282 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 334. 



the display endures for a short time only, and it is more 

 beautiful because it is fleeting. 



It is true that the gardener now has at command an 

 abundance of plants with vivid foliage which have devel- 

 oped under other climatic conditions, or, as is more gen- 

 erally the case which have resulted from his own efforts 

 to perpetuate chance freaks of nature, which, had she been 

 left to herself, would never have multiplied to any appre- 

 ciable extent. When, therefore, we use these plants with 

 bright-hued foliage in the landscape-effects which we elab- 

 orate in temperate regions, we introduce novelties of our 

 own invention. We are not carrying out nature's essential 

 scheme, but are weaving in materials foreign to her local 

 ideal ; we are not delicately or forcibly varying the melody 

 which she has composed, but are trying to incorporate with 

 it alien notes and chords. And this indicates that here is 

 a line on which we should work cautiously at least, lest 

 nature's original plan be ruined and her original harmony 

 become a series of discordant fragments. These con- 

 siderations are vaguely felt, although the cause of them 

 may not be thoroughly analyzed, by every person of taste 

 who contemplates the average European park, with its 

 abundance of pallid Negundos, or an American private 

 pleasure-ground, with its masses of Prunus Pissardi. Many 

 plants and trees with bright-hued foliage are charming in 

 themselves, and ungrudgingly admired when seen in 

 small numbers and in appropriate situations. That they 

 seem out of harmony with their surroundings when pro- 

 fusely employed in naturalistic landscape is owing to the 

 fact that in our part of the world nature grows brilliant 

 flowers in great abundance, but is niggardly in the produc- 

 tion of bright-hued leaves, and that to attain artistic and 

 satisfying results we must always follow the broad lines 

 which nature lays down. 



Again, the unchanging character of bright-hued fo- 

 liage-plants is an argument against their abundant use. 

 Flowers are transitory. Plants which bloom all the 

 season produce flowers sparingly at any one time, and 

 those which bloom profusely relapse into quiet green- 

 ness after a few days of splendor. Therefore we do not 

 grow tired of the most gorgeous color combinations 

 which are wrought with blossoming trees and shrubs, nor 

 have we time to weary of the tender tints of opening 

 leaves in spring, or the crimson and golden glories of our 

 autumn foliage. But the vivid and variegated plants 

 which are so much affected by French park-makers and 

 by American amateurs are the same from one end of the 

 season to the other. No matter how much we may ad- 

 mire the magnificence of an October forest, we should tire 

 of such a forest if it were before our eyes from May to 

 November ; no matter how much we regret the fading 

 flowers of the Rhododendron, we know it is better that 

 they should fade so that we can enjoy the quiet green of 

 their foliage for the rest of the year, and welcome their 

 flowering season again with greater delight. We may 

 crave the beauty of color all the year through, but we only 

 get this beauty at its full by a sequence of effects each dis- 

 similar to all the rest, and, therefore, we have no regrets at 

 a tendency to exclude from our parks so-called foliage- 

 plants with their monotony of odd color so long as we 

 have a profusion of flowering plants which show as the 

 seasons move the constantly renewed beauty of ever- 

 changing tints after nature's approved method. 



The Gardens of the Early New England Colonists. 



THE early colonists of New England were from all 

 classes and conditions. Many were connected with 

 families of great prosperity and affluence. It may, there- 

 fore, be rightly conjectured that a fair proportion brought 

 with them to the New World that inherent love for horti- 

 cultural pursuits, and that sensibility to natural beauties, 

 which have marked the English as a nation, at least since 

 the accession of Edward III. 



Before the accession of Queen Elizabeth, horticulture in 



Europe had been considered rather as a mechanical art, 

 but in this reign it was destined to become enriched by 

 establishing national gardens for the scientific cultivation 

 of plants, thereby rendering the study of horticulture and 

 botany more popular. This course was pursued not only 

 in England, but also upon the Continent. The impetus thus 

 given created a host of writers and practical observers upon 

 all subjects pertaining to gardening, and led to the intro- 

 duction of new plants from foreign countries, especially 

 from the New World and from the Indies. Many of these, 

 at first imported as mere novelties, were soon sought for as 

 necessities as well as luxuries. Tobacco, tea and the 

 potato may be thus enumerated. 



Among the writers who, during the latter part of the six- 

 teenth and during the seventeenth century, became author- 

 ities in England and have so contiued, may be mentioned 

 Didymus, Scot, Dethycke, Thomas Hill, Maschal, Piatt, 

 Heresbach, Gerarde, Markham, Parkinson, Tradescant, 

 Evelynn, Worlidge, Sir William Temple and Lord Bacon. 



It is hardly to be supposed that the earliest settlers in the 

 plantations of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay would pay 

 much attention during their first years in the country to 

 aesthetic principles in laying out their gardens, however 

 well they might be versed in these as advanced by Parkin- 

 son, whose Paradisus ferreslris explained the details of a 

 garden practice adapted to the climate of New England as 

 well as of old England, or of other writers with whose works 

 they were doubtless more or less familiar. It was with 

 many a contest for existence, and in the preparation of the 

 soil for the raising of the necessities of life they found am- 

 ple occupation. It is not until the middle of the seven- 

 teenth century that we find any account of gardens laid 

 out in a manner that indicated the increased affluence of 

 the colonists, and these were mostly in the principal centres 

 of population. 



Our knowledge of the horticultural affairs of the first 

 planters is gleaned from a few authorities. Higginson's 

 New England's Plantation was published in London in 1630, 

 before the sailing of Winthrop's fleet. Writing in 1629, the 

 reverend divine says : "The fertility of the soil is to be ad- 

 mired at, as appeareth in the abundance of grass that 

 groweth everywhere, both very thick, very long and very 

 high in divers places. . . . But the abundant increase of 

 corn proves this country to be a wonderment. Thirty, 

 forty, fifty, sixty, are ordinary here. Yea, Joseph's in- 

 crease in Egypt is outstripped here with us. . . . They 

 have tried our English corn at New Plymouth Plantation, 

 so that all our several grains will grow here very well, and 

 have a fitting soil for their nature. Our Governor hath 

 store of green pease growing in his garden as good as ever 

 I eat in England. This country aboundeth naturally with 

 store of roots of great variety, and good to eat. Our tur- 

 nips, parsnips and carrots are here both bigger and sweeter 

 than is ordinarily to be found in England. Here are also 

 store of pumpions, cowcumbers and other things of that 

 nature which I know not. Also divers excellent pot-herbs 

 grow abundantly among the grass, as strawberry-leaves in 

 all places of the country, and plenty of strawberries in their 

 time, and pennyroyal, winter savory, sorrel, brookline, 

 liverwort, carvel and water cresses ; also leeks and onions 

 are ordinary, and divers physical herbs. Here are also 

 abundance of other sweet herbs, delightful to the smell, 

 whose names we know not, and plenty of single damask 

 roses, very sweet, and two kinds of flowers very sweet, 

 which they say are as good to make cordage or cloth as 

 any hemp or flax we have. Excellent vines are here up 

 and down in the woods. Our Governor hath already 

 planted a vineyard, with great hope of increase. Also 

 mulberries, plums, raspberries, currants, chestnuts, filberts, 

 walnuts, small nuts, hurtlebernes, and haws of whitethorn, 

 near as good as our cherries in England, the}' grow in 

 plenty here." 



In Wood's Neiv England's Prospect we have a true, 

 lively and experimental description of that part of America 

 commonly called New England. William Wood, the 



