446 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 187. 



ture and the proper use of fertilizers. The market-garden- 

 ers about Paris are able to pay $125 a year rent for an 

 acre of land and yet make a good living. A thousand 

 bushels of potatoes to the acre can hardly be counted an 

 impossible crop in this country, even with our present 

 knowledge, and in the island of Jersey the money returns 

 from a glass-covered garden of thirteen acres exceed those 

 of an English farm of thirteen hundred acres. 



But it is not reasonable to assume that the best crops 

 which can be produced with our present knowledge illus- 

 trate the maximum productiveness of the soil. As we learn 

 more of the laws which govern the growth of plants we 

 ought to be able to supply conditions more and more 

 favorable to the highest success. We have much to learn, 

 for example, of the relation of light to plant-growth. Ex- 

 periments at Cornell University have shown that Lettuce, 

 by the use of an electric light, can be forced to sufficient 

 maturity for table use in six weeks from planting, while 

 eight weeks are required to grow plants to the same size 

 without the light. There is little doubt that further experi- 

 ments will prove that artificial light can be used to still better 

 advantage in many cases. The French market-garden- 

 ers have already found it profitable to warm the soil 

 by hot-water pipes, and this indicates another direc- 

 tion in which, especially when glazed sashes are used 

 to cover the ground, vegetation can be hastened, and 

 additional crops secured from the same land every 

 year. Sub-irrigation, especially with diluted sewage, 

 has multiplied production enormously in the neighborhood 

 of some European and American cities, and the systematic 

 use of this waste matter is yet in its infancy. The mines 

 of Stassfurt and the rocks of South Carolina are already fur- 

 nishing potash salts and phosphates at small expense, and 

 new discoveries may render these elements of plant-food 

 cheaper still. Nitrogen is yet expensive, but when some 

 economical method is discovered of collecting it in available 

 form from the limitless supply of that material in the air, gar- 

 den-crops can be cheaply fed with all the nutriment they are 

 able to assimilate. It has long been known that microscopic 

 plants do an important work in the soil in preparing food 

 which plants can take up and digest, and these organized 

 ferments will, no doubt, in time become articles of com- 

 merce supplied by special breeding establishments. 



Altogether, we may hope, without presumption, that, in 

 the times next ensuing, our improved fruits and vegetables, 

 as well as plants for ornament, can be grown more rapidly, 

 more abundantly and more cheaply. Increased knowledge 

 now enables us to hold in check plant-diseases and inju- 

 rious insects, before which we were powerless a few years 

 ago. Recent progress in the science and art of gardening 

 justifies the belief that study and experience will in like 

 degree increase our knowledge of the relation of light and 

 heat and moisture, as well as of the mechanical and chemi- 

 cal constitution of the soil to the development of plants, 

 and we shall devise means of controlling these conditions 

 more perfectly and of adapting them more intelligently to 

 horticulture as a business and as a diversion. 



Monuments in Public Places. — IV. 



ANOTHER important question in the out-door placing 

 of works of sculpture is whether they shall be seen 

 from every side, or from one or two sides only. A figure 

 or group not specially designed for a given spot is, of 

 course, most beautiful when, as we walk around it, each 

 step reveals new beauties of line and mass ; and great in- 

 justice is done alike to the artist and the public if such a 

 work is set where only one aspect can be appreciated. 

 But, on the other hand, it is unfair to artist and public if a 

 work that looks its best from one side only (and very likely 

 has been designed simply to be thus beheld) is stationed so 

 that the back will be as clearly seen as the front. We can 

 thus imagine works which would be very unfairly treated 

 if placed along the Mall in the Central Park, as here their 

 backs could be seen only if a forbidden walk on the grass 



were taken ; but there are many others to which, for the 

 same reason, a place like the Mall offers the kindest possi- 

 ble hospitality. In general, seated statues are eminently 

 well fitted for such a place as this, as their backs can sel- 

 dom be given any strong quality of interest. 



This question of desirable points of view is even more 

 imperative than the question of scale in prescribing that, 

 when a definite commission is given for a monument, the 

 artist should know in advance just where it will stand; 

 he can then decide whether he must consider all of its 

 aspects with equal care, or may subordinate some to con-, 

 centrate his attention on the one that will be of primary 

 importance. Such subordination, by the way, even if it 

 amount to total sacrifice, is a perfectly lawful and laudable 

 exercise of the artistic prerogative. There is no more rea- 

 son why the back of a statue standing out-doors should be 

 .as beautiful as the front if the back will never be clearly 

 seen, as why similar care should be bestowed upon one 

 that is to be fixed in a niche in a wall, or upon the groups 

 of a pediment. If, when a statue is ordered, the sculptor 

 is not told just where it will stand, then upon its comple- 

 tion he, and no other, should choose its place ; but, of 

 course, in view of the possibility that no thoroughly good 

 site may present itself, it is always best that the question 

 of site should be a preliminary one. 



Works of sculpture, or of architecture and sculpture com- 

 bined, are just as appropriate to a pleasure-ground when 

 their value is simply artistic as when they are monumental,' 

 historic in character. Indeed, as the chance that a high 

 degree of beauty will be secured is greater in such works 

 than in commemorative ones, it is especially desirable, for 

 the sake of the public's pleasure and the development of its 

 taste, that these should be the ones generally placed in our 

 parks. When they are concerned the question of site will 

 almost always arise after the artist has finished his work ; 

 but it should be as carefully considered as with regard to 

 portrait statues, and likewise their pedestals should be as 

 carefully designed. For neither class of objects is a simple, 

 plain base always the best ; and nothing less than the best 

 should ever satisfy us in constructions of so permanent a 

 sort. 



It would be well, too, if those who give non-commemo- 

 rative works of art to our parks would intelligently con- 

 sider what special kinds are fitted for such service. Of 

 course, no general rule can be laid down ; but we may say 

 that, broadly speaking, a statue or group for out-door 

 placing is best when it has a definite out-door character 

 itself. The Falconer in the Central Park, to which we have 

 already referred, is, in idea, an excellent out-door figure, 

 and so is Mr. Ward's Indian Hunter; while the group 

 called Auld Lang Syne seems to cry out for a roof above 

 its head, and no one would care to see under the open sky 

 a figure, for example, of a mother rocking her baby to 

 sleep. Questions of exact placing, moreover, are involved 

 in the general question of appropriateness. Ward's Indian 

 Hunter looks well standing on the edge of the road under 

 a spreading tree ; but a portrait-statue would look badly 

 there, and very badly, indeed, perched on the rocky slope 

 where we can see the Falconer without strong objection. 

 In certain retired nooks, provided some other formal ele- 

 ments were present to sustain their own artificial character, 

 we can fancy little groups of animals or figures of a rustic 

 character looking well, though a commemorative bust or 

 figure would seem sadly out of place. 



For obvious reasons, it is less easy to give the right out- 

 door look to a seated statue, even of a purely commemo- 

 rative kind, than to a standing or mounted figure ; but 

 such a one might look better in portions of a park, where 

 people sit at rest and the idea of repose is prominent, than 

 in a city's streets. Seward, poising his pen on the corner 

 of Madison Square, looks sadly out of place, and many 

 travelers must have noticed in London the almost com- 

 ically inappropriate air of the seated figure of George 

 Peabody surrounded by the rush and clamor of the busy 

 city. Sometimes the architect might well be called in to 



