July ii, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



273 



their own. The wheelway bordered with trees has a pecu- 

 liar charm, derived as much from the associations of traffic 

 as the foliage overhanging the sides ; and this charm be- 

 longs (though in a somewhat different way) to the formal 

 avenue as well as to the country lane overhung with thick 

 and various boughs. Any one can feel the attraction of a 

 road or path bending out of sight behind a screen of leaves. 

 Occasional openings in the planting, to allow the traffic to 

 be seen from the lawn, often add the one thing wanting 

 to complete the landscape-gardening scene, namely, ani- 

 mation. 



And lastly, the lines of permanent way may in them- 

 selves be a source of pleasure as they are dignified and 

 harmonious, or unsatisfactory as they are crude and un- 

 certain. Forms so large, definite and diversely sweeping, 

 receiving so many new outlines from the effects of fore- 

 shortening, are of actual artistic value if used with due 

 subordination to their surroundings. Few rules can be 

 laid down for the construction of aesthetic curves. An eye 

 naturally good, and sufficient, training alone will discover 

 a line that is intrinsically beautiful, and determine how 

 straight lines can best be joined to curved ones, and how 

 they are to be managed at such sudden changes of direc- 

 tion as where two roads meet, and to foresee the effect 

 when they are transferred from the bird's-eye view on the 

 paper to the foreshortened one on the ground. Above all, 

 let them be carefully considered when they can be viewed 

 from a height where the whole scheme, or a large part of 

 it, can be seen at once, and where both its merits and de- 

 fects will seem more obvious. When, therefore, the gen- 

 eral direction has been fixed upon, let the lines of travel be 

 ordered as carefully as those of the boundary ; a slight ir- 

 regularity, or a few inches or feet added to or subtracted 

 from the swell of a curve may pass unnoticed by ninety- 

 nine people ; but the hundredth may be the capable critic, 

 in whose judgment the work will stand or fall, and whose 

 voice will ultimately be that of the jury who, in the natural 

 course of things, come to pronounce the final verdict on 

 any work of art. 



No part of a design, then, deserves more care than the 

 lines of beaten track ; not the care of the expert of the com- 

 passes and curve-ruler, who piles ovals upon circles for 

 their own sake, and fits the whole complication into the 

 boundary line with the accuracy of a Chinese puzzle, but 

 the care of the prudent inventor, who has learned not to 

 mistake the means for the end of his art, and to understand 

 that the clumsy works of picks and rollers cannot be ob- 

 jects of beauty unless as mere supplements to the delicate 

 and inscrutable achievements of vegetable nature. 

 Pittsburgh, Pa. H. A. Caparn. 



The Tupelo, Nyssa sylvatica. 



FOUR years ago we published an interesting illustration 

 (see vol. iii. , page 490) of a group of Tupelo-trees 

 growing near a pond in West Medford, Massachusetts. 

 The trees represented show the form which they often as- 

 sume in low swampy ground in the middle states and New 

 England — that is, they have long lateral branches, spread- 

 ing horizontally or drooping at a slight angle, and forming 

 a rather broad flat top. Few of our native trees, however, 

 differ so much in habit, and on page 275 of this issue we 

 give the portrait of another Tupelo, or Pepperidge, as it is 

 commonly called in the middle states, which stands alone 

 on somewhat higher ground in Chester County, Pennsyl- 

 vania. Dr. J. T. Rothrock, to whom we are indebted for 

 the photograph of this tree, writes that it is about forty 

 feet high, with a trunk diameter of eighteen inches, and 

 although it differs essentially in form from the trees in our 

 earlier picture, it is, nevertheless, quite as truly a repre- 

 sentative tree as the others. On the stony mountain-sides - 

 of Centre County, Pennsylvania, and other parts of that 

 state the tree often attains a height of sixty feet, as it 

 often does in the middle states. In the rich soils of the 

 lower Ohio valley and on the slopes of the Alleghanies, in 



the Carolinas and in Tennessee, it is occasionally a hun- 

 dred feet high, with a stout trunk five feet through. The 

 Tupelo is at home in low wet lands among water-loving 

 trees, like the Swamp White Oak, the Black Ash, the Scarlet 

 Maple and the Hornbeam, while it associates on higher 

 ground with Magnolias, White Oaks, Black Walnuts, Wild 

 Cherries, and in its wide range of distribution and under 

 such different surroundings it is not surprising that it as- 

 sumes various habits. Nevertheless, it is always indi- 

 vidual, always picturesque, and if planted for ornament in 

 any situation, low or high, it invariably gives pleasure, for 

 it is a beautiful tree. In form it is always attractive. 

 Sometimes it branches close to the ground, but oftener has 

 a stout, though not long, straight trunk covered with light 

 brown, deeply furrowed, bark, which is often curiously di- 

 vided into hexagonal sections. The upper branches are 

 twiggy, usually crooked, sometimes so much so that the 

 word "kinky" alone describes their shape. The firm 

 green leaves are glossy, as if they were varnished. They 

 are rarely disfigured by fungi or by insects, and in autumn 

 they turn to a red so deep and glowing that the Tupelo is 

 among the most conspicuous of our trees at a season when 

 the whole forest is aflame. The dark blue fruits are not 

 strikingly ornamental, but they are a favorite food for the 

 robin and the flicker in the autumn. 



One reason why the Tupelo has not been more generally 

 planted is that its long roots, with few rootlets, make it 

 a difficult tree to transplant. It is easily grown from 

 seed, however, and while yet small the seedlings can 

 be set out where they are to remain, or by being frequently 

 shifted in nursery rows they can be prepared for safe trans- 

 planting later. The wood is soft, but tough and dlfficuti to 

 work on account of its twisted grain, but the difficulty with 

 which it splits makes it sought for by axemen and others 

 for the heads of beetles, for the hubs of wheels, for ox 

 yokes and similar purposes ; it is not durable when ex- 

 posed to alternations of wet and dry, but when kept con- 

 stantly in water, and especially in salt-water, it lasts for a 

 long time, and, therefore, gives great satisfaction when 

 used for keels in ship-building. Its beautiful light color 

 adapts it for inside finish, but its liability to warp and check 

 when drying has discouraged its use. It has been recently 

 stated, however, that if the trees are girdled and allowed 

 to stand a year before they are felled this difficulty will be 

 largely avoided. 



Besides, the Tupelo, which is also called the Black Gum 

 and Sour Gum in the southern states, there is a variety 

 Nyssa sylvatica, var. biflora, an aquatic tree growing in 

 the ponds and marshes of the southern Pine barrens; the 

 Sour Tupelo or Ogechee Lime, N. Ogechee, a rare and 

 local tree which inhabits the swamps of the Ogechee Val- 

 ley and western Florida, and the Tupelo Gum or Cotton 

 Gum, N. aquatica, a tree a hundred feet high, of southern 

 range, very common in the bottom-lands of the lower Mis- 

 sissippi valley, and attaining its greatest size in the Cypress 

 swamps of western Louisiana and eastern Texas. In ad- 

 dition to the American species, there is one, Nyssa arborea, 

 belonging to southern Asia and distributed from the Hima- 

 layas to the Island of Java, and Dr. Henry has discovered 

 a Chinese species which is known as Nyssa Sinensis. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



New Garden Plants of 1893. — A complete list of all the 

 new introductions of last year forms Appendix II. of the 

 Kav Bulletin, which may be had from the publishers, Eyre 

 & Spottiswoode. The labor the preparation of such a list 

 involves is much greater than appears on the surface, and 

 such as only an institution like Kew could be expected to 

 afford or undertake. It forms a most handy reference-list, 

 as it includes every plant brought into cultivation last year, 

 and of which any record was published in English or for- 



