June 3, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



253 



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, JUNE 3, 1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



l'AGB. 



Editorial Articles :— Matters of Taste : 253 



An Interesting; Rediscovery... 253 



The Gardens of Bermuda 254 



Sir Christopher Wren as a Gardener Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. 254 



Native Shrubs of California. — VI Professor Edward L. Create. 255 



New or Little Known Plants :— The Japanese Hamamelis. (With figure.) 



C. S. S. 256 

 Ravenea Hildebrandtii. (With figure.) W. Watson. 256 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter W. Watson. 258 



Cultural Department:— Notes on Shrubs J- G. Jack. 258 



The Hardiness of Japanese Bamboos J.N. Gerard. 260 



Wild Flowers around St. Louis .... F. H. II. 260 



Succulents for Bedding IV. H. Taplin. 2O1 



Points of Merit in Asparagus Professor IV. IV. Tracy. 261 



Vegetable Garden Notes Professor W. P. Masscy. 261 



Syringa pubescens, An Abundant Rust Professor Byron D. Hoisted. 262 



Correspondence : — Bermuda in May .S'. 262 



Dioiuea muscipula as a Window-plant Miss Anna Murray Vail. 263 



Recent Publications 263 



Notes 264 



Illustrations : — Hamamelis Japonica, Fig. 45 257 



Ravenea Hildebrandtii, Fig. 46 259 



Matters of Taste. 



THE expression, " It is a matter of taste," is often used 

 to signify that no rules or principles can be applied 

 to the subject which is thus indicated, and it is a popular 

 notion that a matter of taste supplies opportunity for abso-, 

 lute choice or caprice, and that one decision or preference 

 is as good and as appropriate as another. But the faculty of 

 discerning beauty, order, congruity, proportion, symmetry 

 and whatever constitutes excellence in landscape-garden- 

 ing requires cultivation and intelligent direction. The 

 notion that whatever accords with the whims or prefer- 

 ences of the owner is for that reason fit and right, is con- 

 stantly used to justify all kinds of unintelligent and 

 unpleasing arrangement of the grounds about dwellings. 



It is every year becoming more important to obtain gen- 

 eral recognition in this country for the truth that in matters 

 of taste, appearance or beauty, pleasing effects do not de- 

 pend on caprice, but that the character of results is deter- 

 mined by the arrangements and conditions of each 

 particular case — that is, by facts and principles which 

 should be recognized and regarded in practice. Of course 

 there are often matters pertaining to the plan and treat- 

 ment of the grounds about dwellings which afford oppor- 

 tunity for unrestricted choice. These are usually features 

 or questions of comparatively slight importance, and the 

 preferences of the owner constitute the only standard of 

 judgment which it is necessary to apply. The error which 

 constantly leads to undesirable results is the popular belief 

 that all matters of taste are of this character ; that they lie 

 outside of the realm of rules and principles, and that what 

 pleases the owner of the grounds is necessarily good. 



If people could be brought to recognize the distinction 

 between the two classes of subjects or questions connected 

 with the arrangement and treatment of grounds about 

 dwellings, the one made up of matters in which one 

 method may be as good as another and the owner's choice 

 is the only law, the other requiring the application of an 



intelligent and cultivated judgment in order to reach any 

 satisfactory result, it would be the means of greatly im- 

 proving the appearance of thousands of places, and it 

 would also increase the value of residence property in 

 nearly all the towns of our country. The appearance or 

 effect of permanence, and of the peacefulness and comfort 

 which ought to belong to a home, can be produced only 

 by the adaptation of means and plans to these ends. The 

 position of the house in the grounds, and the relation be- 

 tween its character and that of its permanent surroundings, 

 the disposition of shrubbery and of roadways, and the con- 

 nection between the lawns and the public streets or high- 

 ways, are all questions requiring intelligence for their 

 decision. There are principles and laws involved which 

 cannot be safely disregarded, and pleasing effects and 

 impressions can result only from arrangements and combi- 

 nations which are in their nature adapted to produce them. 

 An unsightly building may be made to appear more dis- 

 tant, and less intrusive and aggressive, by a hedge or line 

 of shrubbery which does not conceal half of its height, and 

 this effect follows whether it is expected and understood or 

 not. A small lawn fronting a public street or roadway 

 which is a wide area of dust, with only a ragged, irregular 

 edging of grass, may have in itself a pleasing effect if it is 

 in some way definitely separated from the street. The 

 limit or barrier may be a slight fence, hedge or wall, but a 

 plain line of demarcation is necessary between the homo- 

 geneous and successful expanse of greenery on the one 

 side, and the chaotic domain of ugliness on the other. 

 While the barrier is maintained — it may be a barrier for 

 the eye only — the verdant smoothness of the lawn makes 

 a satisfactory impression. It is so much that has been re- 

 deemed from the waste which still exists beyond the wall, 

 and for this outside desolation the lawn is clearly not re- 

 sponsible. But if the limit between the lawn and the 

 street is removed, then the unsubdued ugliness of the street 

 becomes a part of the lawn, and the lawn is dominated and 

 dwarfed by it, and appears unfinished and unsuccessful. 



An Interesting Rediscovery. 



MRS. J. G. SMYTH, of Greenville, South Carolina, 

 sends us fresh flowers of Lonicera flava, gathered by 

 herself on Paris Mountain, probably in the very spot where 

 this plant was last seen growing wild by any botanist. 

 This was in the year 1810, when John Fraser, a Scotch col- 

 lector, paid a visit to Paris Mountain and gathered seeds 

 or roots of this plant and sent them to England. From the 

 descendants of these plants of Fraser's kept in gardens has 

 been preserved the knowledge of this beautiful species. 

 Last year a figure and description of Lonicera flava were 

 published in this journal (vol. iii., 187, f. 187), and the in- 

 terest this excited in what appeared to be a " lost plant " led 

 our correspondent to investigate Paris Mountain, a low 

 outlying spur of the Blue Ridge which rises from the plain 

 close to Greenville. Her search was successful, and on 

 the 27th of April Mrs. Smyth found the Floneysuckle in 

 flower, and now sends us specimens with this note : 



The plants were found, and this was the only place, on the 

 north side of the mountain, a hundred and fifty or two hundred 

 feet from the top or highest point of the mountain, which is 

 2,054 feet above the level of the sea. The Lonicera was grow- 

 ing in a very rocky place, about fifteen or twenty feet square, a 

 place which looked, except for the many and large rocks scat- 

 tered over it, as if it might have been a cleared spot. Allaround 

 and about it the original foliage of the forest had never been 

 disturbed, tall Oaks and Chestnuts, and the thick undergrowth 

 of Azaleas and Rhododendrons forming a dense shade. The 

 soil is rich and black from the long accumulation of leaf- 

 mold, damp and rich, and just such a soil as the Rhododen- 

 dron grows and thrives in. The stems are not more than two 

 feet high, but I thought would have grown longer if there had 

 been any support for them to cling to and run on. The roots 

 send out long runners, and these send up shoots from every 

 little point, so that in trying to get a root one might pull up 

 yards and yards before it would break. 



