July 15, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



327 



that at the end of the last century " English gardens " were 

 becoming popular in France. Some fine cut-leaved Alders 

 grew by the bank of the stream, and on the edge of the pond 

 large Taxodiums were throwing up their " knees," as they do 

 in the Florida swamps. Many other beautiful specimen trees 

 attracted the eye ; and though Weeping Willows can hardly 

 be called beautiful, historical sentiment was stirred at the sight 

 of a large example which had grown from a twig brought 

 many years ago by Montholon from St. Helena. 



Their plants, not their design, give these two gardens their 

 interest; but the one which forms the central feature of the 

 newer part of the town is as charming an example of the artis- 

 tic treatment of a small urban pleasure-ground as I remember 

 to have seen. The intersecting streets here leave a long and 

 rather narrow isoceles triangle. The point of this triangle is 

 occupied by the Place Darcy, but the greater part is filled by 

 the park. At its broader end the ground lies high above the 

 surrounding streets. Here a wide space has been laid out 

 with a music pavilion in the centre and with a graveled sur- 

 face that may be covered by chairs upon occasion, but closely 

 shaded by many regular rows of fine Plane-trees, concentric- 

 ally arranged near the pavilion and in rectangular lines at a 

 greater distance. From this space the ground descends 

 steeply toward the street on three sides, turfed, planted with 

 graceful groups of low trees and shrubs, and everywhere en- 

 circled by a gilded railing of good design. On the fourth side, 

 however, which faces the Place Darcy in the point of the tri- 

 angle, the rapid descent of the ground is utilized to form a fine 

 series of marble terraces with cascades rushing out beneath 

 them and falling into rectangular basins set with aquatic 

 plants, flights of steps flanking the cascade on either side and 

 being flanked themselves by the lateral slopes of turf, which 

 in this part end at gravel walks running near the outer rail- 

 ing, well shaded and furnished with comfortable seats. The 

 level of the street is reached before we get to the limits of the 

 park at its narrower end, and here we find the usual arrange- 

 ments of paths, grass-plats and seats very charmingly man- 

 aged ; and hence, as we look out on the Place Darcy, we find 

 that even its open space has been brought into the general 

 scheme, an oval of grass and shrubbery lying at a little dis- 

 tance from the borders of the park, then at a greater distance 

 a tiny triangular plantation, fitted to the shape of the contract- 

 'ing triangle, and finally, closing the long converging perspec- 

 tive, a triumphal arch, which stands across the entrance of the 

 Rue de la Liberie". 



The view of this lower portion of the park and of the Place 

 Darcy, seen over the cascades from the terraces above, is 

 extremely impressive, considering the small scale of the 

 whole ; and a word should also be given to the arrangement 

 of the shrubberies on the lateral slopes of the park. Whether 

 seen from above or seen from the street outside, one cannot 

 but admire the skill with which they have been disposed ; 

 now running outward till they reach the railing with their 

 luxuriant masses of drooping foliage, and now curving inward 

 to leave a wide stretch of grass next the street, or, here and 

 there, room for a little path, a graveled spot and a big marble 

 bench whence the lively panorama of the street may be viewed 

 at once. The harmonizing of the formal upper portions of 

 the park (which, by the way, is properly called the Promenade 

 du Chateau d'Eau) seemed to me very skillful, and, taken as 

 a whole, this pleasure-ground would, I think, convince any 

 observer that formal and naturalistic elements may be happily 

 joined, and that, in a small urban park, the presence of formal 

 features is extremely desirable. No wholly naturalistic design 

 could have given this park so great a serviceableness or so 

 much dignity, or could have harmonized it so well with the 

 surrounding rows of buildings ; of course, its designers were 

 lucky in having a piece of ground so varied in surface to 

 work upon, but had they not been artists they would not 

 have profited by their opportunity. It was easy, but not pleas- 

 ant, to fancy what the place might have been in the hands of 

 an unskillful designer. 



New York. M. G. Van Rensselaer. 



How We Renewed an Old Place. 



XIII. — EVERGREENS IN SPRING. 



T KNOW few things more depressing than the sight of 

 *■ conifers in May, when every deciduous tree is putting its 

 best foot foremost and giving promise of a fine crop of leaves. 

 The Pines and Spruces and Firs which have gladdened our 

 eyes all winter, with their fine green masses relieved against 

 the snow, or standing up bravely from the brown grass, in 

 rich contrast to the barrenness around, now begin to show the 

 sere and yellow leaf. The March sun and winds have burned 



and browned their tips, the winter storms have buffeted their 

 branches and torn great gaps in their outline. Their new 

 shoots are all hidden under a little tight white or yellow, or 

 brown nightcap that looks dried and wizened, as if no promise 

 of life lurked underneath. 



When the snow melts sufficiently for one to walk abroad 

 among his plantations, he views them with a feeling akin to 

 despair, so unlikely do they seem to recover themselves. 

 Some branches are entirely dead, the tops of others are win- 

 ter-killed, a few have turned copper-color from root to crown, 

 and beside the bright green of bursting buds and springing 

 grass, the best of them look worn and dingy by contrast. 



Not until the middle of May do they pluck up their spirits, 

 pull off their bonnets, and show that their apparent deadness 

 resulted from the fact that they take their season differently 

 from their gayer neighbors, and wear their winter furs, how- 

 ever rusty and inappropriate, far into spring, while all the 

 others have come out in their new clothes of brightest hue. 

 Some years June will be here before they condescend to put 

 out the green tassels which are their first adornment, but 

 through the month of roses they do their prettiest, and hang 

 out their banners with the best. 



Some of the authorities recommend the month of June 

 as the most desirable for transplanting evergreens, but 

 my experience would lead me to the conclusion that with 

 them, as well as with hard-wood trees, the period before the 

 bursting of the buds is more satisfactory than the time when 

 they have already begun to swell. Seasons vary so decidedly 

 that a few warm days may hasten the new shoots, and they may 

 be three inches long before you think of going for trees, so 

 that they droop discouragingly after transplanting, and some- 

 times never brace up again. This is particularly the case with 

 Pines, which have a way of drooping their little brown heads 

 despairingly, and refusing to stiffen, in which case, if they can- 

 not be freely watered, they are sure to die. 



This year the warm days in April so quickened all vegetable 

 life, that, when we set forth in the middle of May in search of 

 new trees for the hill, we found to our surprise that the green 

 tassels on some of the trees were as long as one's finger, which 

 gave us a pang lest we were already too late for the best satis- 

 faction. 



However, as there had been already some six weeks of un- 

 precedented dry weather, and there were signs of rain in the 

 atmosphere, it seemed that if there was any chance at all, now 

 was our time. We accordingly arranged for a morning among 

 the Pines, and, accompanied by a big farm-wagon to bring 

 them home in, we wended our way along the winding country 

 roads, until we came to where the young trees abounded, and 

 we could select our specimens. 



There is little doubt that the stocky, bushy trees of close, 

 heavy foliage, not more than two or three feet high, are the 

 most likely to live and do well, but there are days when one's 

 ambition outruns one's discretion, and, revolting at the slow- 

 ness of the growth of the little ones, he desires to realize his 

 forest immediately, if only for one summer, and so, like a child 

 who plants his sand-garden with blooming flowers, ventures on 

 a load of trees five or six feet high, in hopes that, after making 

 a brave show for a few months, they will be aided by some 

 happy freak of nature to take root in earnest.- 



But planting Pines on a dry hillside is like investing in a 

 lottery — the success of the enterprise depends wholly on the 

 sort of weather that immediately follows, and who can reckon 

 with that? Talk of the vicissitudes in the life of a broker — 

 what'are his uncertain and incalculable quantities compared 

 to those with which the farmer and gardener have to deal ? A 

 broker can abstain from buying bonds and stocks if he will, 

 but the farmer has to plant- when the time comes, and take his 

 chances, and for surprises the weather can give points to Wall 

 Street any day. With the largest experience and judgment 

 you can no more reckon securely on the coming down of rain 

 than of Bell Telephone, or Calumet and Hecla. 



No sooner are one's trees planted than he becomes a bear 

 upon the weather market, but this summer old Probabilities 

 has made a corner with the bulls, and kept rain up persistently, 

 so that the wisest calculations have gone agley ; and if Paul 

 plants, and Apollos declines to water, what then ? 



To return to our expedition. There was an easterly tang in 

 the air, a smell of rain that promised well for the morrow, 

 though in the shelter of the trees all was warmth and sunshine, 

 and bursting buds. Upon the rocks the Lady's-slipper was 

 waving its rosy blossoms, tempting us to add a few roots of 

 it to our shady garden, where it has thriven well. The Beeches 

 and Birches were full of crumpled leaflets, Anemones were 

 blooming by the wayside, the Oak-tops were reddened with the 

 flush of early leaf-buds, the forest was astir. Along the fences 



