218 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 168. 



ing for earning a livelihood. Thus it happens that the 

 farms in many parts of the country are passing out of the 

 hands of proprietors and into the hands of a tenant class. 

 Most persons past fifty years of age can recall some rural 

 community the character of whose population has entirely 

 changed within their memory. The country gentleman, a 

 term which we use for want of. a better one to designate 

 the man who earned an easy competence by tilling his own 

 acres and who expected that his land would be the home 

 of his descendants for generations, has been supplanted 

 by a class of men who seem to lack not only his love for 

 the land and his pride in it, but his stability of character, 

 his public spirit, and his influence. 



Now, it is a narrow view which looks upon this rapid 

 growth and increasing importance of urban communities 

 as an unmixed evil. Sanitary science has made life in the 

 town more healthful than it was in the early decades of 

 the century, and more complete organization has multi- 

 plied its comforts. If there has been an apparent decline 

 in the social and political importance of some rural com- 

 munities, the towns have gained what the country has 

 lost. And yet the tendency we speak of cannot be alto- 

 gether wholesome. The comparative prosperity and lux- 

 ury of our cities are evidences that the men who trans- 

 port and traffic in the products of the soil are receiving a 

 larger proportion of the value of these products, while the 

 farmer's share is growing less. With no peasant class, 

 with the land tilled by men who own it and who govern 

 it, agriculture, here if anywhere, should be a profitable 

 and honorable calling. * It is degraded from its proper 

 rank among industries when the farmer's boy is eager to 

 abandon his birthplace and sees, without a pang, the 

 homestead pass into alien hands. The farmer of the old 

 style had local attachment and local pride, and these senti- 

 ments formed the basis of a broad public spirit and an 

 intense patriotism. From the homes of contented farmers 

 has come the best blood of the Republic, and any decline 

 in agricultural prosperity should be a matter of public 

 concern. Men lose their love for land which cannot 

 support them, and if the land bears any unequal burdens 

 in the way of taxation or restriction, these should be re- 

 moved. The men who carry the products of the farm and 

 the men who stand between the farmer and the consumer 

 form compact, well-organized bodies, able to command 

 their full share of the profits of agriculture. Farmers are 

 numerous and so widely separated that co-operation is 

 impossible. That" farmers suffer in this unequal competi- 

 tion is undeniable. 



It is hardly to be wondered at that the discontented 

 farmer listens to the specious arguments of professional 

 agitators and is willing to waste effort upon sham reform. 

 The questions involved are worthy of study by the most 

 thoughtful men. How can the conservative practices of 

 Agriculture and Horticulture be adjusted to the swiftly 

 changing conditions of this growing country? How is the 

 farmer to command his fair share of the value of the prod- 

 ucts of the soil? What can be done to make country life 

 more attractive, wholesome and satisfying ? Is it possible 

 to restore the tiller of the soil to the position of consequence 

 he once held in the social and political life of the Republic? 



A 1 



Early Spring in Central Park. 



N unusually long succession of hot days coming suddenly 

 before the middle of April brought our vegetation for- 

 ward this year with almost miraculous rapidity, so that by the 

 first of May the parks wore an aspect rarely seen so early. 



The Tulip-beds had been at their finest a week before, and 

 the Forsythias were in full bloom by the 226. of April, when, 

 too, the frequent plantations of Moss-pinks and blue Aubrietias 

 were beginning to show their equally vivid colors. A week 

 later these plantations were vivid indeed. In some places, 

 especially where the Moss-pinks occupied rocky ledges or 

 broken, scantily turfed slopes, their great masses of crimson- 

 pink were extremely beautiful. But these essentially wood- 

 land flowers look less well when they spread in more uniform 



masses on smooth grassy inclines, where the edges of their 

 carpets do not blend naturally with the herbage, but form a 

 disagreeably sharp, artificial-looking line. And in one or two 

 such spots where their crimson contrasted with the yellow of 

 Forsythias growing just above them as well as with the uni- 

 form bright green of the lawn, the effect was striking enough, 

 but distinctly inharmonious. The white form of the Phlox is, 

 of course, better adapted than the pink for association with 

 other strong tints, and is largely used in the park. 



But still more beautiful, because more delicate and more 

 natural-looking in most portions of the park-landscape, is the 

 white Stellaria Holostea, which was also at its best on May-day, 

 beautifying shady reaches and slopes of wide extent, especially 

 along the West Drive. The loveliness of its snowy stars, 

 sprinkled through the grass, but not forming thick clumps of 

 unrelieved color like the Moss-pinks and the blue Aubrietias, 

 could not be surpassed by that of any early spring flower. 



At this same time the Judas-trees were in full bloom, and 

 the Lilacs and Wistarias were beginning to pass from bud into 

 flower ; the Japanese Quinces and Forsythias had not yet 

 dropped their petals ; the various blossoming Plums and Cher- 

 ries spread like snowy clouds ; and, while the Dogwood clus- 

 ters were not yet fully developed or entirely white, they were 

 almost as charming in their immature shapes and creamy hue. 

 Many very beautiful effects of contrasted color met the eye in 

 traversing different parts of the park ; but the most striking 

 and harmonious we chanced to note was displayed by a large 

 bed of shrubs on the West Drive near the turn which leads to 

 the terrace at the lake end of the Mall. The foreground of 

 this bed was filled with rather low groups of the Japanese 

 Quince in both the red and the pale pink-flowered forms, the 

 two varieties not being intermingled, but massed in consider- 

 able quantities. Above this array of scarlet and delicate rose 

 color stood masses of Lilacs, much more crimson in the color 

 of their flower-panicles than they would be when the flowers 

 were all unfolded. And back of their ruddy purple stood, 

 sharply defined against the vividly blue sky, the splendid rose- 

 colored, flowery, leafless branches of small Judas-trees. There 

 was just enough green in the foliage of the Quinces and the 

 Lilacs to give relief and tone to the brilliant hues thus happily 

 contrasted ; and the picture they made proved that, whatever 

 may be the case with a painter, Nature can easily succeed in 

 associating pink and scarlet, purple and crimson. 



Other flowers and blossoming shrubs will adorn the park 

 with new garments of loveliness as the weeks go by, but at 

 no future time will its general effect be so enchanting as 

 during these first days of May. For then the wealth of low- 

 lying color was not more attractive than the varied character 

 of the canopies of higher foliage. Here we saw, as in some 

 Horse-chestnut tree, a mass of green, already strong and deep 

 and solid. There the Maple-leaves were half-unfolded, the 

 leaves of the Liquidambar defined themselves as separate tiny 

 stars, and each leaf of the Tulip-tree showed, still in minia- 

 ture, its singular individuality of outline. Now the green was 

 but a diaphanous garment, and again, only a faint cloud or a 

 thinnest mist. On one tree it was not green at all but yellow, 

 and on another a pale, soft gray. Where the Oaks stretched 

 their infinitesimal but many-pointed leaves a careful eye 

 could discover every tint of green, brown, gray, yellow and 

 pink. And here and there were still, quite leafless trees, the 

 delicate tracery of their branches exquisitely defined against 

 their more enterprising neighbors. Of course there is a 

 charm in mere priority. Early spring has a peculiar attrac- 

 tion of its own simply because it is early spring. But, quite 

 apart from this, May is the most beautiful of months. Such 

 variety, such endless kinds and shades of beauty, such subtile 

 contrasts and unexpected harmonies, no other time can offer. 

 Fortunate were those who, if unable to enjoy its tender yet 

 swiftly passing phases in the actual country, could spend 

 an hour or two each day in Central Park. Indeed, owing to 

 the greater variety of its vegetation, a fine park is perhaps a 

 better place than any but an exceptionally favored country- 

 side in which to study the fullest beauty of early May. 



As a rule, in laying out parks, the principal roads and walks 

 should be so disposed as to leave the central parts un- 

 broken, so that broad, quiet landscape effects may be had 

 in looking across them ; at the same time, they should be 

 kept far enough from the boundaries to allow exterior objects, 

 which may not be consistent with the designed scenes, to be 

 screened from view by border plantations, and to admit of 

 such a free and natural treatment of the intervening space as 

 to avoid the suggestion of limit and confinement. — Frederic 

 Law Olmsted, 



