3H 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 176. 



actual experience what trees can be planted with hope of 

 success. 



The fruit-growers of Iowa began to plant orchards years 

 ago, and their work was full of promise ; but disastrous 

 seasons came and the orchards perished. Again they plant- 

 ed hopefully and largely of fruits imported from eastern 

 Europe, where the climate was said to resemble that of 

 our north-west. But here, too, there has been much dis- 

 appointment, and many persons now believe that profit- 

 able orchards in the north-west are not to be found in 

 importations from any different climate. 



Some years ago, at a pomological meeting in Boston, 

 there was an exhibition of fruit from every state in the 

 Union, and a member of the Pomological Society from 

 Iowa called attention to the fact that his experience at 

 former exhibitions had been repeated at this one, and he 

 ventured to say that it was always safe to expect that the 

 premium specimens of any variety of fruit would come 

 from a region near by the place of its origin. This state- 

 ment was not altogether novel, but it impressed Mr. 

 Watrous with the belief that the true way to provide fruits 

 suitable to the north-west was to produce them from seed- 

 lings of the native sorts which had already proved them- 

 selves adapted to the peculiarities of the north-western 

 climate. This belief is shared by many fruit-growers, and 

 the work of producing native seedling fruits is now carried 

 on with persistence and system in several of the north-west- 

 ern states. Mr. Watrous stated that in Iowa the State Horti- 

 cultural Society had appropriated #2,500 each year and 

 established twenty experiment stations, where fruits deemed 

 worthy of trial are put under proper tests. Besides this, 

 skilled men are employed to cross-fertilize fruits of various 

 kinds. During the present year many hundreds of crosses 

 have been made upon native Crab-apple trees, some of 

 which already bear fair-sized fruit. The pollen is usually 

 taken from such apples as Jonathan, Grimes, Northern 

 Spy, Baldwin and other large apples of good flavor, late- 

 keeping qualities, and preferably a red color. In the same 

 way pollen is taken from European varieties of the Plum 

 and used upon our native plants. The Sand Hill Cherry 

 from the Dakotas has been planted, and is to be crossed 

 with the best varieties of the European Cherry. The same 

 is done upon our native Currants. 



We are not aware that systematic attempts at improving 

 fruits and adapting them to given conditions by cross- 

 breeding has ever been tried on so large a scale in any 

 other part of the world. It is certainly an experiment 

 which all pomologists will look upon with interest. If we 

 can ascertain some of the laws which govern the transmis- 

 sion of the specific qualities of given seed-parents, this would 

 be a marked advance in the science and art of horticulture. 



The idea of self-denial for the sake of posterity, of practic- 

 ing present economy for the sake of debtors yet unborn, of 

 planting forests that our descendants may live under their 

 shade, or of raising cities for future nations to inhabit, never, 

 I suppose, efficiently takes place among publicly recognized 

 motives of exertion. Yet these are not less our duties ; nor is 

 our part fitly sustained upon the earth, unless the range of 

 our intended and deliberate usefulness includes, not only the 

 companions but the successors of our pilgrimage. God has 

 lent us the earth for our life ; it is a great entail. It belongs as 

 much to those who are to come after us, and whose names 

 are already written in the book of creation, as to us ; and we 

 have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve 

 them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits 

 which it was in our power to bequeath. And this the more, 

 because it is one of the appointed conditions of the labor of 

 men that, in proportion to the time between the seed-sowing 

 and the harvest, is the fullness of the fruit ; and that generally, 

 therefore, the farther off we place our aim, and the less we 

 desire to be ourselves the witnesses of what we have labored 

 for, the more wide and rich will be the measure of our suc- 

 cess. Men cannot benefit those that are with them as they 

 can benefit those who come after them ; and of all the pulpits 

 from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from 

 which it reaches so far as from tire grave. — John Ruskin, The 

 Seven Lamps of Architecture. 



Bronx Park. 



UEW people of New York know that within their city limits 

 - 1 - lies one of the most picturesque spots to be found this 

 side the Adirondacks. Bronx Park is situated beyond the 

 Harlem River, between Williamsbridge and West Farms, in 

 Westchester County, and is about twenty minutes distant from 

 the Grand Central Station. It consists of a strip some two 

 miles long and half a mile wide, mostly wooded, on both 

 banks of the little Bronx River. Altogether it comprises be- 

 tween 600 and 700 acres. In some places the river is a nar- 

 row stony brook, and in others widens out into placid sheets 

 of water, surrounded with grassy knolls, shaded by tall, 

 handsome trees. Very peaceful is the scenery, and the visitor 

 finds no suggestion of a neighboring city beyond an occa- 

 sional glimpse of a gray-coated park watchman and the shrill 

 echoes of frequent steam-whistles. 



The park is a portion of the outlying district annexed to 

 New York in 1873, an d, beyond taking down most of the old 

 buildings scattered through the tract, nothing has been done 

 toward improving or laying it out. Two or three high- 

 ways cross it and a few pathways wind along the stream ; 

 the rest is left to the care of nature. 



The native trees of this region are well represented through 

 the park — Elms, Maples, Beeches, Birches and Chestnuts 

 abound, five or six species of Oak, and, what is most surpris- 

 ing, quite a large grove of sturdy, healthy Hemlocks. Per- 

 haps there are none of very great age, but many are good- 

 sized trees, and what is most encouraging for the future, is 

 the abundance of young ones. The Hemlock grove is the most 

 picturesque part of the park, for there the Bronx winds through 

 a narrow ravine, on the steep rocky sides of which the geolo- 

 gist will invariably point out some astonishing pot-holes. The 

 botanist will not find himself alone in studying the banks of 

 the Bronx ; the artist will see many scenes worthy of his pen- 

 cil, and even the archaeologist will find there happy hunting- 

 grounds, for an Indian grave-yard is close at hand. 



In the beginning of May the fields and swamps were bright 

 with spring blossoms. Violets were everywhere, white ones and 

 blue ones, the latter going into astonishing vagaries as to color. 

 On the marshy ground the common Blue Violet (Viola cucul- 

 lata) was lilac with a slightly darker spot on the lateral petals ; 

 in the woods it was a nearly uniform blue-purple, and on the 

 dry river-banks it was a deep red-purple, very large and hand- 

 some. Delicate little lance-leaved Violets ( V. lanceolata) grow 

 on the edge of the Hemlock-woods with dainty Wind Flowers, 

 which we are now to call Anemone quinquefolia ! Graceful 

 Uvularias and the sturdy Jack-in-the-Pulpit, the green and the 

 purple-striped form, growing side by side along the marsh 

 and all through the woods, while higher up, in a secluded 

 spot, the bright-green Indian Poke ( Veratrum viride) is occa- 

 sionally seen. 



On the border of the marsh at Williamsbridge a row of 

 Pin Oaks (Quercus palustris), covered with golden-brown tas- 

 sels, presented a beautiful appearance. The lower branches 

 of the trees almost touched the ground, and, at the water's 

 edge, Sagittarias and their kin were just emerging from their 

 winter sleep. 



The pretty little lilac-flowered Aphyllon unifiorum was in 

 bloom under the Hemlocks, and along the sandy stretches near 

 the old Lorillard snuff works the curious wild Ginger (Asarum 

 Canadense) covered the ground with its blue-green leaves. 

 Witch Hazel grows along the mill-race of the old factory, and 

 the graceful drooping clusters of the Bladder Nut (Staphylea 

 trifolia) were reflected in a big pool overshadowed by lofty 

 Hemlocks. The most striking bit of bloom was on the rocky 

 bank near the Fordham road, where rose-colored Pinxter- 

 flowers (Rhododendron nudiflorum), Black Haw ( Viburnum 

 prunifolium) and high, straggling Dogwoods were flower- 

 ing. The Azalea was abundant and very luxuriant. Among 

 the stones all about it was the pretty Columbine (Aquilegia 

 Canadensis) and the wild Pink (Silene Pennsylvanica). Of Laurel 

 there were only^a few stunted shrubs, which bear the marks 

 of very rough handling. 



In 1639 one Jonas Bronck, a Swede, with his wife Antonia, 

 a Dutchwoman, their servants and cattle, sailed from Amster- 

 dam in the "Fire of Troy," and, on his arrival here, "pur- 

 chased from the Indian sachem, Tackamack, and his associates 

 the large tract of land called by them Ranachqua, lying between 

 the Great Kill and the River Ah-qua-hung, now the Bronx 

 . . . and since included in the Manor of Morrisania."* 

 There " Seignior Bronck," as. lie was styled, built a stone 

 house, tobacco-house, etc., and there died in 1643. After his 

 death his estate passed through several hands till, in 1668, one 



* " Harlem : Its Origin and Early Annals," by James RiUer. New York, 1881. 



