28 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 152. 



VIEW fsort HUDSON RIVER 



it is not improbable that his sketches for its surroundings 



largely influenced the committee in their choice. 



It will be seen that he has not placed the tomb quite parallel 



with the river-bank, but somewhat diagonally, in order to make 



it face the line of the Eighth Avenue Boulevard. The way in 



which this driveway forks, so as to afford a direct approach to 



the tomb and an encircling road as well, 



seems very intelligent, and the great flights 



of steps, crowned by an equestrian statue, 



would rise with excellent effect from the 



terrace. Access to the outer terrace is 



afforded to persons on foot by the short 



lateral flights of steps, while carriages 



would turn in front of the tomb or drive 



around it. But the most ingenious and in- 

 teresting part of the scheme is that which 



shows the way in which access from the ™ 



upper level to the river is supplied, meet- 

 ing the practical end of allowing visitors to 



approach directly from the landing-stage 



at the river's edge, and the artistic end of 



bringing the river itself into the scheme 



and doing the best that could be done to 



conceal the intrusiveness of the railway. 

 It has been objected, that the great stair- 

 way will have a ladder-like effect and 

 ought to be very much wider. Possibly it 

 might, to good advantage, be somewhat 



wider; yet, on the whole, the objection hardly seems well 

 taken, and is apparently inspired by the inability of unaccus- 

 tomed eyes to read an architectural elevation rightly. The lat- 

 eral view certainly does not suggest a ladder-like effect, nor 

 is it probable that a full view of the actual structure would do 

 so, whatever the drawing might suggest to untrained eyes. 

 Of course the effect is bridge-like, but the structure will be a 

 bridge and ought to look like one. The various terraces and 

 flights of steps and the triumphal arch which stands midway 

 up can hardly be judged in reproductions so small as those 

 given here. But a general idea of the scheme is all that it is 

 proposed to give, especially as it is probable that only its general 

 idea is as yet fixed in the architect's own mind. It may be ex- 

 plained, however, that the retaining wall will be masked at its 

 base by plantations of trees ; that the spaces on either side of 

 the tracks will be laid out in a harmonizing way, and that broad 

 zigzag driveways, which are not suggested in these hasty 

 sketches, will ascend from the river level to the high ground 

 on either side of the stair, supporting it to the eye and greatly 

 increasing its dignity and the coherence of the whole design. 



Of course much more money will be needed for a compre- 

 hensive design of this sort than for an isolated monument. 

 But Americans are slow in giving money only when not con- 

 vinced that they will receive its value in return, and whatever 

 the sum they may here spend, they will get its value only if the 

 surroundings of the monument are well considered. Mr. 

 Duncan's design for the tomb itself shows how a portion of it 

 may, with good effect, be built in the beginning to contain the 

 sarcophagus, while the remainder is left for future execution. 

 But the ultimate success of the enterprise is more important 

 than the immediate enshrinement of the sarcophagus ; and, 

 therefore, it would seem the better plan to spend the first in- 

 stallment of money upon the approaches, retaining walls and 

 terraces. Build these, and before long the tomb will surely be 



tingly placed means that it must be united with some such wide 

 architectural and landscape-gardening scheme as Mr. Duncan's 

 drawings suggest. It is fortunate that an architect has been 

 selected who has shown himself capable of realizing the true 

 nature of the problem. 

 New York. M. G. Van Rensselaer. 



'--. „- I .. — ^ 



Fig. 6.— View of the Grant Monument from the North. 



built. But build the tomb first, and who knows how long we 

 may have to wait for the approaches, since the public so 

 faintly appreciates the necessity for placing a building well 

 even when it takes real interest in the building itself ? Unless 

 this building is fittingly placed, it will discredit us as a people 

 incapable of valuing a magnificent opportunity; and to be fit- 



Fig;. 7. — View of the Grant Monument from the River. 



Plant Notes. 



Some Recent Portraits. 



IN the issue of the Gardeners' Chronicle published on the 27th 

 of December there is a figure of the cones of the Colo- 

 rado Silver Fir, Abies concolor, produced on a tree growing in 

 the Knaphill Nursery, Woking, and possibly the first which 

 the Colorado tree has produced in cultivation. Cones de- 

 scribed as brown and as purple, both produced at Knaphill, 

 presumedly from different trees, are represented, the tree 

 bearing the last being mentioned as variety violacea. The 

 color of the cones, however, is hardly a sufficient fixed char- 

 acter upon which to establish even a variety. In the forests of 

 Colorado green cones and purple cones are produced on trees 

 standing side by side, and undistinguishable except in this 

 one particular. It is not at all an unusual thing to find among 

 conifers individuals of the same species producing cones 

 of different colors. This occurs in the case of the Mountain 

 Hemlock, Tsuga Pattoniana, whose cones are sometimes dark 

 purple and sometimes green; and also in the case of Abies 

 lasiocarpa (the A. subalpina of American botanists), which, on 

 the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains, in Washington 

 Territory, produces green and dark purple cones. It is not 

 known even in the case of these species if the same tree pro- 

 duces permanently the same colored cones or whether they 

 are not in some years green and in others purple. The English 

 custom of considering the White Silver Fir of the California 

 Sierras, which we in this country call Abies concolor, distinct 

 from the Fir of Colorado, is hardly tenable from a botanical 

 point of view, desirable as it may be in garden nomenclature, 

 and it is certainly not supported by the botanists who have 

 had the opportunity to observe this tree growing from one 

 end to the other of the immense territory it inhabits. 



In this connection may be mentioned the exceedingly 

 curious and interesting Silver Fir discovered on the San Fran- 

 cisco Mountain, in Arizona, by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, already 

 noticed in these columns. The leaves might well be taken 

 for those of A. lasiocarpa, although much longer than those 

 which this tree produces in Colorado and New Mexico. The 

 bark, however, is very distinct from that of any of our Ameri- 

 can Abies, and is composed of a thick, corky, compressible 

 layer of small compact cells, the surface of the bark being 



nearly pure white. This struc- 

 ture of the bark is so unlike 

 that of our other Abies that it 

 would seem to indicate a dis- 

 tinct species, although thiscan- 

 ^""V^-v not be determined until the 



£*•? %«H'-y^ 71 '- cones are seen. 



r^- ', * '"' There is a charming portrait 

 of the Copper Austrian Briar 

 Rose in The Garden, of London, of December 27th, 1890. The 

 Copper Briar is one of those old-fashioned flowers which 

 graced and enlivened our grandmothers' gardens, but which 

 in these days is very rarely seen, in this country at least. It is 

 a native of southern Europe, and was cultivated three cen- 

 turies ago in England. Mr. George Paul, the well known 



