198 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 325. 



of frost or heavy rain, and during- the day-time when it is cold 

 or partially cold. The plants must be shaded from the bright 

 sun until they are well established in the boxes or pots where 

 they have been placed. It is still the custom of many growers 

 to divide the old plants and set them out in single crowns 

 with plenty of roots attached, and fairly good returns can be 

 had on this plan. We have given it a trial for two years past, 

 and find that we have larger plants and smaller flowers of 

 poorer colors than w r hen runners are used. It should not be 

 the object of the grower to produce large clumps to lift in the 

 fall. A small plant with one good crown will give more flow- 

 ers and of finer quality in proportion to the ground it occu- 

 pies than a large one with several crowns. When the plants 

 are smaller there is less liability to injury from damp in the 

 heart of the plant, and that is a point of much importance 

 during the dark winter season. We usually plant out our run- 

 ners early in June, after the summer bedding is completed. 

 The ground should be thoroughly manured, and if a moist 

 location is to be had it is much better. The planting should 

 be done after a rainfall, and the balls of earth taken up should 

 be moist, and the plants themselves firmly set in the ground. 

 When the weather proves very dry during July or August it is 

 well to apply some light mulch to the plants, like grass sweep- 

 ings from the lawn or spent mushroom-beds, either of which 

 will answer well. If the " spot " shows itself on any variety at 

 planting time, it is well to isolate this from the other kinds, and if, 

 after planting, this dread disease continues.it must be attacked 

 in its early stages, or the plants will soon be past redemption. 

 For keeping the disease in check I have more faith in care- 

 fully picking off every affected part and keeping the roots 

 moist than in Bordeaux mixture or other poisons. 



Taunton, Mass. W. N. Craig. 



Correspondence. 

 The Beauty of Rural England. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — We Americans are so often, and perhaps so justly, cen- 

 sured for our disregard of the wonders of our vast conlinent, 

 and this indifference has been so often contrasted with the 

 Englishman's devotion to his little isle, that one is tempted 

 sometimes to look a little critically at the England of to-day 

 in order to discover the secret of the charm which it has for 

 those who visit her shores. It seems to be assumed that the 

 beauty of rural England, so perfect of its kind, that it is the 

 embodiment of the poet's dream, has been created by its 

 inhabitants in conscious obedience to the highest principles 

 of landscape-art. But may it not be that this beauty has been 

 slowly developed rather through obedience to that common- 

 place motive of self-interest, that natural desire to advance the 

 material welfare of his own country which at present impels 

 the American to convert his forests into timber, and to defile 

 his streams with the refuse of the factory ? 



Mr. Nadal, in a late number of The Century, speaks of Eng- 

 lish scenery as suitable to the luxury and comfort of English 

 country life. "It is appropriate," he says, "to the English 

 flesh-pots." And, coarse as the phrase may sound, it has in it 

 at least a germ of truth. The average Englishman dearly 

 loves the soil, and all that springs from the soil. He is near 

 to nature's heart in the literal rather than in the poetic sense. 

 He loves country life, takes pleasure in horses and dogs ; he 

 has an instinctive delight in the fresh air, green fields and 

 wide forests. This quality, rather physical than mental, he 

 does well to preserve, since it tends to promote both health- 

 fulness of body and serenity of mind. For his mental quali- 

 ties he has a love of order and method, which shows itself in 

 his square fields and close-clipped hedges. He delights in 

 the thought of the material prosperity represented by the 

 fields of waving grain and areas of rich woodland ; he loves 

 respectability and solidity. The sturdy Oak, with its wide- 

 spreading branches and majestic strength, is dearer to him 

 than the "immemorial Elms" with their commingling of 

 delicate strength and tender grace. This love of growing 

 things is universal, and naturally each individual strives to 

 surround himself with the things he loves. The lord of the 

 manor glories in his wide lawns and extensive parks. The 

 peasant rejoices in the little square of scarlet Geraniums 

 (always a square, with a circle of cobble-stones in the centre) 

 which bloom about his cottage-door. The city corporations care- 

 fully guard the square little playgrounds so plentifully scattered 

 throughout the thickly settled districts of the crowded city ; 

 while the window-boxes full of gay-colored flowers make glad 

 the eye of the beholder as h'e walks through the dingy streets. 



Time, too, has been the Englishman's ally in converting his 



little island into a bower "of beauty, for his father and his 

 father's father have had the same tastes, and he is too con- 

 servative by nature to destroy without good reason that which 

 has been consecrated by time. The genial climate, moist 

 and warm, scatters the wild flowers on every highway, and 

 even in the track of the plowshare, and covers the scarred 

 ruin with luxuriant ivy. In truth, nature clothes with such 

 tender beauty what man has sought to spoil that one is some- 

 times tempted to think that England is beautiful, not because 

 of its inhabitants, but in spite of them ; for the beauty of 

 England is unquestionably an inheritance of the past. The 

 present has little part in it ; and should the modern passion for 

 change there gain ground, its beauty is doomed to disappear, 

 for there is little innate love of beauty in the English race. 

 For centuries, agricultural interests were paramount, and in 

 their steady devotion to these interests this great people has 

 developed this special form of landscape-beauty. Now, 

 manufacturing interests are in the ascendant, and should this 

 same beauty stand in the way of their material prosperity, I 

 fear they would destroy it as ruthlessly as we are destroying 

 our primeval forests. 



Thirty years ago Ruskin perceived the danger that threat- 

 ened England, and in his own sad fashion raised his voice to 

 utter a warning note. He had been speaking of the forests of 

 mediaeval France. "Now you cannot," he added, "have 

 here in England woods eighteen miles deep to the centre, 

 but you can, perhaps, keep a fairy or two for your children 

 yet, if you wish to keep them ; but do you wish it ? Suppose 

 you had each at the back of your houses a garden large 

 enough for your children to play in, and with just so much 

 lawn as would give them room to run — no more, and that 

 you could not change your abode ; but that if you chose you 

 could double your income, or quadruple it, by digging a coal- 

 shaft in the middle of your lawn, and turning the flower-beds 

 into heaps of coke. Would you do it r I think not. I can tell 

 you you would be wrong if you did, though it gave you income 

 sixty-fold instead of four-fold. Yet this is what you are doing 

 with all England. The whole country is but a little garden, 

 not more than enough for your children to run on the lawns, 

 if you will let them all run there; and this little garden you 

 will turn into furnace ground, and fill with heaps of cinders, 

 if you can, and those children of yours will suffer for it, for 

 the fairies will not all be banished. There are fairies of the 

 furnace, as of the wood, and their first gifts seem to be sharp 

 arrows of the Mighty ; but their last gifts are coals of Juniper." 



But Ruskin, you will say, is a poet at heart, and therefore 

 unpractical ; but surely the London Times is sane enough. A 

 year ago it published an editorial, commenting on the Eng- 

 lishman's attitude toward the climate. Fifty years ago, it 

 said, when the interests of the nation were mainly agricul- 

 tural, and its prosperity mainly depended on the products of 

 the soil, fine weather invariably meant weather which was 

 best suited to the growing crops, and no one thought of 

 grumbling at the rain which nourished the ripening corn, or 

 dared openly rejoice in the prolonged sunshine which 

 withered its strength. Now, except in the immediate neigh- 

 borhood of a few market towns, fine weather invariably means 

 weather which most conduces to the enjoyment of the 

 individual. A change so marked in the temper of a people 

 is destined to have its effect sooner or later upon the face of 

 the land. One conservative force is worth noting : So long as 

 the American tourist spends his money royally in worshiping 

 the beauty which the thrift of his English ancestors has helped 

 to create, so long the same national thrift will help to preserve 

 the beauty. 



Orange, N. J. 



A. McC. Ha I lock. 



Earl}' Wild Flowers in West Virginia. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The patches of woodland in this neighborhood are 

 almost always on dry uplands. I do not know one marshy bit 

 of woods within a radius of six miles. Almost all of these 

 wood-lots are used at times for pasturage, and, as the trees 

 are mainly Oaks and Hickories, hogs are turned in in the fall 

 to feed upon the acorns and nuts that cover the ground. Cat- 

 tle roam at will up and down the country roads, which are 

 very tame and monotonous. There are no abandoned farms 

 here, and cultivation is so close that few trees are allowed to 

 remain in the fence- rows, and few bushes escape the browsing 

 and nibbling of cows and sheep. Thus our roadways, instead 

 of presenting a picturesque tangle of saplings and shrubbery, 

 are bare and shadeless, except where bordered by wood-lots. 

 The grass margins are kept closely cropped, and few flowers 

 escape destruction. 



