January 21, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



25 



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, JANUARY 21, .1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



TAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — The Proposed Widening oi' the Drives in Central Park. — 

 Semi-centennial of the Gardeners' Chronicle.— The Virgin Forests of the 



Adirondack Mountains 25 



Methods of Quickening the Germination of Seeds J. B. Weber. 26 



The Grant Monument for Riverside Park. (With figures.) 



Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. 27 



Plant Notes : — Some Recent Portraits 28 



New or Little Known Plants :— Viburnum molle. (With figure.) C. S. S. 29 



New Orchids R. A. Rolfc. 29 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 29 



Cultural Department : — Notes on Some Hardy Wild Roses.— III.. . . J. G. Jack. 31 



Rose Notes E. G. Hill. 31 



The Cultivation of Native Orchids F. H. Horsford. 32 



Oxalis floribunda W. E. Endicott. 32 



Cypripedium Fairieanum John Weathers. 33 



The Mignonette Disease Professor Byron D. Halsted. 33 



Acacia pubescens H. G. 33 



Clematis paniculata E. O. Orfet. 34 



The Forest :— Forest-policy Abroad. — III Gifford Pinchot. 34 



• Correspondence : — The Owl and the Sparrow C. Hart Merriam. 35 



The Madrona in Winter E. W. Hammond. 35 



Periodical Literature 35 



Notes 36 



Illustrations :— Ground Plan of the Proposed Grant Monument, Riverside 



Drive, Fig. 5 27 



View of the Grant Monument from the North, Fig. 6 28 



View of the Grant Monument from the River, Fig. 7 28 



Viburnum molle, Fig. 8 — 30 



The Proposed Widening of the Drives in 

 Central Park. 



IN his recent message Mayor Grant, of this city, declares 

 that the question of widening and improving the drives 

 in Central Park is one which demands immediate attention. 

 There is nothing novel in this suggestion. The necessity 

 of widening and straightening and leveling the .roads of 

 the park has often been urged by persons who assume that 

 these roads were made primarily for pleasure-driving. But 

 it should never be forgotten that the only excuse for the 

 existence of such a park in such a situation is to furnish an 

 opportunity for rural and sylvan recreation to an urban 

 population. The scenery is the park. The drives were 

 constructed to enable those who visit the park in carriages 

 to enjoy the scenery just as the paths are laid to make these 

 refreshing prospects available to those who come on foot. 

 As has been often stated, the walks and drives are not 

 essentially the park any more than knives and forks or 

 glass and china are the essentials of a dinner. They are 

 simply the means of making the park accessible and 

 available. 



There have always been persons who have insisted on 

 the necessity of a Rotten Row, a place of gallant and festal 

 promenade, just as others have felt the necessity of a speed- 

 road for those whose delight is in fast trotters. No doubt 

 both of these objects are desirable in themselves considered, 

 and so are many others that could be named, but that is 

 no reason for confiscating the park, or for condemning a 

 portion of it to any such purpose. If it had been originally 

 intended to provide a place where the wealth and fashion 

 of the city could meet for social greeting and the display 

 of equipage, no man in his senses would have chosen as 

 the field for such assemblage these rugged ledges, which have 

 since been transformed into rolling meadows and grassy 

 dales. Some level, open space would have been selected 

 for such a promenade ; and now that the city has borrowed 

 and spent $10,000,000 for the avowed purpose of creating 

 the scenery of the park, it would be a breach of trust, as 



well as a wild extravagance, to sequester a portion of the 

 park and devote it to alien use. These millions have been 

 spent to develop the park in accordance with one motive ; 

 that is, in its construction and maintenance the original 

 design of furnishing pastoral and reposeful prospects has 

 been adhered to. Any attempt now to adapt the park to 

 another and quite a different motive, to transform it into a 

 display ground for stately processions, or a place for 

 pleasure driving, would not only destroy the original inten- 

 tion, but signally fail to fulfill the new purpose. The 

 result would be a spiritless compromise between two, or 

 rather several, designs ; for the men who drive fast horses 

 and those devoted to athletic sports, not to speak of the 

 botanists and zoologists who want gardens and the militia 

 who desire more parade grounds, and the rest, will all 

 insist with equal justice that their claims should be 

 recognized. 



It will be urged, as it always has been, that the roads 

 can be widened without affecting the value of the land- 

 scape ; but a little study of the ground will show that any 

 expansion of the wheel ways, besides increasing the already 

 large ratio of gravel to grass, would not only displace and 

 separate essential elements of the landscape, but would 

 destroy many of the finest trees and most effective of the 

 rugged and rocky passages in the park. The planting 

 was, of course, adapted to roads of the present width, 

 these roads were adjusted to the contours of the ground, 

 and the modeling and planting of the road-sides are an 

 integral part of the design. The widening would not only 

 mean the destruction of slopes and banks and ledges that 

 have been beautified with the growth of thirty years, which 

 could not be replaced in a shorter time, but the sweeping 

 away of trees, groups of shrubs and vine-covered rocks 

 would open the views in front which are now masked by 

 projecting ledges and masses of foliage, and thus destroy 

 that charm of surprise which a winding course now 

 ensures. Not to speak, therefore, of the immense expense 

 of widening the roads, an expense which would include 

 almost a complete reconstruction of the drainage system of 

 the park, any considerable addition to the graveled roads 

 or curtailment of the verdurous elements on either side of 

 them would mean the destruction of the scenery which 

 gives the park its value. 



The wheelways are now ample to fulfill the purpose for 

 which they were designed, and no park drives could be 

 more free from obstruction. The transverse, sunken 

 and hidden roads by which traffic can be carried on 

 across the park, besides the numerous bridges and arch- 

 ways which have been so planned that it is possible for 

 persons on foot to reach any portion of the park without 

 crossing a carriage track, are devices w T hich have demon- 

 strated the foresight of the designers and more than doubled 

 the efficiency of the wheelways. And finally, if they could 

 be widened with no injury to the essential value of the 

 park, this would do nothing to relieve congestion of the 

 drives at certain points and at certain periods. As a mat- 

 ter of fact, whenever a roadway is widened to make room 

 for crowding carriages this will only mean, at the point se- 

 lected by fashion for a festal promenade, another file of car- 

 riages, and the throng will be more dense and impenetra- 

 ble than ever. This is not a probable theory merely; it has 

 proved true in actual practice. The promenade ground of 

 fashion has been shifted more than once in both London 

 and Paris within the memory of men still living, and when 

 a wider space was made for the increasing number 

 of vehicles the exclusives deserted it for a narrower road. 



The truth of the whole matter is, that the park roads are 

 of a width which is ample for the purpose they are meant 

 to serve. They cannot be enlarged without serious deface- 

 ment of the beauty of the park and the practical destruc- 

 tion of elements which constitute its unique charm and 

 value. Even if the area of gravel should be extended at 

 so great a cost, it would do nothing to relieve any tem- 

 porary crowding of vehicles at special points which is 

 complained of. When the throng is greatest on the East 



