December 22, 1897. 



Garden and Forest. 



499 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Offich: 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 22, 1897. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article: — Landscape-gardening .. 499 



Notes on Cultivated Conifers. — XII C. S. S. 500 



Lilium parvum and L. parviflorum Carl Purely, 502 



New or Little-known Plants: — Prunus Davidiana. (With figure.) 503 



Calopogon pulcnel'us. (With figure.) HI. L. Dotk. 504 



Correspondence : — An Amateur's Experiment Robert Ridgway, 504 



Recent Publications 507 



Notes 508 



Illustrations : — Prunus Davidiana, Fig. 64 503 



Calopogon pulchellus, Fig. 65 505 



Landscape-gardening. 



PUBLIC attention has recently been directed in this city 

 to several enterprises seriously affecting the future of 

 the public parks. Among- them are the creation of the 

 Botanical Garden, the transference of the Zoological collec- 

 tion from Central Park to one of the newer pleasure- 

 grounds, the proposed erection of the Soldiers' and Sailors' 

 Memorial, and the alteration of the entrance to Central 

 Park at Eighth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street. In none of 

 these cases has the best course been pursued to secure the 

 best result. Either the advice of experts has not been asked 

 or it has been asked and not respected. 



The fact that in so many instances, happening within a 

 short space of time, mistaken efforts have been combatted, 

 but without full success, proves that we are awakening to 

 the truth that expert knowledge is required for the protec- 

 tion of our parks, but that we do not yet really appreciate 

 either its nature or its value. And this means that we do 

 not yet appreciate the individuality and the importance of 

 the art of landscape-gardening. 



More interest is felt in this art, both by the public and by 

 artists in other branches, than was felt a few years ago. 

 Yet the old idea that any person, ignorant of art but pos- 

 sessing a "feeling for nature," is competent to decide any 

 question with regard to a naturalistic pleasure-ground has 

 not yet died out. And, on the other hand, those who are 

 expert in artistic questions of some different kind do not 

 yet understand that, nevertheless, they may be incompetent 

 to deal with problems of naturalistic landscape-gardening. 



This branch of the art of gardening is of much more 

 importance to the American people than the branch which 

 concerns itself with the creation of formal pleasure-grounds. 

 Of course, the borders of the two branches overlap ; but 

 naturalistic ideals are those which, in the great majority of 

 cases, can best serve the needs of American communities. 

 Only in the narrow environment of city buildings, and in 

 the immediate vicinity of large and stately edifices which 

 stand in more open situations, are formal gardening 

 schemes demanded in this land and age. Vast formal 

 pleasure-grounds, such as were created around the palaces 

 of the Old World for the delectation of the frequenters of 

 luxurious courts, are inappropriate to the needs of modern 



times ; and this is especially true in our democratic coun- 

 try. Our parks, large and small, exist for the greatest good 

 of the greatest number ; and this good can best be secured 

 by making them, within the bounds laid down by art, as 

 much like Nature's landscapes as possible. Only in this 

 way can they fulfill the need of the populace for rest and 

 refreshment, and bring Nature's peaceful, soothing, inspir- 

 ing influences to bear upon the minds and bodies of those 

 who live and toil amid the noise and stress of modern civic 

 conditions ; and only thus can they be genuine and char- 

 acteristic works of American art, expressing the ideals and 

 the temper of American civilization. The question of rela- 

 tive beauty need not be discussed. It need not be inquired 

 which is more beautiful in itself, a great formal rich man's 

 pleasure-ground like the royal park at Versailles or a great 

 popular pleasure-ground like Prospect Park in Brooklyn, 

 for it is certain that a popular pleasure-ground is the one 

 which American tastes and practical needs require. 



Probably no one will deny these assertions. The disputes 

 which constantly arise in respect to our parks spring merely 

 from disagreements in regard to what bounds art lays 

 down for their treatment. But here the divergence is wide. 

 The average citizen seems to think that, as a public park 

 is for the public good, anything and everything which any 

 section of the public desires ought to be provided within 

 its borders. The average 'lover of Nature" believes that 

 Nature herself has set the bounds and prescribed the scheme 

 for its beauty ; that the artist should blindly respect every- 

 thing she has created on the given site or, introducing 

 needful work of his own, should make it as deceptively 

 natural-looking as possible ; and that, once his park is 

 ready for use, Nature alone should care for its vegetation ; 

 and the average architect believes that a naturalistic park 

 is a concession to the taste, or lack of taste, of our inartistic 

 time ; that it should, therefore, be made as little naturalistic 

 as possible ; that it should contain as many formal passages 

 and ornamental structures as can be compassed, and that 

 these should be considered of primary importance. 



But widely apart as these extremists stand, their miscon- 

 ceptions are based upon the same error. Neither of them 

 perceives that naturalistic gardening is in itself a true and 

 noble art, an independent art, with special ideals and laws 

 and boundary lines which cannot be well understood except 

 by those who have given them special and sympathetic 

 study. 



In these pages an effort has more than once been made 

 to explain, as well as brief words could do it, the aims and 

 expedients of this branch of gardening-art, which was born, 

 at the close of the Renaissance period, with the birth of 

 modern civilization, and has perhaps received its fullest and 

 finest expression in this country. Such an effort cannot be 

 repeated now. To-day we merely wish once more to call 

 attention to the dignity, the individuality and the essen- 

 tially American character of the art of landscape-gardening, 

 and to warn our people once more not to allow themselves 

 to forget the need of experts to guard as well as to create 

 their parks, and not to mistake the meaning of the word 

 expert. A man is not necessarily an expert in park matters 

 if he accepts the office of park commissioner, or if he is 

 a practiced botanist or horticulturist or engineer, or if he 

 is a passionate lover of Nature, or if he has taste and 

 experience in artistic works of other kinds, fie is an expert 

 in park matters only if, with inborn artistic taste and an 

 understanding of the needs of our people to help him, he 

 has thoroughly studied landscape gardening itself and its 

 application to American conditions. The engineer may 

 have a portion of the needful wisdom, and so may the 

 architect, the botanist, the horticulturist, and the business 

 man familiar with large financial undertakings. Hut not 

 either one of them nor all of them together can have the 

 power to design a naturalistic p ground well or to 



maintain it properly. 



Different dangers have threatened American parks at 

 different times ; just now in this city, at least, they seem 

 to be specially threatened by the danger that the architect 



