December 9, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



587 



sions of such remarkable trees as still remain to bear witness 

 to pre-Columbian times — trees that, like their feral contem- 

 poraries, the Indian, the bison and the elk, are growing more 

 interesting as they gradually disappear into the dim domain of 

 history and legend ? 



Carlsbad, September 17, 1891. 



Robert H, Lanibom. 



A Precocious Chrysanthemum. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — A Chrysanthemum, bought in May from a city florist 

 as "Mrs. Andrew Carnegie," began blossoming in the open 

 ground about the middle of July, and continued to flower in a 

 desultory way till October. The blooms were white, with a 

 yellowish centre, not especially fine. What should have been 

 done with this plant ? Should it have been discarded as a 

 passing freak, or taken in hand as having useful possibilities ? 



Whitewater, Wis. A. S. 



[This Chrysanthemum might possibly have proved to 

 be a precocious one. This is not at all probable, however. 

 It is not unusual for these plants to bloom at any time, 

 especially if they are checked and the wood is hardened 

 up. It is very likely that the plant in question was from 

 a stem-cutting, and, from the description, it may have been 

 from the early Madame Desgranges. Any check which 

 may have arrested the growth of wood would cause the 

 early buds to develop. Ordinarily, when a plant is full of 

 vegetative vigor the flower-buds are abortive, and it is 

 usually only after the plant has practically finished its 

 growth that perfect blooms are produced. — Ed.] 



The Nelumbo. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — In your issue of November 25th, referring to the Ne- 

 lumbo, you say "Perhaps some of the readers of Garden 

 and Forest can tell us whether the Nelumbo is still found in 

 Dr. Barton's station in the Delaware." I regret to say that the 

 plant is probably not to be found there now. About four years 

 ago, in company with Mr. William De Hart, who is familiar 

 with the locality where the plant grew, I went to search for 

 it, where, four or five years before, Mr. De Hart had seen the 

 plant still growing. The place was not the river proper, but 

 the large ditches, deep and wide, of which there are so many 

 in " The Neck," as this part of Philadelphia is called. There 

 was not a plant left of the many he had been accustomed to 

 see. From a trucker who lived near by we learned that the 

 roots had been carried away by gardeners to place in ponds at 

 home, the last plants disappearing some two years before our 

 visit. 



Germantown, Pa. Joseph. Meelian. 



Recent Publications. 



The Land of the Lingering Snow. Chronicles of a Stroller 

 in New England from January to June. Frank Bolles. 

 Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York. 



This little book is made up of chapters, some of which have 

 been previously published, describing the rambles, in the 

 neighborhood of Boston, of a man interested in all natural 

 objects, but more especially in birds. The title of the book 

 and the names of its chapters are particularly happy, and 

 form a pleasing introduction to the experiences of the ram- 

 bler, who goes forth to see reeds shaken by the wind, and 

 other natural phenomena, within an easy journey of Old 

 Cambridge, which appears to be his starting-point. He be- 

 gins to wander in January, taking his latest trip the 29th of 

 May ; so that it is mostly with winter and spring landscape 

 he has to deal, and he sets forth his experience in an agree- 

 able way with many charming touches, but a certain monot- 

 ony of tone, perhaps resulting from the fact that the book 

 is not a connected whole but a series of separate sketches, 

 more or less resembling each other in their general character. 



The most vivid of them is the Equinoctial on the Ipswich 

 Dunes, which is very breezy and spirited, and gives a clear 

 impression of a wind-beaten shore and drifting sand, lashed 

 by an angry sea, with accompaniment of whirling gulls and 

 black ducks and some bright color in vegetation. 



There is, in an account of a trip to the Waverly Oaks, the 

 following suggestive though gloomy picture : 



" At the sunset hour a strange glow permeated the mist, 

 but it soon vanished. I left the hills and crossed the Bel- 

 mont meadows. The twilight was weird. The mud of the 



Concord turnpike seemed unnaturally yellow ; the pollard 

 willows assumed horrid shapes ; head-lights on distant engines 

 made menacing gleams on the wet rails ; the great excava- 

 tions in clay beds, near the brickyards, were filled with black 

 shadows from which rose vapors ; brooks, once clear, now 

 polluted by slaughter-houses, gave out foul clouds of mist, 

 and, as electric lamps along the road suddenly grew into yel- 

 low balls in the fog, they showed, rising above them, cruci- 

 fixes of this nineteenth century, on which are stretched the 

 electric wires, whose messages of good or evil keep the 

 nerves of society forever uneasy." 



There are accounts of the sea in a snow-storm ; of the 

 Minute Man in a snow-drift ; of views through winter sun- 

 shine that contain good and secure touches. Here is a bit 

 of Concord, Massachusetts : 



"About sunset, on Saturday, I was in a grove of venerable 

 Red Cedars. The lower half of the trees was in shadow, the 

 upper half in sunlight. Below, all seemed cold and dreary 

 ■ — the unbroken snow, the rough trunks of the trees, their 

 sombre foliage. Above, all seemed warm and cheerful — the 

 bright blue sky, the passing bits of white cloud, the upper 

 branches of the Cedars glowing with golden olive-green. I 

 sought an open ledge, where I could see from Blue Hill to 

 Monadnock, and watched the sun sink into a bed of clouds. 

 The after-effects of color were pronounced. Overhead, the 

 sky was cobalt ; low in the east it was pale Prussian blue ; 

 in the north it was deep orange, and in the west, silvery, with 

 a few dark, ragged clouds shredded over it. After sunset, and 

 just before darkness comes, colors, irrespective of the out- 

 lines of the objects to which they belong, stand out more 

 forcibly than at any other time. This was noticeable Satur- 

 day evening. The red of a distant steeple was aggressive ; 

 so was the yellow of some tufts of dead grass, waving in the 

 wind, and so was the russet of the dried leaves on a grove 

 of Oaks or Beeches two miles distant. The sky at that hour 

 was a matchless background for the copper-colored stems of 

 the Willow-trees, the bewildering network of descending lines 

 in an Elm's branches and twigs ; and the distant rows of 

 Maples, marching along an opposing hill-top, with the orange 

 light of the northern sky burning through them." 



An account of a night under a Pine-tree, with a great 

 horned owl for a neighbor, is very entertaining, in the chap- 

 ter called A Voyage to Heard's Island ; and here, too, are 

 some graceful descriptive passages, while throughout the 

 book there are numerous pen-pictures that show a power of 

 delicate and poetic observation. 



There is a little too much cataloguing of birds, which appear 

 in rather too exact numbers for artistic effect, though possibly 

 not for the precision of the ornithologist, but in this our author 

 is in touch with the modern microscopic idea, which will not 

 permit a man to eat a piece of pie without telling the size and 

 nature of it. The charm of mystical vagueness is not now a 

 literary fashion ; let us be thankful that Mr. Bolles is still per- 

 mitted to employ his eye for the picturesque and his poetic 

 feeling in such passages as the one about Chocorua "dimly 

 present in the smoky heaven as conscience is present in the 

 mind of man." 



" The stars burned near it like altar candles. The smoke of 

 fires rose round it like incense, the song of myriad frogs 

 floated softly from the lakes below like the distant chanting of 

 a choir, and the whispering of the wind in the Pines was like 

 the moving of many lips in prayer." 



There is a capital description of a swallow in the chapter 

 called Chocorua, and much sympathy is shown everywhere for 

 the feathered throng, with the names and habits of which Mr. 

 Bolles is evidently familiar, so that their chirping seems every- 

 where audible in his landscapes, and their songs to form an 

 orchestral accompaniment to his writing. 



The country about Boston, even within a day's journey, 

 seems to furnish much to interest this close observer, who 

 keeps his eyes and ears open as he travels on foot or by train 

 among the hills and marshes of his neighborhood. It is inter- 

 esting to see how an enthusiasm for our immediate surround- 

 ings is developing in the youth of this observant age, and how 

 they are learning to love their own dells and fens, and to honor 

 them in song and story. Whateveropens the eye to the beauty 

 about us is of value ; whatever calls attention to the often un- 

 heeded charm of familiar surroundings is of distinct service, 

 and this service Mr. Bolles has rendered in his carefully written 

 pages. It is a book to be enjoyed as it was written, in detached 

 chapters, when the full value of each passage can be felt as it 

 deserves. Read continuously the work loses something of its 

 charm, which arises from truth of detail, beauty of expression 

 and a tender sympathy with all nature. For mountains, for the 

 depths of the forest, for the raging sea, for the bittern in the 



