June 27, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



251 



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. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article:— "Nature and the Rich" 251 



Garden Flowers and their Arrangement. (With figure.).. ,F. S. Mathews. 252 



Botanical Notes from Texas.— XX E. N. Plank. 253 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 254 



New or Little-known Plants :— Phlox divaricata. (With figure.) 255 



Plant Notes > 255 



Cultural Department:— Current Notes forChrysanthemum-growers. T. D. H. 255 



The Calochorti J.lf. Gerard. 255 



Useful Decorative Ferns William Scott. 257 



The Hardy Flower Garden E. O. Orpet. 257 



The Vegetable Garden W. N. Craig. 257 



Work in the Conservatory W. H. Taplin. 25S 



Correspondence :— The English Flower Show ._ W. A. S. 258 



Jackson Park, Chicago Fanny Copley Seavy. 259 



Recent Publications 259 



N OTES ■ • • • • '.-•■'. 2 6o 



Illustrations :— Poppies and their background, Fig. 42 252 



Phlox divaricata, Fig. 43 256 



" Nature and the Rich." 



AN admirable article on the condition of gardening-art 

 in this country appears in the Contributor's Club of 

 the Atlantic Monthly for June, under the heading that we 

 now quote. It explains a danger which, although seldom 

 recognized as such, is the one that most seriously threatens 

 the progress of the art of gardening in America, and even 

 tends to impair the innate love of our people for Nature it- 

 self. The writer's plea is for the use of " natural resources 

 in landscape-gardening," and his protest is against the 

 prevalent idea that "lawns and flower-beds and the like are 

 the only possibilities for beautiful grounds." No one, he 

 says, " is properly underscoring for the benefit of the stupid 

 rich " the chief lesson taught by Mr. Olmsted's work at the 

 Chicago Fair — " the lesson of the lagoon on the value of 

 cultivating and heightening without change of character 

 Nature's own choicest efforts." ♦ 



Readers of this journal need not be told that it has inva- 

 riably aimed to enforce this lesson ; has^ frequently cited 

 examples where the use of much money, time and pains 

 has merely resulted in deforming Nature, and occasionally 

 (as often as they could be found) has described places 

 where a far smaller outlay of money and effort, used with 

 more intelligence and a truer sense of art, has preserved 

 local forms of natural beauty, with an accentuation of their 

 intrinsic character, and a consequent heightening of their 

 charm. But this is a lesson which needs to be often re- 

 peated, and we heartily welcome it as clearly set forth in a 

 non-professional periodical. Nothing could be more true 

 than the statement that " we have only to look at the 

 pleasure-grounds of the rich, from Newport to Ocono- 

 mowoc, to see that the notion that Nature anywhere 

 knows what she is about is quite foreign to the popular 

 creed in gardening." And it may well be added that this 

 "creed in gardening," while showing no real appreciation 

 for Nature, has no real understanding of art. This, we 

 think, is partly because few Americans yet sincerely care 

 about their pleasure-grounds. It is "the thing" to have 

 handsome grounds as large as one's means permit ; 

 but an owner is usually satisfied to follow other people's 



example in their arrangement because in his heart he takes 

 very little interest in them. Nor is this less true if we sub- 

 stitute the feminine for the masculine pronoun. English 

 women, even more than English men. are apt to have a 

 true love for their gardens and parks ; but American 

 women seem to feel this love even less often than Ameri- 

 can men. They do care about the interior of their houses 

 and about their clothes ; consequently, while fashion is 

 largely regarded in both these directions, nevertheless it is 

 not allowed to crush out all individuality ; and therefore 

 an artistic effect, marked by appropriateness as well as 

 personality, is often the result. We do not believe that 

 artistic feeling is lacking in our people. On the contrary, 

 the creation of the Chicago Fair and the strong impression 

 its beauty made upon the public mind, suffice to show that 

 this feeling may be stronger in them than in most other 

 modern nations. But as yet it is largely latent ; and as re- 

 gards gafdening-art one cannot feel that it has even begun 

 to awaken in any popular sense. 



Another reason for our monotony of "lawns, flower- 

 beds and the like " may be found in the rapid growth of 

 our fortunes and the undue value consequently put, in 

 every branch of art, upon results which evince the expen- 

 diture of much money. The most ignorant or careless 

 person instantly sees that wide, carefully tended lawns, 

 gaudy flower-beds, and crowds of odd or exotic plants 

 must represent a considerable outlay of money ; and often 

 he is charmed by his mere perception of this fact just as 

 the owner himself is charmed by the thought that it is 

 plainly to be perceived on his place. Custom and indiffer- 

 ence combine to blind the eyes of more refined and culti- 

 vated owners to the truth that their places thus reveal 

 wealth alone, while they fondly fancy they reveal beauty, 

 too. But, whether vulgarity of feeling does or does not 

 lie behind the result we see, there can be no question 

 that this result is very often vulgar to a degree which 

 would be instantly noted and condemned were it equaled 

 in our house-interiors. 



By vulgar we mean ostentatious, inappropriate, inar- 

 tistic and ugly. We mean that most of our country 

 places, large and small, look as though the aim had been 

 to spend as much money upon them as possible, and to 

 make as much show as possible for that amount of money. 

 This result can be as surely attained in a small door-yard 

 as in a large estate, just as the sitting-room of a cottage 

 may be as vulgar in its way as the drawing-room of a 

 hotel. And, unfortunately, it is attained almost as often 

 by people who have little money, and esteem themselves 

 modest and refined citizens, as by those whom they would 

 dub ostentatious millionaires. Moreover, while the means 

 employed differ as between the cottage parlor and the 

 hotel drawing-room, those used in small villa grounds 

 and great country places are apt to be quite similar in 

 kind. The almost universal error is that no one believes 

 "that Nature anywhere knows what she is about." The 

 sinning of the very rich is more heinous only because it 

 is wrought on a larger scale and to a more conspicuous 

 result. They have more power for evil, but the relatively 

 poor man is just as apt to wreak his seeming spite against 

 Nature to the best of his ability. 



Thegeneral practice; as the writer in the Atlantic explains, 

 is to buy the most charming spot that can be found and 

 then to sweep everything which nature has placed there 

 away, and, "starting from the bare ground, create a lawn 

 and plant evergreens," following this up by cutting places 

 for a multitude of chromo-like flower-beds in the lawn 

 thus carefully created, and setting as many novel, vivid 

 or curious plants as possible in inharmonious contrast with 

 the evergreens and flowers. It is plain that this means 

 ostentation ; and as plain that it means inappropriateness, 

 and therefore lack of art and lack of beauty. The basis of 

 every beautiful effect must be appropriateness. A delicate 

 little water-color would be out of place and, therefore, dis- 

 pleasing on the great gilded walls of a ball-room, just as a 

 life-size portrait of a lady in a ball-dress would be out of 



