December 12, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



493 



moned him to lay out Greenwich and St. James Parks. 

 Charles also added the semicircle to VVolsey's Hampton 

 Court, so stately to this day with its broad terraces and 

 fountains and gay parterres of flowers ; and in his reign 

 the gentle Evelyn gave a tremendous impulse to picturesque 

 gardening by his own work, and by his appreciation of 

 what was being done by kindred spirits about him. "Two 

 mummies and a grot," which he found at Bushnell's Wells, 

 at Enstone, scarcely correspond to modern ideas of garden 

 decoration, but here the proprietor "lay in a hammock like 

 an Indian," and doubtless allowed his imagination free rein. 



Then, with the arrival of the Dutch King, came the 

 gates and rails of wrought iron and the clipped Yews and 

 vegetable sculpture of the period. Sir William Temple's 

 idea of a perfect garden was a flat or gentle declivity of an 

 oblong shape lying in front of the house, with a descent of 

 steps from a terrace extending the whole length of the 

 house, this inclosure cultivated as a kitchen-garden and 

 orchard ; but this idea was viewed with contempt by such 

 an enlightened observer as Lord Walpole, and soon the 

 vegetables gave place to lawn and trees. Queen Caroline 

 gave a still further impulse to the natural style, and wind- 

 ing waters were introduced into the scheme of Kensington 

 Gardens. Pope and Addison ridiculed the formalities and 

 clippings of their day, and little by little the emancipation 

 of taste in England grew general. Pictures were studied 

 by some to gain an idea of suitable composition ; shrub- 

 beries were introduced, with winding walks along their 

 borders ; points of view were developed ; some even went 

 so far as to make their scenes emblematical of pastoral 

 poetry, and even sentimental farms were attempted. Shen- 

 stone is said to have ruined himself in gardening at Lea- 

 sowes. and broke his heart over his disappointments, and 

 the echo of his taste is caught in his verse. Then came 

 Kent, the landscape artist, who planned "Elysian scenes," 

 shading in his more finished pieces with evergreens, and 

 his successor, Wright, whose ideas were afterward devel- 

 oped by Beckford at Fonthill Abbey. Such was the craving 

 forthe improvement ofgrounds in England in theeighteenth 

 century that there were not artists enough to direct the 

 movement. It was by the exercise of imagination that 

 English landscape-gardening progressed, now advancing 

 and now retrograding, until it has come to stand as a 

 synonym for what is picturesque and individual. 



In our own country, young as it still is, there are splen- 

 did flashes of inspiration in this direction, which give 

 promise of a time when our gardens will be in some ade- 

 quate way an expression of the genius of the republic. 

 Great object-lessons, like Central Park, the Boston Metro- 

 politan Park system, the Columbian Exposition, and other 

 realizations of a poet's dream, cannot fail to leave their 

 effect upon a community. All great work in any art 

 prompts individuals to original thought, and we need to 

 give more rein to fancy in our own home arrangements, 

 to think out for ourselves some scheme to be developed at 

 leisure, and to profit by all such help as is offered by 

 triumphs of landscape-art or the example of Nature in her 

 most favorable moments. 



It is far easier to fall into the mechanical than to rise to 

 the 'imaginative style, and yet the latter, once attained, 

 appeals so directly even to the uninstructed eye that it 

 proves its right to a place among the fine arts. The same 

 laws which govern composition of all kinds here are para- 

 mount and are equally imperative in literature, in painting 

 and in landscape-effects. Simplicity, purpose, restraint, 

 economy of means are the guiding principles of great art 

 wherever it is to be found. If there is no meaning in what 

 is done it soon grows wearisome. The commanding quality 

 of the human mind is high imagination ; this alone is not 

 outworn by ephemeral fashions, and a great park which 

 is born of such an inspiration will never cease to make 

 appeal to our nobler faculties, and even a modest garden, 

 if it expresses the best thought of its creator, will have a 

 refining influence upon all who come under its spell. 



Hingham, Mass. 



M. C, R. 



The Box-elder and the Russian Mulberry. 



IN traveling over the western plains it is observed that 

 these two rapid-growing shade-makers are of the highest 

 value for forest-planting, if each is kept in its appropriate 

 latitude. Throughout Kansas, and more particularly east 

 of the ninety-ninth meridian, the Russian Mulberry must 

 become one of the most useful trees that grow, and this 

 utility decreases rapidly as we go northward. In the south- 

 ern counties of South Dakota it is worthless ; whereas in 

 the cold uplands of North Dakota the Box-elder is one of 

 the hardiest of trees, and succeeds all over South Dakota 

 and the greater part of Nebraska, but in Kansas, even 

 toward its northern boundary, the Box-elder does less well, 

 and on its southern border it is worthless. 



The two trees have the two valuable qualities of rapid 

 growth during youth and comparatively great shade endur- 

 ance, and they are thus peculiarly fit for the important 

 position of nurse-trees to species that demand more light. 

 When planted with such species the Box-elder and Mul- 

 berry force them to grow tall and straight, with clean 

 shafts. 



At the South Dakota Agricultural College the Box-elder has 

 been used as the dominant species in all successful plats but 

 one, which was composed of hardwoods exclusively. In 

 a plat of Box-elder with plants standing four feet apart each 

 way, with every fourth tree a Burr Oak, the conditions at 

 the end of the third year from planting approached those of 

 an old forest. The Box-elder (five years from seed) formed 

 a complete shade, and the young Oaks were completely 

 overtopped by them. At the end of the fifth year from 

 planting the Oaks had begun reaching up to the leaf-cover 

 to get their share of light, the Box-elders now averaging 

 fourteen feet high, the Oaks four feet, the tallest being 

 eight feet two inches. It begins to look as if the lateral 

 branches of the Box-elders that immediately surround 

 the Oaks should be lopped ; but the Oak has much shade 

 endurance while young, and it may be able to overcome 

 the Box-elder without assistance. 



In mixtures of Box-elder, White Elm and Green Ash at 

 this station, with the Box-elder dominant, the Elm at the 

 end of five years begins to overtop the Box-elder a little, but 

 the Ash hardty averages as high by a foot. Compared with 

 pure Ash, those in this plat are fully two feet taller,' the 

 increased height being caused by the Ash reaching up for 

 light between the dense shading Box-elders. The Ash is a 

 light-demanding tree, and so is the Elm. 



In a mixture of Box-elder, White Pine and White Birch, 

 the Box-elder is not useful, as in five years it has so over- 

 topped the Birch as to have suppressed and killed it. The 

 White Pine was a failure. 



An attempt was made in one plat to alternate Populus Cer- 

 tinensis, a Russian Poplar, with Box-elder as dominant forms 

 mixed with Elm and Ash. The Poplar failed ; the Ash and 

 Elm, not growing as rapidly nor as dense as the Box-elder, 

 did not shade the ground, so that weeds and grass have 

 sprung up and the mixture is a failure. This plat is 

 valuable as illustrating the necessity of making the 

 greatest proportion of the plat' good dense shade making 

 kinds. 



There is no other place in the west, so far as I know, 

 where systematic attempts at mixed planting have been 

 made, and hence no place is known where the Russian 

 Mulberry has been used as a nurse-tree. In Brookings it 

 forms a shrub that kills back badly every winter, but in 

 Hutchinson, Kansas, specimens were seen which had 

 grown from seed planted seventeeen years ago, and they 

 are now ten inches in diameter three feet from the ground 

 and forty feet high. The pure plats of this tree prove 

 it a dense shade-maker. from this it is inferred thai in 

 Kansas it will prove quite as useful as a nurse-tree as the 

 Box-elder has proved in South Dakota. Good specimens 

 of it were found in all parts of Kansas, and throughout 

 Nebraska south of the sand hills, and in irrigated land 

 near Denver, Colorado. 



Washington. 



Charles A. K 



