904 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



hardy American trees that will live have been 

 or will be used and labelled, as we already have 

 done witli the native trees adjacent to walks and 

 roads. 



No less care was taken to give all of the trees 

 planted an adequate amount of good soil. On 

 Baird Court, for instance, a trench four feet 

 deep and sixteen feet wide was filled with good 

 soil, giving each tree nearly thirty-eight yards 

 of soil; and in addition a cast-iron grating four 

 feet by eight feet surrounds each trunk, pre- 

 venting the packing down of the soil, and ad- 

 mitting air and moisture to the roots. The 

 nourishing condition of the elms on Baird Court 

 attests that the money and effort were not ex- 

 pended in vain. 



In corrals and ranges it is very necessary to 

 protect every tree with a substantial guard 

 strong enough to withstand the attacks of what- 

 ever animal the enclosure may contain. That 

 this is not a simple matter in the case of a bison 

 that can strike a blow of as many foot pounds 

 as a locomotive, or a giraffe that can reach 

 seventeen feet or more, may readily be imagined. 



The purely ornamental planting is both for- 

 mal and natural in character as the occasion 

 demanded. Of the formal planting, that of the 

 Concourse and Italian Garden is, of course, 

 the more important and consists, broadly speak- 

 ing, of four large flower beds edged with box- 

 wood and separated by grass walks. These are 

 flanked by large masses of evergreens that rise 

 from the low-creeping forms of mughus and 

 dwarf white pine near the center, to the tower- 

 ing specimens of American cedar thirty feet in 

 leight. Great numbers of European and 

 American pines, cedars, junipers and thuyas in 

 all their horticultural forms and variations were 

 used with charming effect. In front and below 

 the Italian Garden the same effects were ob- 

 tained in a larger way by using Japanese holly 

 as a hedge, and large specimens of evergreens 

 on either side of the three flights of steps that 

 lead to the garden. Fronting the conifers and 

 gradually blending into natural woodland are 

 masses of hybrid and native rhododendrons in 

 all the gorgeous colors of their kind, reinforced 

 with various lilies. Leading from the Concourse 

 to the entrance is a broad avenue, which, like 

 Baird Court above the garden and Pelham Park- 

 way below the entrance, is planted with Ameri- 

 can elms. Altogether the Concourse, Approach 

 and the Italian Garden form a park entrance 

 not approached in either dignity or grandeur by 

 any other park entrance in New York. 



Semi-formal in character is the perennial and 

 shrubbery border in front of the new Eagle and 

 Vulture Aviary. This is formed of two great 

 masses of planting, divided by shrubs of the 

 best kind into a number of hardy herbaceous 

 perennial beds, presenting all that is best, new- 

 est and beautiful in hardy poppies, phloxes. 



MADONNA LILY 



