November 17, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



449 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargknt. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1897. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles : — Wodenethe 449 



The Forests and Water Supply of the White Mountain Region 450 



Notes on Cultivated Conifers. — VII C. S. S. 450 



Horticultural Tombstones Professor Fred W. Card 453 



New or Little-known Plants: — Hypericum lobocarpum. (With figure.) 452 



Cultural Department : — Chrysanthemum Novelties of 1S97 — Wilkelm Miller. 454 



Nsegelias W. E. Emlicott. 454 



Honor Bright Tomato Will. IV. Tracy. 455 



Correspondence : — Contrasts in an Old Garden D. H. R. Goodale. 455 



Experiences in Fertilizing Potted Plants with Wagner's Solution, 



Professor IV. E. Britton. 456 

 The Forest : — Are the Trees Receding from the Nebraska Plains? 



Professor Charles E. Bessey. 456 



Exhibitions: — Chrysanthemums in Philadelphia 457 



Notes 450 



Illustration : — Hypericum lobocarpum. Fig. 57 453 



Wodenethe. 



THIRTY years ago Wodenethe was a name well known 

 to all Americans who loved gardens or were inter- 

 ested in the progress of American horticulture. Its history- 

 dates from 1840, when Mr. Henry Winthrop Sargent, a man 

 of wealth and leisure, bought a country house on a plateau 

 covered with White Oaks, Hickories and flowering Dog- 

 woods on the east bank and somewhat above the Hudson 

 River, nearly opposite the city of Newburg, and inspired 

 and instructed by his neighbor, A. J. Downing, then at the 

 height of his brilliant career, began to lay out a garden. 

 This soon became distinguished in the art which height- 

 ened the natural beauties of the spot and the distant views 

 obtained from it, and in its collections of exotic trees, espe- 

 cially of conifers, in which Mr. Sargent became deeply 

 interested. To the late editions of Downing's Theory and 

 Practice of Landscape-gardening — a work still without a 

 rival in the English language — Mr. Sargent added a sup- 

 plement in which is described the making of Wodenethe 

 and the horticultural value and prospects of many of the 

 trees which were first tested there in the United States. 

 Mr. Sargent died fifteen years ago, but loving hands have 

 preserved and increased the beauties of Wodenethe, which 

 is still unsurpassed in its broad and lovely vistas, on the one 

 hand stretching across the Hudson teaming with com- 

 merce to the hazy outlines of distant hills, and on the other 

 to the nearer and bolder slopes and crags of the Fishkill 

 Mountains. 



Wodenethe, however, is no longer a trial ground for new 

 trees. The limits of the usefulness of its twenty-two acres 

 for work of this sort were reached many years ago, but the 

 lessons which it can teach to-day are more valuable, perhaps, 

 than at any previous time in its history, for at Wodenethe 

 it is now possible to form a good idea of the true ability of 

 many exotic trees to flourish in the northern and middle 

 states. The hot dry summers and cold winters of the 

 Hudson River Valley, the hungry soil, strongly impreg- 

 nated with lime, and excessive overcrowding, sooner or 

 later have destroyed most of the trees planted at Wode- 

 nethe, but some remain, and a brief mention of the most 

 important may prove instructive to those who would plant 

 exotic trees for the benefit of posterity. 



To begin with the conifers, for in these Mr. Sargent was 

 chiefly interested, Pinus Strobus, the White Pine of our 

 eastern forests, easily surpasses its companions in height 

 and in beauty of stem and crown, although the European 

 Larch has grown nearly as tall and is in equally good 

 health. Of many Norway Spruces only one is in presenta- 

 ble condition, and this begins to show that thinness of top 

 which in this tree is a sure indication of decrepitude. The 

 Oriental Spruce (Picea orientalis), although much younger 

 and smaller than its European relative, is still vigorous and 

 healthy, confirming the now generally accepted belief in 

 the permanent value of this fine tree in our climate. 



Of the Abies which have grown to a large size the most 

 conspicuous and best preserved is the European Abies 

 pectinata, represented by a good specimen fully seventy 

 feet in height. A specimen of Abies Cephalonica, although 

 badly crowded by its neighbors in a border plantation, 

 shows that this tree is not only hardy in this climate, but 

 may retain its beauty longer than many of the other Silver 

 Firs The Caucasian Abies Nordmanniana appears in 

 several specimens from forty to fifty feet in height still 

 densely clothed with branches and perfect in form and 

 color. The west American Abies concolor is represented 

 by a number of specimens which display several of the 

 different forms of this tree. The largest individuals, which 

 are from forty to fifty feet in height, have already passed 

 the period of their greatest beauty and are thin in foliage 

 and rather unhappy in appearance. Smaller plants, includ- 

 ing the dark-leaved California form, known in England 

 as Abies Lowiana, are still perfect. Abies nobilis has 

 grown slowly and not very luxuriantly ; appearing to be 

 hardy, it gives little promise of attaining a large size. 



The Scotch Pines have disappeared, but a single Austrian 

 Pine, which, judging by its size, must have been one of the 

 first trees planted by Mr. Sargent, has escaped the ordinary 

 fate of this tree in the United States and is still in good 

 health. The remarkable specimen of Pinus ponderosa 

 with pendant branches (see Garden and Forest, vol. i. , 

 p. S9 2 j f- 62) has suffered from the attacks of the fungus 

 which generally prevents the successful cultivation of this 

 tree in the eastern states, and is reduced to a few sparse 

 branches at the top of a naked stem, while a smaller speci- 

 men of an ordinary long-leaved form of this Pine, about 

 thirty years planted, begins to fail in the upper branches. 

 There is no other California Pine left in the collection, nor 

 any Asiatic representative of the genus, although most of 

 the Californian and many of the Indian and Japanese 

 species were planted by Mr. Sargent. 



A good blue-leaved specimen of Picea pungens, raised 

 from Dr. Parry's seeds collected in Colorado in 1862, is still 

 in excellent condition and does not show yet the unfortu- 

 nate tendency of this tree to lose its lowest branches. 

 Two specimens of the Cedar of Lebanon, showing in 

 stunted and contorted stems the evidences of a long 

 struggle against adverse conditions, have now com- 

 menced to grow upward, and seem destined to long life. 

 Cupressus Lavvsoniana appears in two or three healthy, 

 handsome plants. Retinosporas, on the whole, have done 

 well, although the summer climate at Wodenethe is too 

 dry for them, and there are in the collection a number of 

 good plants of R. filifera and of R. pisifera aurea. Many 

 specimens of Biota in different forms show the power of 

 the Chinese Arbor-vita? to adapt itself to our climate ; and 

 small plants of Sciadopitys and of Tsuga Sieboldii, from 

 twenty to twenty-five years old, testify to the hardiness of 

 these Japanese trees in this climate. Of the hundreds or 

 perhaps thousands of conifers planted by Mr. Sargent dur- 

 ing the years of his greatest activity, when he ransacked 

 every nursery in Europe for species and abnormal forms, 

 those which we have mentioned are now the only ones 

 which are conspicuous for their size and health} 7 condition. 



The Yew family has, on the whole, done better at Wode- 

 nethe than the true conifers. A Ginkgo just beginning to 

 emerge from its juvenile form promises to become a long- 

 lived and large tree. The European Yew seems entirely 



