June 6, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



221 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New Yokk. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— Playgrounds and Parks 221 



Indemnity for Mutilated Trees 222 



Some Old Town-yards HI. L. Duck. 222 



Botanical Notes from Texas. —XIX E.N. Plank. 222 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter IV. Watson. 223 



Plant Notbs :— Pyrus betulifolia. (With figure.) C. S. S. 224 



Cultural Department : — Notes on Trees and Shrubs J. G. Jack. 226 



Seasonable Garden Flowers E. O. Orjict. 226 



Plants in Flower J.N. Gerard. 227 



Raising Ferns from Spores W.Scott. 227 



The Cultivation of Roses II'. II Taplin. 227 



Correspondence: — A California Garden. . . Charles It. Shinn. 2^8 



The Forest:— Mixed Oak and Beech Forests of ihe Spessarh— II. ..D. Brandts. 2=8 



Notes 2j° 



Illustration:— Pyrus betulifolia, Fig. 39 225 



Playgrounds and Parks. 



CITY officer in Philadelphia is quoted as having re- 

 cently said, in some public manner, " It would be 

 better to have more playgrounds for growing boys and 

 girls and fewer ornamental parks. The city owns the old 

 Athletic Baseball Ground, and all we have done to it is to 

 erect a fence around it and cut two diagonal paths across 

 it. It is spacious, and makes an admirable playground. 

 Here the boys and girls roll their hoops, play ball and en- 

 gage in all sorts of harmless and healthful pastimes, and 

 the people living in the vicinity think it is one of the best 

 features of that section of the city. It would, in my judg- 

 ment, be a first-rate idea to establish places like this in all 

 parts of the city. They do not cost anything like so much 

 as public parks or squares, and they are of more use." 



In citing these ideas, the Evening Post, of this city, re- 

 marks that they might well "be acted upon also in other 

 cities " ; and we have no doubt that, if read without reflec- 

 tion, they may seem sensible to many well-meaning men 

 and women. But it is always an unfortunate mode of argu- 

 ment to exalt one useful thing by depreciating another, and 

 its employment in this case proves a fact upon which we 

 have commented before. It proves that, while our people 

 recognize the utility of those types of public grounds which 

 are called "ornamental," they do not rate this utility at its 

 proper value, or really understand those human needs, 

 urban conditions and natural facts upon which it is 

 chiefly based. As a rule, they think that small ornamental 

 public grounds are useful as increasing the city's beauty, 

 helping to purify its atmosphere and giving people a chance 

 to sit down when they are tired. They look upon Central 

 Park simply as a place where rich people may drive to 

 "take the air" and see their friends ; where exercise on foot 

 or in the saddle may be had ; where poor people may es- 

 cape from the confinement of stuffy shops and homes, and 

 where special places for special kinds of " recreation " may 

 be provided. But in thinking thus (hey miss that real 

 meaning of the word recreation which appears if it is writ- 

 ten re-creation. No mere playground can serve the purpose 

 of recreation in this truer, broader sense — the purpose of 



refreshment, of renewal of life and strength for body and 

 soul alike. 



The truest value of public pleasure-grounds for large 

 cities is in the rest they give to eyes and mind, to heart and 

 soul, through the soothing charm, the fresh and inspiring 

 influence, the impersonal, unexciting pleasure which noth- 

 ing but the works of Nature offer to man. A single fine 

 tree, a small patch of green grass, a house-front gracefully 

 draped with vines can exert this influence in a humble 

 degree. A larger association of trees and grass and flow- 

 ers, even if inartistically disposed, can exert it more pow- 

 erfully upon eyes which, through long-continued denials, 

 have ceased to be captious with regard to natural beauty. 

 But when Art comes to Nature's help, in those urban places 

 where Nature by herself is powerless to produce real 

 beauty, then only is the full result attained ; for then only 

 are the charms of individual objects so disposed that they 

 can have their full effect upon eye and mind. 



Not much art was shown, for instance, when Bryant 

 Park, in this city, was laid out. It consists chiefly of 

 small stretches of turf and of rows of Silver Maples mo- 

 notonously disposed. Nevertheless, if we could not have 

 this park just where it lies and, in addition, have an open 

 unshaded expanse prepared especially for children's active 

 sports, we are better off with this park alone than with the 

 playground alone. Some latitude for children's sports it 

 affords ; hundreds of babies, accompanied by tired women 

 or children, daily sleep or prattle beneath its trees — babies 

 who need fresh air and sunshine quite as much as their 

 elder sisters and brothers, and are not provided for at all 

 in a typical playground. And to every class of adults, in 

 search of a refreshing hour, it offers cheering hos- 

 pitality, while a mere glimpse of its greenness is a distinct 

 refreshment to the thousands of weary toilers who daily 

 pass it on the elevated railroad. 



Madison Square is a prettier place than this — a more dis- 

 tinctly ornamental pleasure-ground. Look at itjustnow, at 

 any hour of the day, filled in every corner with people 

 who could not use an actual playground, and see whether 

 you think any spot on earth can be more useful. Peo- 

 ple sometimes say that Washington Square is simply a 

 resort for tramps. This is an exaggeration ; for, lying 

 close to some of the most crowded and reeking streets of 

 the city, it attracts numbers of very poor people who may be 

 unemployed for the time, but are not tramps in the oppro- 

 brious sense of the word. Moreover, any place which 

 keeps even professional vagabonds from the crowded 

 streets and bar-rooms is of distinct benefit to them and to 

 the city as a whole. Jeanette Park is another place whose 

 orderly plantations and bright flowers we may think of 

 wider and deeper utility than, in such a locality, even a 

 children's playground would be. 



The beauty of all such spots is their most valuable ele- 

 ment. Fresh air and sunshine and shade are precious in 

 themselves, merely through their direct effects upon the 

 body. But they are doubly precious when that sense of 

 beauty is appealed to which is innate in every human soul, 

 even in those that are most deeply degraded and are least 

 definitely conscious of its possession. City children, 

 deprived of the pleasure which natural beauty can give, 

 are grievously defrauded of their rights, no matter how 

 many spacious but barren playgrounds may be provided 

 for them. Nor should the value of ornamental parks 

 simply as additions to the city's beauty be underrated; for 

 anything which adds to the attachment that child or adult 

 feels for his place of residence tends to make him a better 

 citizen. Parisians are notoriously more passionately 

 attached to their city than any other people. Can we 

 doubt that this is not merely because Paris is the most 

 interesting and amusing of modern towns in so far as its 

 human elements are concerned, but also because it is the 

 most beautiful of modern towns? And in the production 

 of this beauty architectural art has not played a more 

 prominent or important role than gardening art. 



We have pleaded in these columns for more children's 



