222 



Garden and Forest. 



[NUMIiER 328. 



playgrounds too often to be accused of not recognizing 

 their value to the community. But they should not be 

 asked for, or wished for, at the expense of ornamental pub- 

 lic grounds of any kind. Even from the physical point of 

 view the latter serve the needs of larger numbers of people, 

 and from the mental, spiritual point of view they are abso- 

 lutely indispensable. They, and they alone, can supply 

 urban populations with that kind and degree of beauty 

 which is needed for their physical, mental and moral 

 refreshment and inspiration. 



The newspapers lately contained an account of a 

 lawsuit which has interest for every one who be- 

 lieves that the owner of a tree has a right to complain when 

 it is recklessly mutilated. The employees of a telephone 

 company were stretching wires along the road which skirts 

 the property of Mr. George W. Hawkins, near Newburg, 

 in this state, and in doing so they disfigured half a dozen 

 Spruce-trees, which had been planted by his father, by cat- 

 ling off the branches. No consent to this mutilation had 

 been given by the owner of the trees, and the linemen, as 

 usual, had used their saws and axes without mercy. Mr. 

 Hawkins sued the company for $600, estimating the dam- 

 ages at $ 100 a tree. The jury gave a verdict of $500. Under 

 provisions of the code in this state, Mr. Hawkins' lawyers 

 then moved that a triple judgment be made, and the court 

 astounded the defendants by granting this and increased 

 the judgment to $1,500. It is to be hoped that the higher 

 courts will confirm this judgment and hold that a growing 

 tree has a value beyond the mere amount of timber it con- 

 tains, and that the owner has a right to watch its growth 

 and enjoy its beauty, and to derive pleasure from its asso- 

 ciations. The courts should take into account that a tree 

 cannot be replaced in many years, and the wanton destruc- 

 tion of such property ought to call for exemplary damages. 

 Ever since the country was settled we have been learning 

 how to cut down trees, but it is high time that we learn 

 the real value of those which have escaped and stand 

 where they can delight us by their beauty and refresh us 

 with their shade. The decision of this Orange county 

 judge is a wholesome one, and such decisions are needed 

 to teach the linemen of telephone and telegraph companies 

 a lesson which will make them more cautious about invad- 

 ing private rights. 



Some Old Town yards. 



LAST summer, at the Columbian Exposition, in passing 

 _j through Horticultural Hall, my attention was at- 

 tracted in the Idaho section by three jars of fruit that, 

 although in the midst of dozens of other jars, gave me a 

 curious feeling of having seen the fruit before. Gut 

 where? One jar was filled with beautiful yellow plums, 

 a second with even more beautiful purple ones, and the 

 third was labeled "Susquehanna peaches." Several times 

 I went quite out of my way to look at them, but it was not 

 until the Fair had become a thing of the past that the 

 mystery was cleared up. 



One day, in passing through what is now a closely built 

 portion of this city, a vision rose in my mind, and I knew 

 that I had long ago seen the same kinds of fruit in an old- 

 fashioned town-yard, hidden from the street by the brick 

 house, which, like its neighbors, was built out even with 

 the sidewalk, and separated from the adjoining yards by 

 high board fences, half-covered with climbing Roses, Snow- 

 berry and Kenea bushes. Against the rear wall of the 

 house Apricot-trees were trained, and an arbor, covered by 

 Catawba and Isabella Grape-vines, shaded the brick walk, 

 where pigeons were always fluttering back and forl.fi from 

 the pathway to their cotes at the end of the long narrow 

 yard. Between the arbor and side-fences were several 

 fruit-trees, but the ever-to-be-remembered ones, the cham- 

 pions, were two Plum-trees which bore big oval plums, 

 one a golden, the other a purple Egg, the most beautiful 

 and perfect specimens of their kind. In the flickering 



shade of the trees a kind old grandfather moved, armed 

 with a wonderful machine to hook off the fruit for the ex- 

 pectant children surrounding him. 



The peaches grew in another yard, one whose like it 

 would be hard to find nowadays within the borders of a 

 city. From the house one entered first a little flower-gar- 

 den, and then passed through a gate into the yard proper, 

 guarded at the entrance by a tall Pear (Beurre d'Oieul), 

 whose spire rose high above the other trees, though it 

 was hard pressed by a rival Pear-tree in another corner, a 

 Beurre Bosc. Here were also Plums, Apricots and Peaches, 

 and though there were other kinds, from a very early sort 

 to the late Morris White, nothing could approach the perfec- 

 tion of the great Griffith peaches. 



Beyond this yard, which one was never willing to leave, 

 was still another, the precinct sacred to the new or rare 

 fruits. The side-fences formed a background for what 

 were then both new and rare — white and red currants, 

 raspberries and giant gooseberries. At the far end were 

 the grape trellises, of which as a child I highly disap- 

 proved, because there was "no nice shade." I must 

 have asked something about this abnormal state of affairs 

 — every one else had arbors — for one day I remember this 

 grandfather saying, "You can't have shade and grapes 

 too," and thereupon gave me a bunch of grapes from a 

 vine that he called by what I then thought the very funny 

 name of " Rogers No. 4." There were more Peach-trees here 

 and Cherries, and a Belle Lucratif Pear; and there was a 

 Nectarine, dear to us from some story-book association, 

 but we really cared for nothing else as we did for the 

 great luscious peaches that finally were lost to us and 

 became only a memory, until I found their double at the 

 Fair in the Susquehanna peaches from Idaho. 



Nowadays grandfathers with pastoral tastes spend some 

 of their Sundays and a great deal of their money on 

 "places" that vary in extent from little suburban lots to 

 grounds calling for a troop of men to keep them in order. 

 But 1 doubt if they enjoy these as much as did the grand- 

 fathers of the ante-war period, who grafted and pruned their 

 own fruit, and spent long hours on their front door-steps 

 discussing with their like-minded neighbors the latest 

 number of the Country Gentleman. 



Harrisbiirsr, Pa. 



M. L. Dock. 



Botanical Notes from Texas. — XIX. 



UVALDE is a little city in the wilderness of Texas, about 

 ninety miles west of San Antonio. It is the capital of a 

 county of the same name. Their eponymist was the Mexican 

 General Uvalde, who long ago won a decisive battle over the 

 Comanche Indians in the canon north-west of the city. 



Near the city the Leona River has its principal sources in 

 numerous springs issuing from its banks, soon becoming 

 a large stream. A few miles below, the waters of the river are 

 utilized for irrigating purposes, for Uvalde County is west of 

 the limit of profitable agriculture without irrigation. About a 

 mile above the city, at the foot of the Leona canon, is a nearly 

 broken-down cataract, over which the waters of a larger river 

 once plunged. At the base of the old falls is a large pool of 

 permanent water, filling the cavity washed out by the Cataract. 

 Uvaldians call it " the lake." 



In a pleasant Elm-grove two miles or so below the city are 

 the slight ruins of Fort Inge, which was built by the United 

 States Government soon after the Mexican war, to afford the 

 settlers of this region protection from Indian depredations. 

 Near the ruins of the fort is a huge natural pile of rocks, known 

 locally as " Fort Inge Mountain." The hill, which appears to 

 be one of circumdenudation, is probably one hundred feet or 

 more high above the level of the river. It may be a mile in 

 circumference at the base. From its summit the surface 

 geology of the country for miles around may be seen. The 

 hill appears to be the highest point of a range, now nearly 

 washed down, that once dammed the river at this point. The 

 deposits of the large lake thus formed constitute the soil of the 

 rich valley through which the Leona River now winds, and 

 which needs only a greater rainfall or irrigation to make it a 

 garden. 



Uvalde County is the great honey-producing county of Texas, 

 and its rocky places, where bees deposited their homes in 



