December 15, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



489 



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. DECEMBER 15, 1897. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles: — Park-making 4S9 



Protection of the National Forests 490 



Notes on Cultivated Conifers. — XI. (With figures ) C. S. S. 490 



The Cultivation of Citrus-fruits in California William M. Tisdale. 491 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter IV. Watson. 493 



Cultural Department : — New Vegetables Will W. Tracy. 495 



Amaryllis T. D. Hatfield. 495 



More Orchid-flowering Cannas Professor F. A. Waugh. 496 



Correspondence: — Ideals of Horticultural Instruction J'.A. Clark. 496 



Chrysanthemums in Boston. T. D. Hatfield. 496 



The Forest : — Willows at Chico Forestry Station Cliarles H. Shinn. 497 



Recent Publications 497 



Notes 498 



Illustrations: — Tsuga Araragi, Fig. 62 492 



Tsuga diversifolia, Fig. 63 493 



Park-making. 



THOSE who make public parks are apt to attempt 

 too much and to injure not only the beauty, but the 

 practical value of their creations by loading them with 

 unnecessary and costly details. From the time when 

 landscape-gardening was first practiced as a fine art to the 

 present day, park-makers have been ambitious to change 

 the face of Nature — to dig lakes where lakes did not exist 

 and to fill up lakes where they did exist, to cut down 

 natural hills and to raise artificial ones, to plant in one 

 place and to clear in another, and generally to spend 

 money in construction entirely out of proportion to the 

 value of the results obtained. 



The best art is simple in its expression, and the highest 

 form of art in gardening is perhaps that which, talcing 

 advantage of such natural conditions as it finds, makes 

 the best of them with the smallest expenditure of labor and 

 money. Simplicity of design means not only economy of 

 construction, but, what is of even more importance, 

 economy of maintenance. The importance of making it 

 possible to keep a great park in good condition without 

 excessive annual expenditures for maintenance is a simple 

 business proposition which would not seem to require 

 much demonstration. Yet park-makers, with their un- 

 necessary walks and drives, with their expensive buildings 

 which are always getting out of repair ; their ponds, in 

 which there is rarely water enough to keep them fresh ; their 

 brooks, which are frequently dry ; their elaborate planting 

 schemes often ill-suited to the positions where they are 

 wanted, make parks expensive to construct and impossible 

 to maintain in good condition, especially in this country, 

 where the cost of labor is heavy and there is difficulty in 

 obtaining under existing municipal methods skilled and 

 faithful gardeners to keep anything like an elaborate garden 

 in good condition. The most superficial examination of 

 any of our large urban parks will show that wherever 

 elaborate construction and planting have been attempted 

 they have failed from subsequent neglect to produce the 

 effects expected from them, and that broad, quiet, pastoral 

 and sylvan features are the only permanent and really 

 valuable ones we can hope to attain in our great city parks. 



It is needless, perhaps, to repeat what has been said so 

 often in the columns of this journal, that, in our judgment, 

 the greatest value and only justification of great urban 

 parks exist in the fact that they can bring the coun- 

 try into the city and give to people who are obliged 

 to pass their lives in cities the opportunity to enjoy the 

 refreshment of mind and body which can only be found in 

 communion with Nature and the contemplation of beautiful 

 natural objects harmoniously arranged. Parks have other 

 and very important uses, but this is their highest claim to 

 recognition. If it is the highest duty of the park-maker to 

 bring the country into the city, every road and every walk 

 not absolutely needed to make the points of greatest in- 

 terest and beauty easily accessible is an injury to his 

 scheme, and every building and unnecessary construction 

 of every kind reduces the value of his creation, as do trees 

 and shrubs and other flowering plants which are out of 

 harmony with their surroundings. Such things injure the 

 artistic value of a park ; they unnecessarily increase its 

 cost and make the burden of annual maintenance more 

 difficult to bear. Simplicity of design often means a saving 

 of unnecessary expenditure, but it should not mean cheap- 

 ness of construction. The most expensive parks to maintain 

 are those which have been the most cheaply constructed, 

 for cheap construction means expensive maintenance. 

 Roads and walks should not be made where they are not 

 needed, and they should not be made unnecessarily wide 

 to accommodate possible crowds of another century, but 

 those that are built should be constructed in the most 

 thorough and durable manner possible in order to reduce 

 the cost of future care. When lawns are made the work- 

 should be done thoroughly ; and no tree or shrub should be 

 planted in any manner but the best and in the most care- 

 fully prepared soil. Only as little work as possible should 

 be done, but it should be done in the most permanent 

 manner. The best investment a park-maker can make is 

 in good soil, for without an abundance of good soil it is 

 impossible to produce large and permanent trees and good 

 grass, and the chief value of any park is in its trees and 

 grass ; and if the money which has been spent in disfigur- 

 ing American parks with unnecessary buildings and mis- 

 cellaneous architectural terrors had been used in buying 

 loam, they would not now present the dreary ranks of 

 starved and stunted trees and the great patches of worn- 

 out turf which too often disfigure them. Only the hardiest 

 trees and shrubs should be used in park-planting, for there 

 is no economy in planting trees or shrubs which are liable 

 to be killed any year, partially if not entirely by frost or 

 heat or drought, which annually ruin many exotic garden 

 plants, nor is it wise to use in public parks plants which, 

 unless carefully watched, are disfigured every year by 

 insects. It costs a great deal of money to cut out dead and 

 dying branches from trees and shrubs, to remove dead 

 trees and fight insects, but work of this sort must be done, 

 unless the selection of plants used to decorate our parks is 

 made with the greatest care. Fortunately, the trees and 

 shrubs which need the least attention, and are therefore the 

 most economical ones to plant, are the best from an artistic 

 point of view; and to produce large effects and such 

 scenery as painters like to transfer to canvas, no great 

 variety of material is needed. The most restful park 

 scenery, and, therefore, the best can be obtained by using 

 judiciously a small number of varieties of the hardiest trees 

 and shrubs, and the wise park-maker will confine his choice 

 to those species which Nature helps him to select, and 

 which, therefore, stand the best chance of permanent suc- 

 cess. No park can be beautiful unless the trees which 

 adorn it are healthy, and no tree is healthy which suffers 

 from uncongenial climatic conditions and insufficient nour- 

 ishment. Even if they are not inharmonious in a natural 

 combination, the trees and shrubs which need constant 

 pruning to keep them from looking shabby are too expen- 

 sive for park use and should, therefore, be rejected when 

 broad natural effects in construction and economy of main- 

 tenance are aimed for by the park-maker. 



