May 13, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



217 



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, MAY 13, 1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— The Decline of the Country Gentleman 217 



Early Spring in Central Park 218 



Recent Botanical Discoveries in China and Eastern Burma.— VI., 



IV. Botting Hems ley. 219 

 How We Renewed an Old Place.— V Mrs. J. H. Robbins. 219 



New or Little Known Plants:— Ilex laevigata. (With figure.) C. S. S. 220 



Crinum giganteum. (With figure.) :W. Watson. 221 



New Orchids R. A. Rotfe. 222 



Recent Plant Portraits 222 



Cultural Department :— Out-of-door Roses IV. H. Taplin, 222 



Tulips E - °- °- 22 4 



The Hardy Flower Garden J- N. G. 224 



Notes from the Missouri Botanical Garden F. H. H. 225 



Orchid Notes M. Barker. 225 



The Wardian Case E. P. Powell. 225 



Points of Merit in Tomatoes Professor W. IV. Tracy. 226 



Support for Garden Plants Professor IV. F. Massey. 226 



Neviusia Alabamensis J. M. 226 



Correspondence : — The Owl and the Sparrow Charles Naudin. 226 



An Old Orchard E. P. Powell. 226 



The Broad-leaved Maple Joseph Meehan. 227 



The Rattlesnake Plantain as a Window Plant . Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. 227 



Recent Publications 227 



Notes 2 = 8 



Illustrations : — Ilex laevigata, Fig. 39 221 



Crinum giganteum, Fig. 40 223 



The Decline of the Country Gentleman. 



WHEN the first census of the United States was taken 

 in 1790, about one-thirtieth of the population lived 

 in towns of more than 8,000 inhabitants. The last census 

 shows that nearly one-third of the people of the United 

 States now live in towns of that size or larger, while, in 

 the north Atlantic States, more than half the population is 

 urban.. In Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts and New York 

 the increase of the city element is numerically greater than 

 the total increase ; that is, the rural population has actually 

 decreased. This disproportion in the growth of city and 

 country would appear more striking if towns of 4,000 or 

 5,000 inhabitants and upward were transferred from the 

 country to the city class, as they should be, since their 

 inhabitants live under conditions which are distinctly 

 urban. 



The growth of smaller towns and villages, as compared 

 with the strictly rural population, has been quite as well 

 marked. Taking an agricultural community like Sussex 

 County, New Jersey, which is less than fifty miles from 

 New York, it appears that the population has been prac- 

 tically at a standstill for sixty years, while the towns and 

 villages in the county have increased many-fold. This 

 means that the farms have lost a great proportion of what 

 the towns have gained. In addition to the relatively slow 

 growth, and, in some cases, to the actual decline of the 

 rural population, it is to be observed that the lands have 

 decreased in value. Taking this county of Sussex in 

 New Jersey, as an example, it is a fact worth considering 

 that, forty years ago, before the inflated prices of wartimes, 

 farm-land there, which was fifteen or twenty miles distant 

 from a railroad, was worth fifty per cent, more than it is 

 to-day, although it has convenient and direct railroad con- 

 nection with this city. Nothing is plainer than the fact 

 that the towns and cities are increasing in wealth, in 

 population, and in influence at the expense of the rural 

 communities. 



Professor Rodney Welch contributed to the February 

 number of The Forum a striking article on the changed 

 condition of the American farmer. He drew a graphic pic- 

 ture of the life on a New England farm fifty years ago, 

 where the inhabitants seemed perfectly independent be- 

 cause they were engaged in a husbandry which was 

 domestic, and in which nearly everything in the way of 

 food and clothing for the family was produced at home. 

 There was no labor-saving machinery and little ready 

 money then in rural communities, but there was much 

 local pride and a society which considered itself a trifle 

 superior in refinement and influence to that of the towns. 

 The love of land and forests, of orchards and gardens, was 

 inherited from English ancestors, and in the early years of 

 the Republic, rural life was more highly esteemed than city 

 life, and it afforded greater facilities for enjoyment and for 

 physical as well as intellectual development. Country 

 physicians and country divines took rank with the great 

 preachers and surgeons of the capitals. Nearly all the stu- 

 dents in colleges and professional schools came from rural 

 districts, and the graduates returned to the neighborhoods 

 where they had spent their youth. Most of the early Presi- 

 dents and Governors of states were farmers, and in one 

 early congressional directory a majority of the senators 

 and representatives were farmers. A large proportion of 

 the trustees of the colleges were farmers, and even profes- 

 sional men gave some attention to agriculture. In short, 

 men who lived on their own farms and secured a compe- 

 tency and independence by the produce of their land were 

 the most influential class of the country. As Professor 

 Welch points out, there was quite as radical a difference 

 between this agricultural class and the shifting population 

 of commercial and manufacturing towns as there was be- 

 tween real and personal property. The country gentlemen 

 were on their farms to stay there, no matter how prices or 

 wages might vary at the factories or in the seaports. They 

 felt a sense of dignity and responsibility as leaders in so- 

 ciety and politics, and while they were the last men in the 

 world to insist upon anything like different ranks in society 

 they constituted as truly a controlling class in the nation as 

 if they had been titled. 



But the country has been losing its relative importance, 

 and the migration to the towns has been rapidly acceler- 

 ated during the last ten or twenty years. In many of the 

 western states farmers obtained land for little or nothing, 

 and improved it with the intention of remaining there, but 

 as they became independent they divided up their farms 

 into small tracts, erected cheap buildings on them, and 

 leased them to persons generally of foreign birth. In this 

 way it is said that in the states of Illinois, Wisconsin and 

 Iowa more farms have been deserted by their owners, 

 although for a different reason, than there have been in 

 New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts. In these 

 New England states farms have been abandoned because it 

 no longer pays to cultivate them as they have been culti- 

 vated. But, whatever the motive, the best blood of the 

 country, and the very worst blood, too, finds its way to the 

 cities. The tenant-farmers who are left in temporary charge 

 of the land have little interest in sustaining schools of good 

 character, or in improving the farms by erecting substantial 

 buildings or by planting orchards and vineyards, or by 

 setting out ornamental trees and shrubs. They lease the 

 land from year to year, and have no permanent interest in 

 it. When a stately residence, surrounded by lawns and 

 pleasure-grounds, is now seen in the country, with 

 evidences that it has recently been erected, it is probably 

 not the home of a farmer. It is more likely to belong to 

 some raiser of fine stock or to some man of wealth who has 

 removed from the city for his health's sake or in order 

 to manage a farm as a pastime. Wealthy farmers, like 

 other people of means, desire the advantages of society, 

 schools and amusements of one kind or another, and 

 the town furnishes what the country fails to furnish for 

 them. On the other hand, where a farm does not support 

 its owner he turns to the town for a more attractive open- 



