July 25, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



291 



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. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — "Keep off the Grass." 291 



Object-lessons in Forestry 292 



North American Thorns. (With figure.) 292 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 293 



Plant Notes 204 



Cultural Department: — Notes on Trees and Shrubs J. G. Jack. 294 



Perennial Sweet Peas . . E. O. Orpet. 296 



Pelargoniums IV. N. Craig. 296 



Gladioli J. N. Gerard. 296 



Vellozia elegans IV. E. Endicott. 297 



Notes from Cornell University G. Harold Powell. 297 



Correspondence : — The Injury to the Grape Crop E. P. Powell. 297 



" Keep off the Grass.". B. R. 297 



The Island Flower-garden in Jackson Park Mrs. Fanny Copley Seavey. 29S 



The Cypresses of Monterey Dr. Maxwell T. Masters. 29S 



The Forest : — Mixed Oak and Beech Forests of the Spessart : Management by 



the Bavarian Government. — I Sir Dietrich Brandts. 29S 



Recent Publications 299 



Notes 300 



Illustration : — The Cockspur Thorn, Crataegus Crus-galli, in a Massachusetts 



Garden, Fig. 49 295 



" Keep off the Grass." 



COMPLAINT is made by a correspondent in another 

 column that this warning meets his eye so often 

 whenever he visits our great city parks that it seems to him in- 

 hospitable, and even as a broad suggestion that his presence 

 is not desired. He argues that parks should welcome vis- 

 itors and not repel them by needless restrictions ; that they 

 are made to use and not to look at only ; that there is 

 nothing so pleasant to feet that are wearied with constant 

 walking on stone pavements as the feeling of soft turf un- 

 der them ; and finally, that, except in places which have 

 been lately seeded, trampling does not injure, but actually 

 helps, the growth of the grass. 



No doubt, the fewer restrictions which it is necessary to 

 impose on visitors to public parks the greater will be their 

 general attractiveness, and if it is true that trampling helps 

 the grass the legends on the signs of warning ought to be 

 changed so as to read, "Please walk on the turf. " But, 

 plainly, there is a limit to the point where walking on 

 the turf is beneficial. If our smaller parks in the densely 

 populated part of this city, like Tompkins Square or Mad- 

 ison Square, were thrown open in the dry season, what 

 are now stretches of grass would soon be dusty wastes, 

 as disagreeable to the foot of the pedestrian as to his eye. 

 In moister climates grass will thrive under an amount of 

 trampling that it cannot endure here. We speak of "the 

 turf" when we mean the sport of horse-racing because we 

 use the language of a land where races are actually run on 

 the grass, but the conditions are quite different here, and 

 even lawn-tennis is not generally played on a lawn, 

 because to keep a smooth, even turf requires a great ex- 

 pense and constant watering and fertilizing. 



There is a neat fallacy concealed in the statement that 

 parks are made to use, and not to look at. The beauty of 

 a park is its highest use, and to destroy that beauty is to 

 abuse, and not to use, it. Very pleasant it is to wander by 

 a natural wood border, and people think they enjoy it and 

 are using it when they break off the flowering branches 

 and carry them away. Certainly, those who wish to use 

 a park in this way, and mutilate trees and shrubbery, 

 must be restrained, and no sensible person would consider 



such a restraint unkind or inhospitable. Again, the 

 pleasure of walking on the grass, like the pleasure of 

 carrying away flowers and shrub-branches, is, no doubt, 

 exaggerated. If we will take note of a hundred persons 

 walking in a pasture ninety-nine will select a path, and 

 if two of them are together they will follow it, even if they 

 are compelled to walk in single file. That parks can be 

 enjoyed without walking on the grass is proved by the fact 

 that so many visit them in carriages, and if walking on the 

 grass was the chief pleasure of visitors there would be less 

 need of incurring great expense in laying out and construct- 

 ing paths. No doubt, at times it is pleasant for children of all 

 ages to roll on the grass and to play games on it, and even 

 in the parks where the rules are strictest this is done to a 

 much larger extent than people imagine. Where visitors 

 are few in comparison to the grassy areas, as in the great 

 meadows of Prospect Park, these spaces are thrown open 

 most of the time. The meadow area of Central Park is 

 made free whenever the condition of the grass will permit. 

 Tennis and other games are allowed in certain portions of the 

 park, but it is necessary there to keep the players away now 

 and then in order to let the turf grow green again. Neverthe- 

 less, as many as 30,000 people a day often have permits 

 for picnics in Central Park, and it is not uncommon to see 

 a hundred thousand people on the grass at once. 



No doubt, in parks which are properly planted there will 

 be fewer temptations to make short cuts across the turf; 

 for it is not so much the desire to walk on the grass as 

 to get somewhere and make a new path that is really 

 irritating to visitors. Well-laid park-paths will not only 

 lead in- an agreeable way to the points of special interest, 

 but they will be laid so as to command the best views 

 of the scenery. But, after all, a park is finally meant to 

 be a refreshment to the spirit. An appeal to the eye is 

 stronger than one to the soles of the feet. In every pastoral 

 picture the grass is the essential and indispensable element 

 of beauty, and it has a higher value as something to look 

 at and look over than it has as something to walk on. So 

 long as trampling does not mar its beauty it ought to be 

 free to visitors, but just as soon as human feet deface it 

 with lines of travel they should be restrained until it has 

 time to recover. Of course in the best park management 

 the grass will receive special attention, and its growth will 

 be encouraged by watering in dry weather wherever this 

 is practicable. But when every care is given there will be 

 times in our climate when, in populous cities, the warning, 

 " Keep off the Grass," will be necessary if the parks are to 

 retain that tender and restful beauty which gives them 

 their supreme value. 



Object-lessons in Forestry. 



IN the issue of this journal for May 30th, and in the two 

 following numbers, we published a continued article on 

 the "Mixed Oak and Beech Forests of the Spessart," which 

 sketched the general history of these woods and showed how 

 the forests, although they have suffered considerably from 

 certain vested privileges which allowed the removal of wood 

 and the pasturing of animals, and even more from the rav- 

 ages of war, are still most important sources of timber- 

 supply and promise to keep increasing in value for years 

 to come. The relation between the Oak and the Beech was 

 particularly set forth, and it was shown that although when 

 Oak and Beech grow together in thickets the less valuable 

 Beech will finally overtop and kill the Oak, yet when 

 properly managed the finest Oak-timber is found where the 

 Beech is grown with' it as a nurse. In the present number 

 will be found the first part of a continuation of the same 

 general subject by Sir Dietrich Brandis, in which the 

 present system of management of these woods by the 

 Bavarian Government will be given in more detail. 



It was early in the century that the Spessart was incor- 

 porated into the kingdom of Bavaria, when the entire forest- 

 system had to be reorganized and comprehensive plans 

 adopted to regulate the cutting of the Oak-timber, to reclaim 



