubt- 

 less supply the medium of expression for any investiga- 

 tions along these lines. 



For a while it seemed as if there would be little adminis- 

 trative work for the trustees. But, as time has passed, 

 various opportunities for usefulness in this direction have 

 presented themselves, and it is probable that before long 

 the holdings of the corporation will be scattered through- 

 out the commonwealth. The procedure in these matters 

 is simple, and entails but slight burden upon the standing 

 committee of the trustees, upon which rest the active func- 

 tions of the corporation. When investigation shows the 

 desirability of preserving any beautiful or historic spot in 

 any portion of the commonweal!!, the trustees assume the 

 charge thereof on condition that the funds necessary to 

 maintenance be provided. Thereupon regulations for the 

 proper use of the place are adopted and its care is given 

 into suitable local hands. Virginia Wood in Stoneham 

 was the first gift to the public placed in charge of the trus- 

 tees. This has become an integral part of the great metro- 

 politan reservation of Middlesex Fells, and therefore 

 requires but little direct oversight from the trustees. A 

 bronze tablet, inscribed with the facts concerning the gift, 

 has been affixed to a ledge in the woods. Goodwill Park, 

 in Falmouth, was given into the hands of the trustees for 

 the benefit of the people of that town by .Mr. Joseph Story 

 Fay, and ithas been placed in immediate charge of a local 

 committee. 



This year a particularly charming piece of property has 

 been given into the keeping of the trustees by Mr. Augustus 

 Hemenway, of the Metropolitan Park Commission, who 

 takes an active interest in the preservation of beautiful 

 scenery. A feature of Charles River landscape, second 

 in picturesqueness only to Hemlock Gorge, will thus be 



