542 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 195. 



plosions. The Secretary states that he has every reason 

 to believe that "the experiments were eminently success- 

 ful so far as the production of explosion was concerned " ; 

 that is, the agents were successful in making a noise, but 

 so far they have not been able to demonstrate that they 

 can make rain to order. Of the Forestry Division we shall 

 make special mention hereafter when we have the full re- 

 port. It needs only to be said that this division is more 

 efficiently conducted than it has ever been, and commands 

 greater respect and confidence. 



We are not among those who believe that the pursuits of 

 agriculture or horticulture will languish unless they are 

 special subjects of fostering attention on the part of the 

 general government, and we do not sympathize with the 

 desire that the administrative functions of the Department 

 of Agriculture should be greatly enlarged. But it is gratify- 

 ing to know that in the exercise of its legitimate activities 

 the work of the department appears to increase in efficiency 

 from year to year. 



In an article on the Central Park, published in Munsey's 

 Magazine for October, Mr. J. C. Hamilton says : "The list 

 of statues to be found in Central Park is a long and rather 

 curiously mixed one. Daniel Webster, Alexander Hamil- 

 ton, Fitz Greene Halleck, S. F. Morse — these names are 

 well worthy to be commemorated. It is not inappropriate 

 that the marble image of Columbus, the discoverer of the 

 New World, should stand in this the chief pleasure-ground 

 of its metropolis. Nor can there be any objection to the 

 ideal figures — that of Commerce, the cleverly modeled 

 Indian Hunter, and the memorial to the soldiers of the 

 Seventh Regiment who fell in the civil war. But, strangely 

 enough, all the other statues in the park are those of for- 

 eigners. The German residents of New York presented 

 the busts of Humboldt and Schiller. Citizens of Italian 

 birth erected the bust of Mazzini, while sons of stern Cale- 

 donia contributed the statues of Burns and Scott. From 

 South America came the equestrian bronze of Bolivar, and 

 the list of monuments is completed by those of Shakespeare 

 and Beethoven. Great men as all these worthies were, and 

 laudable as is the desire of their fellow-countrymen to do 

 them honor, it is somewhat unfortunate that the erection 

 of a statue in Central Park should have come to be the 

 recognized method of giving expression to this feeling. If 

 the process is continued indefinitely, the park will become 

 so thickly dotted with the monuments of foreigners that 

 the statues of Webster and Hamilton may have to be re- 

 moved to make room for the images of the deceased poets 

 and scientists of England and France, Finland and Kamt- 

 chatka." 



We do not agree with Mr. Hamilton in the feeling he 

 expresses. We do not think it unfortunate that our for- 

 eign citizens should so often have desired to set up memo- 

 rials of the great men of their own lands in the most famous 

 pleasure-ground of the land of their adoption. We think, 

 011 the contrary, that such gifts should be welcomed as a 

 tribute to America's hospitality, as a sign that those who 

 seek her shores are grateful for the welcome they have 

 received, and, while still loving the nation to which they 

 belong by blood, have learned to love the nation which 

 has granted them wider opportunities for happy existence. 

 In any American city such witnesses to the strength of the 

 tie that binds the foreign-born citizen to the community of 

 which he now forms a part would be appropriate. But in 

 New York, which is pre-eminently the cosmopolitan city 

 of America, they have a double title to exist. There may 

 be reasons why this cosmopolitan character should dis- 

 please native-born New Yorkers, but its expression through 

 public statues should not be counted among them. If 

 such statues are as yet more numerous than those given by 

 Americans to commemorate Americans, the fault is our 

 own, not that of our adopted brothers. 



Nor will the presence of statues of notable foreigners be 

 without its good effect on the public, for surely it is well 

 that Americans should be interested in the great men of 



other lands as well as of their own. We hope, of course, 

 that in the future the preponderance of foreigners over 

 Americans in the bronze and marble population of our 

 pleasure-grounds will not be maintained. We do not want 

 the great men of Europe alone, though we are willing 

 enough to have these if they be worthily portrayed. Just 

 here is the vital point in the matter. Patriotic citizens 

 need not desire to limit the hospitality of our parks by 

 lines of nationality so long as the works bestowed are paid 

 for by private contribution. But they should insist upon 

 limiting it by the lines which divide good works of art from 

 bad ones. They should object very strongly to the pres- 

 ence of certain statues in the Central Park, not because 

 they portray Burns and Walter Scott and Bolivar, but be- 

 cause they are unworthy, grotesque and hideous produc- 

 tions, distressing to the eye of taste, hurtful to the eye of 

 interested ignorance, and injurious to the effect of the 

 beautiful scenes amid which they stand. What the Park 

 authorities should say to Americans and foreign-born citi- 

 zens alike is: "Give us all the monuments you choose 

 and of any persons you choose, if these were persons who 

 in any part of the world did helpful service to humanity 

 and were an honor to the name of man. But be sure these 

 monuments are good in themselves and well adapted to 

 such stations as they must occupy. It is our business to 

 preserve the beauty of the Park, to provide for the pleas- 

 ure and profit of its frequenters, not to honor this man or 

 that, or to 'conciliate' any class of New Yorkers. It is 

 your business, if you want to honor your compatriot and 

 thus to exalt yourselves, to make sure that we can help 

 you without being unfaithful to our important trust." 



The Cranberry Bogs of Cape Cod. 



EVERYBODY knows that Cape Cod supplies the world 

 with its best Cranberries, and that the business of grow- 

 ing that fruit has transformed many hitherto worthless 

 marshes in that region into land worth a thousand dollars an 

 acre and upward. The word "bog," however, carries with 

 it to few persons any suggestion of rural beauty, and yet the 

 Cranberry Bogs of Cape Cod, apart from their economic value, 

 make pictures of rare attractiveness at all seasons, and partic- 

 ularly at harvest-time. The ridges of rock and sand which 

 form the cape would naturally be considered unpromising 

 places to search for ponds and lakes, but not only do such 

 ponds abound in the higher ground, but many beautiful trout 

 streams wind down from the hills into the bay or the sea. As 

 these streams have comparatively little fall, in the course of 

 ages the booty which they have gathered from the hills has 

 been deposited on either side of them until in time they are 

 bordered by wide, marshy, bottom-lands, in which shrubs and 

 plants and trees which love water grow in tangled luxuriance. 

 Many of the Cranberry Bogs are made on the marshes which 

 border these streams. It is a slow process to cut off the thick 

 swamp-growth and grub out and burn the stumps and roots. 

 In many places it is necessary to "turf" the whole area, as 

 it is called — that is, to peel off one or two feet of the entire 

 surface sod with the living and dead, but undecayed, material 

 which has accumulated there. Then the land has to be 

 drained, because, although the Cranberry is a half-aquatic 

 plant and needs to be flooded with water at certain seasons, 

 yet it must have dry and solid root-hold during the season of 

 growth and fruitage. This means not only that dams are built 

 across the track of the stream at intervals, but deep ditches 

 are cut across and often around the bog to catch the drainage 

 from the bank, so that a series of levels or sections is made, 

 each with its dam and system of ditches, until the bottom- 

 lands are all made ready. 



After all this, the beds must be covered with sand from 

 three to five inches deep — a laborious task where a hundred 

 acres are to be dressed, and one which would entail an ex- 

 pense that could not be borne but for the happy circum- 

 stance that the material is close at hand in the banks which 

 border the bottoms. When the smooth sanded surface has 

 been prepared at a cost of from $250 to $r,ooo an acre, long 

 cuttings of the plants are doubled up and thrust through it at 

 intervals of fifteen inches each way by means of a wooden pad- 

 dle ; these quickly root in the rich soil below. During the 

 first summer the slender vines, which spread out in rays from 

 each cutting, make a beautiful tracery on the white sand, 



