September 22, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



377 



in recent years become more and more numerous. And 

 the wide welcome accorded them proves a growing- in- 

 terest in our public as regards a knowledge of Nature's 

 products, animate and inanimate. The two classes into which 

 such books naturally fall— the aesthetic and the scientific 

 — seem to be equally popular, while the more exceptional 

 works which unite real information of a scientific kind 

 with a really adequate and personal interpretation of 

 Nature's beauty and charm, are deservedly the most 

 warmly welcomed of all. 



Of course this evident demand for books which enlarge 

 the perceptions, broaden the knowledge, and deepen the 

 feelings of the average reader who is neither a trained 

 artist nor a professed student of science, has brought forth 

 many works which fall below the level of real utility. And, 

 unfortunately, the book now under review must be ranked 

 among these. It contains many scientific facts of more 

 or less value and interest, and many expressions of pleasure 

 in natural beauty. But the facts are so ill-arranged and 

 for the most part so inadequately explained, that the reader 

 will hardly close the book feeling that his knowledge is 

 much enlarged. And the endeavor to interpret beauty 

 seems to have been almost wholly futile and, in certain 

 ways, actually misleading. 



One great fault in this book is that it lacks consistency of 

 plan. If it showed the familiar features, animate and 

 inanimate, of our roadsides, in any systematic way what- 

 ever it would have a genuine claim to praise. But it does 

 not confine itself to any special locality nor, on the other 

 hand, does it draw comparisons between different localities. 

 Various parts of our eastern states are referred to on various 

 pages, but no clear picture of any is presented, and most 

 of the geographical references will leave the reader in doubt 

 whether or no the plant in question is narrowly confined 

 to the indicated district, environment, or spot. Again, 

 while some attempt is made to follow the procession of 

 the seasons, it is not systematically carried out. After a 

 chapter on Early Wild Flowers and one on Early Flower- 

 ing Shrubs we are not told about those of the following 

 weeks — we are jumped into two chapters on Shrubs Be- 

 longing to the Rose Family ; and the subsequent ones are 

 as heterogeneously arranged. Moreover, heterogeneous 

 material is intruded into some of the chapters in a way 

 which must perplex any reader devoid of botanical knowl- 

 edge. For example, in one of the chapters on the Rose 

 Family a paragraph about plants which furnish food for 

 birds is inserted, and no indication is given that they do 

 not belong to the Rose Family except by the mention of 

 their scientific names, and this will not make the fact plain 

 to an unlearned reader. 



It should be understood that this is distinctly a book for 

 beginners, not for those who have made even the first steps 

 in botanical knowledge. Therefore such faults and fail- 

 ings as we have pointed out seem to us radical. The only 

 way to show a beginner that nature is interesting, and that 

 the study of its products means something more than a 

 memorizing of Latin names, is to group facts in some sort 

 of logical sequence. We do not say that Mr. Mathews has 

 not attempted this in the volume before us, but he has cer- 

 tainly not attained it. Nor are his facts always as clearly 

 and accurately put as they should be in an elementary . 

 work. To say that Cornus florida "bears a large flower 

 with four notched, petal-like, showy white leaflets set 

 around the tiny greenish florets," cannot convey any 

 definite idea to an uninstructed reader. It seems ex- 

 traordinary that if it was felt needful to indicate that 

 this "flower" is unlike ordinary flowers, it did not 

 seem essential to explain its structure correctly, especially 

 as such an explanation might have been made per- 

 fectly clear and extremely interesting to the least patient 

 eye. Again, if it was worth while to mention that the 

 Indian Pipe is "odd" it was surely worth while to explain 

 its oddity better than by saying it has a " frail, fleshy, 

 single flower." And defects of a more fundamental kind 

 are indicated by the fact that while Mr. Mathews devotes a 



chapter to Shrubs and Flowers Belonging to the Heath 

 Family he gives no slightest indication of why these 

 plants are grouped together in one family. Not interest 

 but discouragement, not a belief in the reasonableness 

 but a strong suspicion of the unmotived wilfulness of 

 scientific classifications, must be awakened in the novice 

 who is conducted from the Rhododendron and Mountain 

 Laurel to the Pipsissewa and the Indian Pipe without any 

 hint in regard to the basis of the classification which 

 brackets them together. 



Mr. Mathews's treatment of birds and insects may be left 

 for appraisement in other pages than these. But here a 

 word must be said about his point of view as regards 

 natural beauty. His remarks upon this subject are most 

 often in praise of a phase of art which he calls " impres- 

 sionism" and of the high intelligence of the "impressionist." 

 These terms are not explained. It is not even implied that 

 impressionism is a modern phase of art which, like all 

 others, may be attempted by foolish or feeble as well as by 

 capable artists. We are told, as the concluding lesson of 

 the book that "The impressionist has in his possession 

 the key to Nature's mysteries of color," and on another 

 page that "the commonest weed by the roadside becomes 

 one of the most beautiful things in the world when the 

 strength of its color is portrayed on the impressionist's 

 canvas." Surely, there were kings before Agamemnon ; 

 and as surely every one with a paint-box who calls him- 

 self Agamemnon does not deserve the name. Of course 

 Mr. Mathews knows this, but in a book for beginners it is 

 well to make such things plain ; and it is also well to give 

 some interpretation of terms not generally understood, and 

 not very concordantly defined even by those who think 

 they understand them. It is altogether a matter of specu- 

 lation what the author understands by the word aesthetic 

 as used in a sentence, describing the Joe-Pye Weed, which 

 runs : "This is rather an aspiring weed, which furnishes 

 the lowland landscape in summer with the most consum- 

 mately assthetic pink tone which it is possible to imagine. 

 (The Joe-Pye Weed, we may note, is more aspiring than 

 the limiting word "rather" would lead one to suspect, and 

 it grows in other localities as well as in the lowlands.) 

 Again, we are told that "the splendid color of the 

 October landscape is aesthetic" while "that of snakes, 

 butterflies, beetles, birds, and flowers is beautiful only 

 as far as it is brilliant, or pure, or variegated." Such 

 statements as this must confuse the beginner in the 

 art of appreciating beauty quite as much as Mr. Mathews's 

 lack of clearness in scientific definition must confuse 

 him with regard to the science of classification. Nor 

 can much that is inspiring be gathered from the de- 

 scriptions of an author who permits himself to speak of 

 the "even yellow " of the Sugar Maple in autumn and the 

 "sober scarlet " of the Red Maple; who mentions several 

 times the " neutral gray-buff of the road," not noting that 

 roads differ almost as much in color as green leaves ; who 

 has such curious ideas in regard to what may be called the 

 terminology of sizes that he describes the " tiny " blossoms 

 of the Yellow Hop Clover as "scarcely larger than one's 

 thumb nail " ; who says that the color of the Rhodora is 

 "too near the unpopular magenta to make it a favorite 

 with anybody but an enthusiastic poet," and on another 

 page declares that the immature fruit-clusters of the Dwarf 

 Blueberry " are of the most beautiful assthetic hues : green, 

 magenta, pink, purple and violet." The mention of the 

 Rhodora, by the way, offers an opportunity to illustrate 

 what we meant by saying that Mr. Mathews's geographical 

 indications may easily mislead. He remarks that the 

 Rhodora " is readily found in the vicinity of Concord and 

 Lexington, Massachusetts," and that "it is also seen in 

 cultivation in the Arnold Arboretum near Boston, and the 

 Harvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge." A beginner might 

 well be discouraged by these words from looking for the 

 Rhodora anywhere else ; and indications of this seemingly 

 exclusive kind are very frequent in Mr. Mathews's book. 



Some of his little drawings of plants are good; others, 



