May 9, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



181 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY g, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles:— A Botanic Garden for New York 1S1 



Architecture in America 181 



American Apple Exports M, B. C. 1S2 



Foreign Correspondence :— London Letter IV. Watson. 183 



New or Little-known Plants :— Prunus orthosepala. (With figure.). .. C. S. S. 1S4 



Plant Notes -.—Begonia Gloire de Sceaux. (With figure.) 185 



Cultural Department :— How Not to Judge an Apple T. H. Hoshins, M.D. 1S5 



The Rock-garden T. D. Hatfield. 1 85 



Spring Flowers J. N. Gerard. 1S6 



Retarding Plant Growth by Means of Low Temperature. .£. G. Lodeman. 186 



The Chinese Quince '. Danske Dandridge. 187 



The Onion Maggot E. O. Orpet. 187 



The White Grape Currant E. P. Powell. 188 



Correspondence -.—Measurements of White Pine B. E. Fernow. 1S8 



The Flavor of Maple-syrup Professor C. S. Plumb. 1S8 



Irrigation in the Garden F. D. Willis. 1S8 



Recent Publications 1S8 



Meetings of Societies :— Fruit-growing in Florida 189 



Notes lS 9 



Illustrations :— Begonia Gloire de Sceaux, Fig. 33 185 



Prunus orthosepala. Fig. 34 1S7 



A Botanic Garden for New York. 



THE Legislature of this state which has just adjourned 

 added certain amendments to an act incorporating 

 the New York Botanical Garden in 1891, and the men inter- 

 ested in this project are now able to go forward and provide 

 for the establishment and maintenance of what is called in 

 the act " a botanical garden and museum and arboretum for 

 the collection and culture of plants, flowers, shrubs and 

 trees ; for the advancement of botanical science and knowl- 

 edge, and the prosecution of original researches in these 

 and in kindred subjects ; for the prosecution and exhibi- 

 tion of ornamental and decorative horticulture and garden- 

 ing, and for the entertainment, recreation and instruction 

 of the people." The garden is to occupy grounds not ex- 

 ceeding 250 acres, either in Bronx Park or in such other 

 of the public parks north of the Harlem River as may 

 be agreed upon by the Park Board of the city and the 

 Board of Managers of the Botanical Garden. 



The work of constructing and governing this institu- 

 tion is ordered somewhat on the plan adopted in the case 

 of the Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Art — 

 that is, after the corporation have raised not less than 

 $250,000 for carrying out the objects of the enterprise, the 

 city is to provide grounds and furnish suitable buildings 

 according to plans approved by the Trustees of the garden. 

 For police purposes and for the maintenance of roads and 

 walks, the grounds shall be subject to the Park Board, but 

 for other purposes the buildings and grounds shall be under 

 the control of the Trustees, who shall make such restrictions 

 and regulations as to the cultivation and preservation of 

 ■ the garden as may be required. Four members of the 

 Faculty of Columbia College, the President of the Torrey 

 Botanical Club, the President of the Board of Education in 

 this city, and certain other members who may be added 

 by a majority vote of this Board, shall be known as scien- 

 tific directors, and shall have power to appoint a director- 

 in-chief, and shall be responsible for the scientific conduct 

 of the institution, while the financial and business man- 

 agement of the corporation is subject to the control of a 

 larger board, consisting of the scientific directors, the 



Mayor of the city of New York and the President of the 

 Park Board, and nine other members elected by the corpo- 

 ration. 



Of course, $250,000 is a sum altogether inadequate to 

 establish or to conduct a botanical garden worthy to be 

 named with the garden at Kew, for example. To design 

 and plant an arboretum with accompanying shrubberies, 

 to establish and maintain collections of hardy herbs of all 

 sorts from alpine plants to aquatics, to fill glass houses with 

 representatives of the flora of the tropics, and in the mean 

 time to develop a museum, a library, and, most of all, a 

 comprehensive herbarium, will require a great deal of 

 money, even when it is administered with the utmost 

 economy. This is by no means an insurmountable difficulty, 

 however, for there are New York merchants and bankers 

 whose names are synonyms for public spirit, and if the gar- 

 den once shows itself to be worthy of the metropolis of the 

 New World, its support will be assured. Whether it will 

 ever become an institution of that rank depends primarily 

 upon the quality of the man who takes it in charge and 

 leaves upon it the imprint of his ideas and character. The 

 library and the museum and the herbarium at Kew have 

 grown to their unrivaled size and value because when Sir 

 William Hooker was invited to manage it all the world 

 knew that its scientific character was assured, and it at- 

 tracted gifts from all sides. The spirit and temper of its 

 early management were continued during the rule of the 

 second Hooker and still prevail under the present director, 

 until the atmosphere of the place, its traditions and tenden- 

 cies all help to make it easier in the future to keep on the 

 highway of progress. 



We may hardly hope to secure a man with such a world- 

 wide repute as a botanist as the first director of Kew, but 

 we ought to have one with the same consuming zeal, with 

 equal industry, with a scientific habit, and an integrity of 

 character which inspires the confidence of all naturalists. 

 There will be innumerable temptations and difficulties in 

 the way of proper management. The director will be as- 

 sailed with clamor to make it a pretty flower-garden at all 

 hazards ; he will be criticised because results are not pro- 

 duced immediately which it takes the labors of years to 

 perfect. Unless the city government becomes regenerated 

 politically, the power and influence of the city officials in 

 the Board will be dangerous, and will tend to cripple the 

 action of the director in a hundred ways. The hope of the 

 garden is that some young man may be found who is will- 

 ing to endure hardship for a time; who understands that 

 an herbarium and a library are of more importance than a 

 flower-show ; who has a scientific conscience and execu- 

 tive force, and who holds an unwavering purpose and is 

 willing to wait for the fruit of his labors. If the garden be- 

 comes what it should be it will cost more than money ; it 

 will cost patience, self-sacrifice, and, it may be, practical 

 martyrdom for an idea. We do not say these things to 

 discourage, but simply in the hope of bringing its pro- 

 jectors to a thorough realization of the fact that the enter- 

 prise which they have undertaken is a most serious and 

 complicated one. Its development, if healthy, must be 

 slow and expensive, and unless they thoroughly under- 

 stand these things before they begin they will be likely to 

 grow weary and discouraged, because success will seem so 

 far away, even after they have done their very best. 



Referring to the belief usually cherished in England 

 that the American is a very prosaic, merely money- 

 hunting creature, an English writer recently said in the 

 pages of All the Year Round that, as a corrective for this 

 belief, he would especially recommend an examination of 

 "the American House Beautiful," in the honest conviction 

 that no absolutely prosaic mind could find pleasure in 

 beautiful surroundings. The writer continues : 



We Englishmen are proud, and justly so, of the stately and 

 the cottage homes of our land. There is nothing like them 

 elsewhere in the world, for they possess peculiar features of 

 their own — the former in their antiquity and their associations 



