July 8. 1S91.J 



Garden and Forest. 



315 



Samuel Edsall conveyed it to " Colonel Lewis Morris, of the 

 Island of Barbadoes, Merchant." At the death of the latter, 

 in 1691, the whole estate, embracing 1920 acres, fell to his 

 nephew, Lewis Morris, and was, in 1697, erected into the 

 Manor of Morrisania. 



Less than a century later.'in September, 1776, General Wash- 

 ington established his headquarters, first at the country-seat 

 of Roger Morris, and then at White Plains, his army being 

 entrenched along the Bronx. It was on Chatterton's Hill, 

 writes Washington Irving, that, by his skill displayed in the 

 construction of earth-works, Alexander Hamilton, then a 

 young captain of artillery, first attracted General Washington's 

 notice. Of the battles of those days, along the Bronx, only 

 tradition remains, and as the city extends the old landmarks 

 quickly vanish. Even their names are forgotten in our fashion 

 of neglecting points of historic interest in the nomenclature 

 of city streets and squares. 



Bronx Park has been selected as the site of the Botanic 

 Garden which it is hoped the city will one day possess, and a 

 more appropriate site could hardly be imagined. The river 

 furnishes abundant water, and the varied soil and surface 

 offers a rare opportunity for a fair piece of landscape-work. 



The accompanying view on Bronx River is from a photo- 

 graph taken by Mr. Charles G. Wood, junior, at a point below 



the Hemlock Grove. . „, rr ., 



New Yoric. Anna Murray Vail. 



How We Renewed an Old Place. 



XII.— TERRACES AND SHRUBS. 



THOUGH we have no especial preference for terraces, 

 which used to form a feature of many old-fashioned 

 homes, the conditions of our house-lot have forced them upon 

 us on three sides. As I have before stated, the flat top of 

 the knoll is very limited in extent, so that, even in building, 

 we were forced to cut our coat according to our cloth, and 

 support the rear of the house with a high basement to serve 

 for laundry, dairy, and other offices, instead of adding the 

 more usual L, or wing. 



The width of the lot at this point would not allow of more 

 than ninety feet between us and the highway, even by setting 

 the building as far back as possible, and, when this was done, 

 leaving a gentle slope from the front door to the road, the 

 ground on the north and south sides of the house fell with 

 such abruptness from the foundations that no room was left 

 even for a passage-way. 



This lack was remedied on the north of the house by con- 

 structing a terrace sufficiently wide on top for a tree or two, 

 and some shrubbery to mask the foundations, with plenty of 

 space for climbing things to grow over the veranda. This 

 bank, supported on the east by the heavy wing-wall of the 

 house, slopes to a driveway below, which leads to the stable 

 behind. It is high and steep, but well sodded, and rather adds 

 to the- commanding effect of the house, besides serving to 

 break the height of the building at the back. A flight of steps 

 at the rear of the veranda leads to the drive below, and some 

 good-sized Pines have been planted there to still further hide 

 the basement. 



The main approach was not planned with sufficient consid- 

 eration for anything but convenience, and consists of a semi- 

 circular driveway to make the house easily accessible from 

 both ends of the town, but it is our plan to alter it before long, 

 so that the front door will only be accessible from the north to 

 carriages, which will give us an unbroken stretch of grass on 

 the east and south, whereas now there is a half-moon of green- 

 sward in front, enclosed between the driveway and the street, 

 thickly planted with trees destined soon to form an effectual 

 screen between us and the dusty road. 



South of the house, near the highway, the ground slopes 

 gently into the swale, which, with its groups of trees, forms a 

 side lawn of uneven surface, bounded' at the rear by the hill, 

 with its rising tiers of little Pines. Near the dwelling, however, 

 in order to get any greensward or shade at all, we were forced 

 to construct, of stones and gravel, a terrace some twenty-five 

 feet in width at its narrowest part, to support which about 

 two hundred feet or more of massive wall were constructed. 

 This wall is low in front, and buries itself in the grassy slope, 

 but where it curves around the knoll at the rear, it is six feet 

 high, and makes a warm background for Grape-vines, and the 

 hot-beds, which are placed below the vines, fronting the south. 

 A steep bank, thickly sodded, descends from the level of the 

 lawn to the top of the wall, which is also covered with turf. 

 This sunny south terrace is the very spot for the old-fashioned 

 Rose-bushes which we have transplanted hither from the other 

 parts of the place, and here, too, is a bed for more delicate 



specimens, which can be protected by a glass frame in the 

 winter-time, as well as a tree to shade the south windows 

 from the heat. 



The wall was quite an important construction, and I am 

 afraid to say how many tons of stone went into it, for the 

 largest portion of it is underground, the results being very 

 solid and substantial. 



Behind the house, on the basement-level, is still another 

 curved terrace, from which a grassy cart-path leads down to 

 the swale and the hot-beds, and here the various walls are 

 utilized to protect rows of Currant-bushes above, and Rasp- 

 berry-bushes below, which are easy of access from the kitchen- 

 door. 



To cover all this expanse of gravel foundation required 

 untold quantities of loam, so much, indeed, that we thought 

 ourselves fortunate if we could allow an average of four inches 

 over the whole surface of the lawn, but this meagre allowance 

 seems to afford sufficient hold for the grass-roots, and heavy 

 annual dressings of compost add continually to its depth. It 

 is rather a curious study to watch the formation of soil, and 

 the gradual way in which the sand below is transformed by 

 the roots — first into yellow, and then into black loam. How 

 long, we wonder, will it take before a foot of soil is obtained 

 over a surface treated as this lawn is treated, the fine grass 

 dropped from the lawn-mower being left upon it without rak- 

 ing, and the drainage from the heavily enriched trees always 

 helping it along, in addition to its own annual dressings ? 



The shrubs on the knoll, at first scattered about rather pro- 

 miscuously, as they increase in size we are struggling to group 

 properly, according to the lights thrown upon this subject by 

 Garden and Forest, but the articles we have so carefully 

 studied on this topic presuppose a great number of bushes 

 of one kind to begin with, and where you have perhaps three 

 Golden Spiraeas, and a half-dozen Lilac-bushes, and a hardy 

 Hydrangea or two, and a few Deutzias, and Weigelias, and 

 other heterogeneous things in variety, the question is to set 

 them so that they will produce the effect of twenty-five of 

 each. We have managed it so that really the shrubbery ap- 

 peal's rather crowded, but it has been done in a manner to 

 horrify the authorities. 



We have treated our landscape very much as a painter would 

 his canvas. We dab in a shrub where we think it will produce 

 the effect of half a dozen, and if, after a few months, the pic- 

 ture seems to require its removal, out it is scratched and 

 dabbed into another spot, and thus, in true amateur fashion, 

 we feel our way toward a final result, for we find things never 

 look when they are little as they do when they are fairly grown, 

 — the usual experience of amateur gardeners. 



The best that can be said for this method is, that the results 

 are unconventional. I have discovered that a landscape-gar- 

 dener gets a style, a mannerism, like a poet or a draftsman, 

 and that, after some experience, you can detect the professional 

 manufacturer of a garden by the receipts on which he works. 

 Twenty-five Spiraeas here, twenty Deutzias there, Viburnums 

 one dozen, Lilacs in variety, Forsythias eight, a bushel or two 

 of golden Evergreens mixed with Juniper and Arbor-vitas, at 

 such a point, a hedge here, curves on this side, straight lines on 

 that, etc., etc. — it is all reduced to a system, and the results, if 

 repeated in the same town, are monotonous. 



We are bound, having gone in for it, to defend the natural 

 method. If the results of the artificial are more satisfactory, 

 the execution is not half the fun. 



Can there be, I ask you, the same enjoyment in sitting down 

 to watch the growth of a border of shrubs that somebody has 

 set out for you, that there is in dragging the few you have 

 planted yourself, out of their holes and transporting them to 

 a more becoming place, as you would a flower on a bonnet ? 



Anybody can put in a tree or a shrub and let it alone, but it 

 takes nerve to wheel it about like a baby in a go-cart. 



We have neighbors who employ the conventional methods 

 with dazzling results, but, on the whole, we doubt if their vast 

 and imposing plantations give them as much enjoyment as 

 our more personal intercourse with our little family of grow- 

 ing things. We are quite sure that each scrubby little Pine on 

 the hill is dearer to us than a thicket of well-fed trees planted 

 by a nurseryman. 



" You will know my children," said the Owl to the Fox, with 

 whom she had made a compact to spare them, " by their being 

 the most beautiful little darlings in the whole world." But 

 when the Fox came to the nest full of big-eyed, long-billed, 

 unfledged frights, he failed to recognize the description, and 

 ate them all up under a misapprehension. De nobis fabula. 



We are afraid that most people would pronounce in favor 

 of the upholstering of the professional, rather than of our 

 private efforts at lawn-furnishing, but we can recommend our 



