400 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 183. 



The Hemlocks are to be watched with a new anxiety since 

 the newspapers tell us of a worm that is destroying- the foliage 

 and killing the timber in Potter County, Pennsylvania. This 

 creature infests the trees in great quantities, to the dismay of 

 the lumbermen, who are unable to destroy them. It is hard 

 enough to persuade a Hemlock to grow anyway, but if a 

 beast is lying in wait to devour it, we may as well give up 

 altogether, t am told that there is a book as big as the Bible, 

 published by the Agricultural Department in Washington, 

 about nothing in the world but the insects injurious to forest- 

 trees, which seems enough to discourage the planters, even of 

 a wood that can be covered by a pocket-handkerchief like our 

 own ; but, to crown all, we rashly took a Brobdignaggian in the 

 tree-line to walk in our Lilliput one day — a Brobdignaggian to 

 whom the largest Elm in Hingham is but a walking-stick — and, 

 looking down upon our three-inch Oaks, he complained that 

 there were not trees enough ! Lucus a non lucendo — fancy a 

 forest with that deficiency ! Having, moreover, discovered 

 that our favorite Beeches were Black Birches, he contrived to 

 impress us with the fact that the best of our forest was the 

 prospect, and that, when the trees were grown, we should not 

 even have that ! That Brobdignaggian was a terror ! Luckily 

 he had not much daylight to see the place in, or we should 

 never have the courage to go on, for, wherever we had a good- 

 sized tree he advised that it should be cut down, and if there 

 was a square inch of territory without a seedling he thought it 

 would be a good plan to put in a handful ; and he even showed 

 a disposition to discredit our crack story about a yield of forty 

 bushels in the palmy days of our great Pear-tree, Methuseleh, 

 but that may have been because we tried to make him believe 

 they were barrels. 



So much for taking a Man-Mountain into Lilliput. I would 

 not have trusted that one alone upon the premises with a pair 

 of scissors, for there is nothing less to be depended on than 

 the cutting mania. Granted that one ultimately accepts the 

 situation, the moment when your tree comes down is always 

 one of anguish. It takes so long to grow, and is so easily de- 

 stroyed. Our Brobdignaggian took his toll at last, for he pointed 

 out the fact that the flourishing little Elm I have been cherish- 

 ing to shade the seat in the Box-arbor from the noon-day heat, 

 was really injuring the Box, and should come down, which it 

 did forthwith, as a tribute to his, superior knowledge, a nice 

 little tree, too, that it would take ten years and more to grow 

 again. 



We have another disturbing visitor who insists upon a vista, 

 which involves the sacrifice of a fine clump of Lilacs and 

 Buckthorn that shuts off a view of the northern part of the 

 place. We are disposed to think that it would be an im- 

 provement to get a glimpse of the great Elm-trunk and the 

 green grass beyond ; but, suppose we do not like it when the 

 bushes are down, what then ? 



Even given on his part the best artistic perception, does it 

 follow that another man's views of what you ought to like 

 always suit your own ? 



May it not perhaps be wiser to work out your own problems 

 in your own way ? Human nature is so constituted that it 

 yearns for authority, and when it gets authority it chafes 

 thereat, and each man cherishes his own unwisdom as dearer 

 than the knowledge of another. Such contrary beings are we 

 that it is always what we have not that seems the greater bless- 

 ing, and we seldom know when we are well off. The hardest 

 state of mind to attain is content, and so little do we know the 

 essence of happiness that finding the contented man we forth- 

 with compassionate him for his lack of ambition, or gird at 

 him for supineness, and pride ourselves upon our own divine 

 unrest. 



Even thus do the educating influences of the garden lead 

 us round to philosophy, and the vista through the bushes 

 opens out a moral perspective. 



It is only by what we suffer that we learn what is worth 

 while, and, judging by the amount of suffering our amateur 

 gardening gives us, we ought in time to have the wisdom of 

 Solomon, which, ranging from the Cedar of Lebanon to the 

 Hyssop on the wall, must have given him a good deal to un- 

 dergo. No wonder that he discovered that " all is vanity." 

 Probably it was borne in upon him by finding a borer in his 

 own pet Cedar, or a caterpillar crawling over the remains of 

 his last Hyssop. 



We, struggling along after that illustrious gardener of Israel, 

 have at least mastered one lesson, the important one that 

 Nature, the rudest of task-mistresses, takes pains early to im- 

 press upon her pupils, sternly reiterating, 



I teach by killing-, let the others learn ! 

 Hingham, Mass. M. C, Robbins, 



Dijon.— II. 



HPHERE is but one real park at Dijon, and the fact is shown by 

 -*- its name, which is simply "The Park." It was begun in the 

 year 1610 as a private pleasure-ground for the "Great Conde," 

 who was then Governor of Burgundy, and was designed by 

 Le Notre. Thus the memories of two men, each the greatest 

 of his time in his own path, unite to give it unusual historical 

 interest ; and it also has peculiar artistic interest from its un- 

 likeness to the designs with which we generally associate the 

 name of Le Notre. Here are no marble terraces and sculp- 

 tured fountains, no clipped avenues and arbors, no formal yet 

 intricate paths and ornamental beds of color. Regular though 

 the design is, it is extremely simple, and now that the trees 

 have attained gigantic size and the picturesque outlines of age, 

 the park gives, as a whole, an impression of peacefulness and 

 sober but almost artless charm. This impression is enhanced 

 by the fact that, as is the case with most parks in provincial 

 towns which lie at a distance from the busy streets, it is almost 

 always empty except on fine Sunday afternoons and holidays. 

 Even when we visited it, on a lovely Sunday morning in July, 

 no carnage-wheels but our own were heard, and only two iso- 

 lated pedestrians broke the wide stillness by a footfall on the 

 gravel paths. I doubt whether at the most favorable times 

 this park is very full of life ; for it is so far away from the 

 centre of the city that only energetic walkers can reach it on 

 foot; and, moreover, the natural environs of Dijon are so lovely 

 that such walkers may well seek refreshment there rather than 

 in the place which, while thinking only of his own pleasure, le 

 grand Conde was preparing for the populace of to-day. 



An avenue of about three-quarters of a mile in length leads 

 to the only entrance of the park from the south-western gate 

 of the town. It is planted with four rows of trees, of no great 

 age, and, unfortunately, unsymmetrical aspect. Among them 

 I noticed Lindens, Horse-chestnuts, Ashes, -Locusts and two 

 kinds of Maple, Acer campestre and A. platanoides. But 

 about midway of its length occurs a large rond-point, with a 

 big basin in the centre, and from this point on the planting 

 has been done with Elms alone, and the effect is consequently 

 better. All this, however, is modern work — le gra,7id Co7ide 

 felt no impulse to join the city to his park by a wide public 

 highway. It is only when we approach a great monumental 

 gate- way, opening in a high wall, that we see traces of the work 

 of the great seventeenth-century gardener. From this gate-way 

 runs a very wide, straight avenue, at the far, dim end of which we 

 barely discern the shape of a picturesque little chateau. This 

 avenue, half a mile or more in length, is forbidden to wheels, 

 although on each side of its broad central strip of turf runs a 

 road quite wide enough to receive them. Carriages may 

 follow the road which, under thickly overhanging trees, en- 

 circles the park at its outer edge, but all other portions must 

 be visited on foot. However, it is no hardship to walk in 

 weather such as central France can give us in July, and the 

 sunny quietude of the stately scene is so enchanting that one 

 hardly wishes for the gay coaches that in Condi's time doubt- 

 less enlivened all parts of the enclosure. After walking a 

 while we begin to feel, too, that in Conde's time the place 

 itself cannot have been nearly so beautiful as now. For we 

 see that it is rather a wood traversed by straight roads than a 

 park in the modern sense of the word ; and, of course, a wood 

 in its youth has little of the beauty, and none of the majesty, 

 which characterize one where two centuries have developed 

 the trees to magnificent proportions, and yet have broken few 

 gaps through their ranks. The full sense of the special 

 character of this park is not obtained, however, until one 

 reaches a great circular space, half-way up the avenue, 

 whence twelve straight roads diverge in as many different 

 directions. Often in other old parks, as notably in the 

 one at Dresden, we find a central avenue flanked by 

 masses of trees too close for the eye to penetrate, 

 beyond which might lie a genuine forest, but beyond which 

 really do lie open lawns and sunny paths and flower-beds. 

 From the central space in the park at Dijon, however, we see 

 down the twelve radiating roads nothing but unbroken walls 

 of foliage supported by gigantic trunks sheathed with luxuriant 

 Ivy. Only a bit of blue sky shows at the end of each perspec- 

 tive, and the forest-aspect is enhanced by the fact that all the 

 roads are turfed. Twelve great stone seats encircle the open 

 space, alternating with the debouchments of the roads. Thus, 

 the design of the park may be compared to that of a great 

 wheel, with the outer drive for the tire, the twelve grass-roads 

 for spokes, the central area for the hub, and all the spaces 

 filled by a thick growth of ancient trees. Otherwise there is 

 nothing to be described, save a few small paths, which, on the 

 side by the river, run from the outer drive toward the twelve 



