158 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 163. 



that time been made. These last he presented to the na- 

 tion ; Ids reputation and the importance of his collections 

 at once attracted botanists to Kew from all parts of the 

 world. Their visits benefited the establishment, and plants, 

 specimens and books poured into it from all sides. The 

 scientific character of Kew was thus established, and it is 

 this high character that has given it the lead it has long 

 held among the gardens of the world. Sir William Hooker 

 gave the remainder of his long life to Kew, and devoted all 

 his energies and resources to its welfare. His son, a man 

 more famous than the father, succeeded him, and under his 

 administration Kew gained wonderfully in every direction, 

 especially in popular favor. The second Hooker retired 

 from Kew a few years ago full of honors, handing down the 

 administration of the garden and all the family traditions 

 to a connection by marriage, under whose wise and broad 

 management it is growing now still more rapidly than ever 

 before in usefulness and beaut) r . In no other spot in the 

 world can so many different plants be seen growing ; the 

 museums of economic botany are unequaled, the herbarium 

 is the most extensive that men have ever made, and the 

 library is unsurpassed. This is the work of fifty years, car- 

 ried on by men of extraordinary ability and world-wide 

 reputation, working under the most exceptionally favorable 

 circumstances and with the whole British nation behind 

 them. Kew has received many gifts of great value, and is 

 receiving such gifts every week. It costs, however, to 

 carry on the establishment, which, by the way, does not 

 cover much more than half the area to be occupied by the 

 New York garden, $75,000 or $80,000 a year. The cost of 

 all sorts of garden labor in England is not more than half 

 what is paid for such labor in this country, and everything 

 connected with a garden costs less there than it does here. 

 If, then, Kew furnishes the ideal at which the promoters or 

 the projectors of the new garden aim, they must realize 

 that this can be reached only by the expenditure of a great 

 deal of money, and that even with all money needed such 

 results as the people of New York have the right to expect 

 can only be brought about slowly and with the aid of un- 

 usually favorable conditions. Something can be accom- 

 plished with $250,000, but this amount is only a beginning, 

 if New York expects to rival London, or St. Louis, or Boston 

 in its Botanic Garden. 



Pruning Shrubs. 



OUR climate is so- favorable to the growth of deciduous, 

 flowering shrubs that they are steadily growing in use 

 and favor in American gardens. The time will come when 

 we shall learn to give them good deep soil, and allow them 

 enough space to develop into their best form. The time will 

 come, too, when they will suffer less serious mutilation at the 

 hands of unskillful laborers who feel called upon to " trim 

 them into shape " every spring. Directions for proper pruning 

 have often been given in horticultural journals, and although 

 the principles which underlie correct practice have been set 

 forth so plainly that no one need err, the necessity of repeating 

 these instructions again and again is apparent to all who take 

 note of the cruel treatment to which many shrubs are sub- 

 jected. 



In the first place, it should never be forgotten that pruning 

 is a weakening process. It takes away from the plant a por- 

 tion of its vital machinery, and when the cutting is severe the 

 loss of vigor is serious. As an example of this, florists are 

 teaming that the present demand for long-stemmed Roses is a 

 tax upon the vitality of the plant, and they ha ve f ou nd that they are 

 selling not only flowers but the life of their plants, and after one 

 crop has been taken the bush needs a long rest to recuperate its 

 exhausted energies. Last summer the luxuriant foliage upon 

 some White Maples in a city street was pointed to as a proof 

 that pruning added vigor to the trees. During the previous 

 winter it is true that the limbs had been sawed off nearly to the 

 trunk ; but the mass of leaves on the slim twigs which had put 

 out in great numbers from every adventitious bud on the 

 stumps of the amputated limbs was only a proof that nature 

 was making this extra effort to supply the nutritive organs of 

 which the tree had been robbed. This spasmodic output of 

 leaves was not a sign of health, but a signal of distress. Of 

 course, pruning is necessary for many purposes. The re- 



moval of dying limbs is remedial. It may be of more impor- 

 tance to increase the fruitfulness of a vine or tree than to pro- 

 mote its longevity, or it may be necessary to change the form 

 of a shrub or tree in order to adapt it to its position and sur- 

 roundings. 



The usual reason offered for the severe pruning of shrubs 

 is that it makes them more floriferous ; but the work is often 

 done at such a time and in such a way that it destroys all hope 

 of flowers for the year. A little examination will teach a novice 

 that the shrubs which are to bloom early this spring made all 

 their preparations for it last year. The flower-buds were 

 formed on the wood which ripened last summer, and they 

 were nicely covered up to protect them during the winter. 

 This can readily be proved by cutting off some twigs from a 

 Peach-tree or Thunberg's Spiraga and placing them in water 

 in a jar which is kept in the sunlight In any ordinary living- 

 room. In a short time the buds will open and the flowers will 

 appear, and the experiment could have been successfully made 

 at any time during the winter. Now, when these limbs are cut 

 back severely at this season of the year all the flower-buds are 

 cut away, and we need expect no flowers this year. If we wait 

 until after these early-flowering shrubs like the Forsythias are 

 through blooming, and then cut back the wood which has 

 borne the flowers, new branches will be thrown out to make 

 up for the part which has been taken away. These branches 

 will ripen up during the summer and form flower-buds for 

 blooming next spring. Hence, the first rule to be observed in 

 pruning early-blooming shrubs for the sake of their flowers 

 is : Cut back the growth in late spring or early summer as 

 soon as the flowers have fallen, and never do this pruning in 

 autumn, winter or early spring. 



On the other hand, there are shrubs like the Altheas and 

 the Hydrangeas which bloom late in the season, and in 

 these the flower-buds are formed on the wood which grows 

 the same summer. It follows that if these were pruned in 

 early summer the effect of destroying the flowers would be 

 almost as bad as winter pruning would be in the case of the 

 early-flowering shrubs. But if the last year's growth is now 

 cut away before any of the new wood starts the plant will put 

 forth more shoots which will bear flowers in autumn. In the 

 case of such shrubs, therefore, the pruning should also be 

 done after the flowering season — that is, in late autumn, or 

 better in the early spring. 



These rules are very general, and they do not cover all cases, 

 as, for example, there are some early-flowering shrubs which 

 do not make their flower-buds on the shoots which were made 

 last year, but on short spurs from the older wood. It may be 

 also said that pruning for flowers alone is not altogether 

 judicious, for shrubs are in bloom but a few clays or weeks at 

 the most, and a good gardener will give heed to their general 

 appearance throughout the year. For this reason it is good 

 practice to encourage the shrubs to develop into their best 

 natural form, and this is not done by cutting them back with 

 the simple view to increase their flowers. The proper course is 

 to thin out the feebler and overshadowed branches, so as to 

 give the stronger ones a better chance to develop, and to cut 

 back cautiously, so as not to interfere with their natural and 

 most beautiful form. They will then give pleasure all the year 

 through, not only when in flower and when in full foliage, but 

 even in the leafless season ; for shrubs have a distinct and 

 peculiar beauty in the winter, not only from the graceful out- 

 line of their spray, but from the delicate color which comes 

 from the mingling of the varied tints of the bark on the 

 branches — a color which seems to rest upon and float about 

 them like a nimbus or halo. All this beauty at every season 

 can be marred by careless shearing, or, what is still worse, by 

 a painstaking effort to cut the shrubs into formal shapes. 

 There is never any justification for clipping them into geomet- 

 rical forms, like cones or cylinders or spheres ; nor for shav- 

 ing off their tops at the same level as if they were parts of a 

 hedge fence. This means the destruction not only of the 

 beauty, but of the health of the plant. 



The one pleasure which is common, constant and universal 

 to all parks results from the feeling of relief, experienced by 

 those who enter them, on escaping from the cramped, confined 

 and controlling circumstances of the streets of a town ; in 

 other words, a sense of enlarged freedom is to all at all times 

 the most certain and valuable gratification afforded by a park. 

 The scenery which favors this gratification is therefore more 

 desirable to be secured than any other, and the various topo- 

 graphical conditions of a site, thus, in reality, become impor- 

 tant very much in the proportion by which they give the means 

 of increasing the impression of undefined limit. — Olmsted and 

 Vanx, in Report of Brooklyn Park Department, 1866. 



