August 12, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



373 



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 tkf. post office AT NF.W YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1891. 

 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



• fage. 



Editorial Article : — The Summer Vacation 373 



New England Parks Mrs. J. H. Robbins. 374 



Tropical Nvmphpeas in the Open Air at Berlin. . .Maurice L. de Vilmorin. 375 



The Weeds'of California.— Ill Professor E. IV liilgard. 375 



New or Little-known Plants : — The Japanese Photinia C. S. S. 376 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter TV. Watson. 376 



Cultural Department':— Stray Notes from the Arnold Arboretum.— VIII. .P. C. 378 



High Culture and Tenderness T.H. Hoskins, M.D. 379 



Crowded Shrubberies The Field (London). 379 



Raspberries in 1891 E. P. Powell. 379 



The Water Garden J. N. Gerard. 380 



Orchid Notes M. Barker. 381 



Lindera sericea Professor H. Yoshida. 381 



The Forest : — Some Points in Practical Forestry Dr. Brandts. 381 



Correspondence: — Conifers on Mount Ranier Charles I 7 . Piper. 382 



The Destruction of California Wild Flowers Charles Hcnvard Shinn. 382 



Recent Publications 383 



Notes 383 



Illustrations :— Photinia villosa (smooth form), Fig. 62 377 



Abies lasiocarpa and Tsuga Pattoniana on Mount Ranier, Washington, 



Fig. 63 380 



The Summer Vacation. 



THE summer vacation has come to be an important 

 feature of American life. In a striking article in 

 The Century for August Mr. Edward Hungerford shows 

 how it affects the intellectual and material product of the 

 country ; how it scatters hoarded money and influences 

 the rate of wages ; how it directly improves agriculture 

 and increases the value of land ; how it encourages new 

 industries and domestic handicrafts. It may help to solve 

 the problem of abandoned farms, and, on the contrary, it 

 may help to destroy the simplicity which gives to rural 

 life its greatest value and highest charm. This is not the 

 place to discuss social problems of such weight, but it may 

 be said that the country will receive but little moral benefit 

 if it is to be tilled with idlers from the town all summer 

 long. Extravagance and love of display is contagious, and 

 they may engender discontent and thriftlessness among 

 those who are brought into daily contact with an army of 

 restless pleasure-seekers. But, after all, the majority of 

 those who seek a change of scene are not of the class who 

 drive four-in-hand. To these people all the year is a vaca- 

 tion from any remunerative work, but the men and women 

 who really need the change from active daily occupation 

 usually bring with them to the fresh country air a whole- 

 some moral atmosphere, and the places they visit profit in 

 every way by their presence. The real trouble is not that 

 they harm others, but that they fail to secure for them- 

 selves the highest advantage which their opportunities 

 offer. 



For overworked bodies and minds absolute rest may be 

 desirable, but, in spite of all that has been written about 

 the universal nervous exhaustion of our people, the 

 majority of them enter upon their vacation days with 

 minds reasonably alert, and with muscles which long for 

 exercise. To many of them woods and mountains offer 

 few attractions in themselves, and the sea-shore is only 



inviting when it has drawn together a multitude. It is the 

 crowd and the excitement, and not the oceans majesty 

 nor the thunder of its surf, which is expected to restore 

 wasted energy. The recuperating force of personal con- 

 tact with nature is not thought of, and yet, to minds pre- 

 pared for such communion, its influence is distinctly sana- 

 tive, and it ministers directly to mental and spiritual health. 

 We may not be able to give the reason for this, but it is a 

 truth as well substantiated as any other in human experi- 

 ence. Great poets and others who give expression to the 

 elemental emotions of the human soul unite in bearing 

 witness to it. In the language of profound thinkers, Nature 

 "soothes and sympathizes," brings "refreshment to the 

 spirits of man," and " pours wine and oil on the smarts of 

 the mind." 



It is evident that many of us fail to reap in full measure 

 the advantages of this remedial agency. Indeed, it is often 

 said that only in exceptional instances are Americans sen- 

 sible of this influence — that is, this inflowing of the spirit 

 of abounding life and "multiform beauty of nature with all 

 its transforming and vitalizing energy. Nevertheless, this 

 susceptibility to the charm of natural beauty and grandeur 

 seems to be one of the primary instincts of the race. It 

 may lose its power by lack of exercise, or by indulgence 

 in grosser pleasures ; it may be dwarfed by faulty systems 

 of education, or by devotion to what is insincere and arti- 

 ficial in social life, but the faculty is original, and asserts 

 itself wherever men lead natural and wholesome lives. 

 Taking this view of the case, the man who neglects or im- 

 pairs this power loses more than the mere capacity for one 

 form of pleasurable emotion. He wastes what may be a 

 genuine recuperative energy and inspiration. This is not 

 fancy, but fundamental truth, and these vacation days can 

 hardly be put to better use than to the exercise and de- 

 velopment of a faculty which may be so potent to lift us 

 out of the prosaic weariness of work-day life. 



Now, this contemplation of Nature on what may be 

 called its imaginative or poetic side differs widely from the 

 mere study of natural science, but it implies some knowl- 

 edge, and a growing knowledge, of Nature, and science is 

 only knowledge systematized. It is therefore directly in 

 the line of the suggestions already offered to commend to 

 those who have never made the trial the advantages of 

 studious attention to some of the natural objects with 

 which they are brought. into daily contact. The essential 

 point is to examine the objects themselves, and not to read 

 about them in books. It will not rob the woodlands of 

 their charm to be able to identify the various species of 

 trees of which they are composed. Indeed, it would seem 

 hardly possible to enjoy them thoroughly without this 

 elementary knowledge, and yet a majority of the men and 

 women we meet can hardly name a dozen of the more 

 common native trees in the forest or the fields, or a dozen 

 of the so-called ornamental trees in parks and gardens. 

 Fewer still can identify the bushes on the road-borders, in 

 the forest-undergrowth or in planted shrubberies. Every 

 one who has directed the attention of a bright boy or girl 

 to efforts in this direction must have observed the 

 eager interest with which each new discovery is 

 made. Trees and shrubs which were formerly passed 

 by unnoted become attractive, every leaf has a new 

 meaning, and even the bark on every tree-trunk 

 becomes a study and a delight. The study, begin- 

 ning in this small way, may broaden out into fields that 

 are limitless, and may provide wholesome recreation for a 

 life-time. The simple delight in the acquisition of such 

 knowledge is its own reward, but, besides this, it may fur- 

 nish the mind with an unfailing safeguard in the future 

 against the tedium of many a long journey and lonely 

 hour. 



The material for this vacation improvement is always at 

 hand in infinite variety. Any one can begin it with trees 

 or flowers or grass, with birds and their music, or even 

 with the insects or stones, and no one who enters upon 

 such a course of education will fail to find in it so sure 



