May 2, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



171 



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, MAY 2, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Article:— The Spring Garden 171 



Forest-fires — How to Stop i'hem H. B. Ayrrs. 172 



Notes of Mexican Travel : San Marcos and the Volcano of Coiima. — IX. 



(With figure.) C. G. Pringle. 172 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter W. Watson. 174 



Cultural Department :— Spring Flowers J. N. Gerard. 1 76 



Tulips E. £>< Orfiet. 176 



Notes from Baden-Baden Max Leichtlip. 176 



Chrysanthemums T. D. Haf field. 177 



Caladiums E. O. Orpet. 177 



Double-flowered Nelumbiums E. D. Sturte-z'ant. 177 



The Vegetable-garden IV. N. Craig. 17S 



Correspondence: — Notes from North Carolina Professor IV. F. Massey. 178 



Notes from a Missouri Garden Lora S. La Mance. 179 



Sechium edule Walter iV, I'ifce. 179 



Recent Publications 179 



Notes 180 



Illustration : — Tephrosia macrantha, Fig. 32 175 



The Spring Garden. 



A CORRESPONDENT writes that our leader on this 

 subject, published three weeks ago, has strength- 

 ened his purpose, already formed, to make a more elabo- 

 rate preparation for early flowers in years to come, and he 

 asks for assistance in the way of more detailed instruction. 

 If we are to infer from this request that our correspondent 

 wants a definite plan for planting, we shall be compelled 

 to disappoint him. Plans cannot be cut like ready-made 

 garments and kept in assorted sizes that are guaranteed to 

 fit any piece of land. One who designs a garden must not 

 only know the shape and contour of the place, but he 

 must know what is beyond its boundaries, what ought to 

 be planted out of sight and what prospects can be made 

 more pleasing by an appropriate frame of foliage and fore- 

 ground treatment. No one can give even a satisfactory 

 list of plants for any place unless he knows particu- 

 lars as to its soil, drainage and general aspect. Occa- 

 sionally some plan of an imaginary place will contain 

 points of suggestion which may help to solve one of the 

 hundred problems which are always encountered in such 

 work, but a plan for a paper lot — that is, for a mere outline 

 map of given shape, with no indication as to the character 

 of its surface or surroundings — is worth nothing. A plan 

 must be adapted to special features if it illustrates any prin- 

 ciple which is of general application. The artist who marks 

 out an acre and then fills it in so that it will look neat and 

 trim on the map gives nothing of value. The designer who 

 makes a good planting plan of a real acre, and explains why 

 he places each shrub and tree and herb in a given situation 

 to meet the special requirements of that particular place, 

 will furnish nothing which can be absolutely reproduced 

 anywhere else, because every attempt at servile imitation 

 will be worse than a parody on a good original ; but he 

 will at least show the kind of problems which must be solved, 

 and he can give some idea of the way in which a genuine 

 artist attacks his work. We gave, in the article alluded to 

 at the outset, in a very general way, the strong features of 

 one effective garden, but we did not expect that it would 

 serve any better purpose than to furnish some one a hint 



which might help him in studying his own particular 

 place. 



In a spring garden of any size early-flowering shrubs are 

 indispensable. But here again a mere catalogue of those 

 which bloom in April and May, for example, is really worth 

 little. What the planter needs to know is not only that 

 they flower at a given time, but how large they grow, what 

 shape they assume, whether their branches strive upward, 

 spread out broadly, or arch to the turf. He must be 

 familiar with the character of their foliage, to know how they 

 will compose with other shrubs ; he must know whether 

 they will thrive in partial shade, whether they will need 

 full sunlight, and a hundred other things which can only 

 be acquired by long personal acquaintance. There is 

 hardly a shrub in cultivation which has not been carefully 

 described in Garden and Forest, and many of them have 

 been figured. Their relative value and their use for partic- 

 ular purposes and positions have been carefully set forth, 

 and if we should repeat here what we have already 

 written about them this article would expand into a large 

 volume. 



The same may be said, in a general way, of spring-flower- 

 ing herbaceous plants, so that a detailed description of them 

 and their cultivation would be practically a treatise on the en- 

 tire art of gardening. Of course, this is not written for the 

 purpose of discouraging any one. We only mean to say 

 that gardening, at its best, is one of the fine arts ; no rule 

 of thumb for designing and planting even a small place can 

 be laid down. The real fascination of gardening arises 

 from this truth. ' Any one who begins to study the subject 

 will find it constantly opening new avenues of interest in 

 which 'are found perennial pleasures. These pleasures are 

 fresh every day, and the delights of watching and waiting 

 and hoping will prove quite as refined and absorbing as 

 those which the planter will enjoy in the ultimate realization 

 of his best work, and the flowering of his plants will be only 

 the culmination of a pleasure that he has felt for months 

 in anticipation as he has watched the growth of his shrub- 

 bery and the development of his seedlings. 



Of course, flowers which delight us in the spring all 

 make their preparation for blooming a year before. The buds 

 on the early-flowering Heaths and Daphnes, Cornelian Cher- 

 ries and Andromedas, Honeysuckles and Spirasas, Prim- 

 roses and Lilacs, Kalmias and Rhododendrons, are all 

 formed during the summer, and are carried through the 

 winter wrapped up in warm coverings to open the next year. 

 Herbaceous plants store up food in fleshy roots, corms, 

 bulbs and tubers ready to be transformed into beautiful 

 flowers under the genial conditions of the following spring. 

 It is none too early, therefore, to begin preparation for a 

 spring garden now. If the work is intelligently prosecuted 

 a very admirable result can be made for next year, but 

 many things will become better with age, and the garden 

 will grow more beautiful with each succeeding year. Many 

 hardy plants can be raised from seed, as, for example, Ice- 

 land Poppies, Aquilegias, Spring Adonis, Primulas, Aubrie- 

 tias, Rock Cress, Larkspur, Daisies (Bellis), Candytuft and 

 Lupin. These will require constant care, but where one 

 has a good gardener, or is prepared to give personal atten- 

 tion to them, much pleasure and instruction is to be had 

 from watching their growth. And yet, where only a few 

 of these are needed, time and labor will be economized by 

 buying a few of the plants now or in the fall. The seeds 

 of some perennials germinate so slowly, and they need so 

 much special attention, that beginners would do well to 

 get the plants or bulbs. Our dealers in hardy plants have 

 of late years offered these in great abundance and variety, 

 and the most beautiful and effective ones can all be had at 

 reasonable prices. One who knows where Blood-root, 

 Dog-tooth Violets, Houstonia, Cypripediums, Mertensia, or 

 Solomon's Seal, are growing wild, can easily collect a sup- 

 ply of any of these and of other plants from their natural 

 haunts, the best time for lifting usually being .after the 

 foliage has begun to brown. 



So great a proportion of early-flowering herbaceous 



