July 8, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



313 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted bv Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE I'OST office AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles :— The Value of Rural Beauty 313 



A Race of Hardy Fruits 313 



Bronx Parle. (With figure.) Anna Murray Vail. 314 



How We Renewed an Old Place.— XII Mrs. J. H. Robbms. 315 



The Weeds of California. — I Professor E. IV. Hilgard. 316 



New or Little-known Plants : — Arbutus Arizonica. (With figure.) C. S. S. 317 



Cultural Department:— Stray Notes from the Arnold Arboretum. — III... .P. C. 317 



Notes from the Harvard Botanic Garden M. Barker. 319 



Carnivorous Plants //'.//. Taplin. 321 



Garden Edgings, Spiraea gigantea J. N. Gerard. 321 



Correspondence :— The Naturalization of Exotic Forest-trees in Prussia, 



C. Bollc. 321 



Irish Daffodils versus Dutch in the New Country John Quill. 322 



Recent Publications 322 



Notes 3 2 4 



Illustrations :— Arbutus Arizonica, Fig. 54 318 



A View in Bronx Park, Fig. 55 320 



The Value of Rural Beauty. 



A RECENT number of The Press, published at Ridge- 

 field, Connecticut, contains an account of the settle- 

 ment of West Mountain, and the narrative carries a lesson 

 which could be profitably studied in many rural communi- 

 ties. The West Mountain district lies a few miles west of 

 Ridgefield. It is a region of wooded heights and deep 

 valleys, and, therefore, of sparkling rivulets and placid 

 lakes, with many picturesque glens and sweeping views 

 of diversified scenery. No doubt, the people who have 

 lived within sight of West Mountain have always enjoyed 

 its beauty, but it was a visitor from the city who was so 

 profoundly impressed with the native charms of the place 

 that he decided to make for himself a summer home in the 

 midst of these sylvan surroundings. The first settler was 

 followed by another and another, and now a single pur- 

 chaser has secured a large tract with the intention of per- 

 petually preserving it, so that the beauty of these natural 

 hills and woods and lakes can be enjoyed forever. Now, 

 it is a sordid view which estimates rural beauty solely by 

 its money value, but it is worth while to remind the owners 

 of real estate in the country that, even if rural scenery 

 fails to make any moving appeal to their own sense of 

 beauty, there are other people who do prize it. No doubt 

 the purchase of this West Mountain land, which has been 

 idle and practically valueless, will prove a substantial 

 pecuniary advantage to all that neighborhood. Not only 

 will it bring visitors and consumers of home products, 

 but it will enhance the value of all the neighboring real 

 estate, and every landholder thereabout will be the richer 

 because of the discovery and development of this natural 

 beauty, and of the assurance that it is likely to be pre- 

 served. 



It is encouraging to know that in many other places 

 there is a growing tendency to purchase so-called waste 

 lands and to hold them for the enjoyment of the people. 



We call to mind another region in Connecticut where the 

 villagers are united in their interest to preserve all the rural 

 charms of the neighborhood. Miles of highway have been 

 purchased with no other purpose than to allow Nature to 

 frolic in her own free way by the road-side. Forests have 

 been bought that they might be held for public enjoyment, 

 and the feeling of the community is strong for the preserva- 

 tion of all wild spots which will help to satisfy the desire for 

 beauty and repose. The state of New Hampshire has con- 

 sidered it worth while to recognize officially the value of 

 its mountain-passes and ravines, its lakes and cascades, 

 and to provide roads and paths for the purpose of making 

 them accessible. All this indicates that every year there 

 are more people who find pleasure and rest in the contem- 

 plation of natural beauty, and therefore there is reason for 

 more earnest protest against the wanton marring of that 

 beauty. 



Of course, it is not meant that the axe should be kept 

 out of every wood-lot or that every roadside should be left 

 to wild vines and shrubbery. There is a beauty of culti- 

 vated fields and road-borders of trimmed turf, as every one 

 will recognize who drives, for example, through the rich 

 farm-lands of Lancaster County, in Pennsylvania. But no 

 community lives up to its duty or highest privilege when 

 it fails in solicitous care for the preservation and enhance- 

 ment of the natural beauty which is its heritage.. The de- 

 struction of a few venerable trees may turn a delightful 

 piece of road into a dreary one; a railroad excavation may 

 so gash a mountain-side as to destroy an entrancing pros- 

 pect, and very often communities have no redress against 

 such inflictions. But, where an alert public sentiment has 

 been cultivated, a community is less likely to suffer in this 

 way, for when it is known that rural beauty is prized as a 

 public possession no one cares to fall under popular disap- 

 probation for defacing it. 



But sometimes more than a mere protection against 

 damage ought to be possible. If it is a worthy purpose to 

 conserve, so far as possible, and consistent with the de- 

 mands of every-day business life, the beauties of a coun- 

 try, the endeavor to multiply and enhance these beauties is 

 equally commendable. There is an art which doth mend 

 nature, and if in all the planning and planting, as well as 

 in all the clearing and general improvement throughout 

 the country, the effect of what is done upon the surround- 

 ing scenery is studied — that is, if every proprietor of 

 land should take constant thought about the landscape he 

 is helping to make — the country would steadily grow in 

 attractiveness. If every town possessed a man of taste 

 whose counsel was listened to, village and farm-land, 

 forest and orchard, might gradually shape themselves into 

 pictures upon which the eye would delight to linger. 

 Some one has said that society will not be regenerated 

 by the landscape-gardener ; but since a love for natural 

 beauty seems to be an original instinct of the human soul, 

 it certainly is wise to gratify this universal longing and 

 cherish the beauty which lies about us rather than de- 

 stroy it. 



At the recent meeting of nurserymen at Minneapo- 

 lis, Mr. C. L. Watrous, of Des Moines, Iowa, took 

 occasion to state a fact which is too often neglected in 

 estimating the adaptability of trees in different regions of 

 the country. What is known as "hardiness'' means much 

 more than ability to withstand a certain lowness of tem- 

 perature. A tree, to be valuable in any situation, must be 

 able not only to endure the cold of its winter, but the heat 

 of its summer, and toendure these extremes for long pe- 

 riods. Besides this, the dryness or dampness of the at- 

 mosphere are to be considered as well as the liability 

 to sudden changes in the way of moisture and tempera- 

 ture, with many more climatic complexities. Therefore it 

 is often found that a tree which does fairly well in one 

 situation may perish but a few miles away, and the only 

 safe course is for every section of the country, and no very 

 large section at that, to make its own trials, and find by 



