238 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



June, 1919 



Some Old Writings Brought to Life 



To the Editor o/The Garden Magazine: 

 ~*HOSE who were delighted to find exerpts from 



■*■ Parkinson's "Earthly Paradise" in a recent 

 issue of the Journal of the International Garden 

 Club, and who have cordially approved its policy of 

 occasionally reprinting good material from vari- 

 ous sources, realize that it is possible to go too 

 far in this direction. Out ot 206 pages in the 

 present (March, 1919) issue, aside from the 

 space devoted to the Club's reports, book notices, 

 and practical horticultural notes, there are 25 

 pages of original matter, comprising an article 

 by Dr. David Griffiths on Decorative Opuntias, 

 etc., a lecture on Gardens by Lieut. Col. G. G. ' 

 Woodwark, and an article by Alexander Lurie 

 ^nd G. H. Pring on "Curiosities of Plant Life." 

 Of the remaining space, pages 115-150 are given 

 up to a reprint from William Robinson's "French 

 Gardens," but the real pith of this number is in 

 pages 20-113, under the heading: "Some Beauti- 

 ful Specimens of American Gardening in the 

 Eastern States: with extracts from the Annuaire 

 of the Newport Garden Club. Reprinted by 

 permission," etc., etc. This section consists of 

 48 full-page illustrations from photographs, 

 chiefly of Newport villas, although a number of 

 examples of beautiful gardens around Boston, 

 etc., are included. Interspersed among the 

 plates, and for the most part entirely unrelated 

 to them, are: "Some Suggestions for Finer 

 Gardening" by Arthur Herrington, concealed 

 under the large-type caption "Weld, Brook- 

 line"; "The Modern Method of growing 

 Sweet Peas" by William Gray, under "Armsea 

 Hall, Newport"; "Some Garden Irises" by 

 W. R. Dykes (a lecture published in the 

 Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 November, 1914, although there is nothing here 

 to indicate the fact), which is subordinated to 

 the heading "The Breakers, Newport" and 

 also "The Box and its Enemies" by Bruce 

 Butterton, which for a wonder stands under its 

 own title and nothing else. For additional pad- 

 ding there is a melange of "Autumn Notes," 

 "Gardening Books," "Horticultural Notes," 

 etc., extracted without any intimation of their 

 source, from modern gardening publications, 

 the majority from Mrs. C. W. Earle's "Pot- 

 pourri from a Surrey Garden." But — and 

 while the Annuaire is unfortunately not acces- 

 sible to me, the Journal has usually been accurate 

 enough in its reprints so that one cannot charge 

 all the blunders to copying — the extracting has 

 been so clumsily done as to produce some very 

 peculiar effects, as when the casual reader, who 

 naturally supposes that these items emanate 

 from the Newport Garden Club, finds on page 47 

 the advice to go to see a certain book at the 

 Natural History Museum at South Kensington. 

 In this case the effect is still further heightened 

 by omitting the title mentioned by Mrs. Earle 

 ("Les Roses, par P. J. Redoute," Paris, 1824) 

 and inserting this book chat under the con- 

 spicuous heading: "Garden Near Boston." 

 Why not refer me, thinks the reader, to the 

 Massachusetts Horticultural Society, or the 

 Arnold Arboretum, or other libraries about 

 Boston ? 



I he notes on Rhododendrons on pages 37-38 

 of the Journal are taken bodily from the "Scot- 

 tish Gardens" of Sir Herbert Maxwell (New 

 "York, Longmans; London, Arnold, 1908), quot- 

 ing pages 72-73 of his description of "Stone- 

 field" on Loch Fyne, and appending thereto a 

 brief note on the Rhododendrons at "The Hirsel" 

 in Berwickshire (Maxwell, page 86). It may 

 be that the compiler was a little dubious about 

 the effect of bringing together the extreme south- 

 eastern Border and the western Highlands on 

 the same page, for these paragraphs are enclosed 

 in quotations marks, but rro such marks are used 

 with further quotations of entire pages from the 



same book. On pages 96-97 occurs the descrip- 

 tion of a notable tapestry at Monreith — was 

 this possibly intended as a compliment to Sir 

 Herbert, I wonder — while page 83 and 85 give 

 his observations on cooperation with nature 

 from the introductory chapter (Maxwell, pages 

 13-15), followed on page 85 and 87 by a planting 

 list (Maxwell, pages 66—68). The brief pre- 

 fatory statement that these plants are suitable 

 to a northerly climate is taken from the 

 same source, but an attempt to adapt it to 

 the United States is made by adding: "Can 

 be grown also at Aitken, [ sic. ] and in 

 similar climates" — presumably intending Aiken, 

 S. C. • 



Examples like this might be multiplied, but 

 the real issues are more vital. On the aesthetic 

 side: can any merit in the illustrations compen- 

 sate for such an inappropriate and jumbled text, 

 or does not such text, on the other hand, actually 

 detract from any value which the illustrations 

 might have if used separately? As for the 

 ethical aspect of wholesale appropriation of 

 text without credit therefore, I hesitate to ex- 

 press my personal opinion. Suffice to say that, 

 after puzzling the past winter over a few examples 

 of 17th century piracies, I was taken aback to 

 find even De Sercy out-Sercied, so to speak, 

 right here in the 20th century. — M. F. Warner, 

 Washington, D. C. 



Figs in the North 



T THINK that one of the most satisfactory 

 A plants we have for all the year round is the Fig. 

 I have long experimented with it and have failed 

 only when I got careless and let it get too dry. 

 Now I am trying again and have a good specimen. 

 It is small yet and grows in a pot. Outdoors in 

 summer it makes a good growth and in winter 

 it makes another. It is very green now as I write 

 in March, with a new growth of nearly a foot, 

 made in January and February. When it gets 

 too large to winter in a pot I will set it in the 

 ground and then take it into the cellar to winter, 

 letting it grow again if conditions favor. With 

 its many fibrous roots it transplants perfectly. 

 Soon it will set fruit and then if the season is not 

 long enough for the fruit to mature it will stay 

 on and perfect itself next year, though the leaves 

 will drop as usual. I have raised good sweet 

 figs in that way more than once. As the fig is 

 hardy about as far north as Washington, and grows 

 in the hedges and shrubbery in London without 

 protection, it will stand pretty stiff weather here. 

 Its unusual ways commend it and it is so much 

 more hardy and business-like than any of the 

 citrus fruits, though we do like to raise small 

 trees from the grape-fruit seed. They grow so 

 fast. But the fig leads them in general interest. — 

 John W. Chamberlin, Buffalo, New York. 



Strange Experiences in Going to the West 



To the Editor o/The Garden Magazine: 

 "\X7"HEN I returned from Ohio, a year ago 

 * * last December, I brought with me some 

 of my favorite flowers and plants — Peonies, 

 the snow white Phlox, red raspberry, etc. 

 During ,last summer they made very little 

 growth and no blooms at all. We are in the 

 foot hills near the coast — our rainy season ex- 

 tends from the middle of January until about the 

 middle of March, and during the remaining 

 months of the year we have very little rain. At 

 times a heavy fog is driven through "the gate" 

 and settles down — a fine mist. My plants were 

 watered and carefully tended but many of them 

 died. At present, March 15th, a few slender, 

 red stems from the Peonies are forcing their 

 way through the Sweet Alyssum which covers 

 the ground; and a few tender green stems of the 

 white Phlox are several inches high, while my 

 California grown plants — Pansies, Iris, Wall- 

 flowers, etc., are blooming freely. Beside the 

 red raspberry bushes are California grown plants 

 which are growing luxuriantly while the Eastern 

 grown plants are growing "smaller by degrees, 

 and beautifully less." Are plants like people? 

 Do they need to become acclimated? Many 

 of the greenhouses in our locality are not 

 heated and a very inexpensive structure seems 

 to answer every purpose — save for Orchids and 

 Maidenhair Ferns. The Asparagus Ferns, used 

 so extensively by florists are grown in "slat" 

 houses. In some Fern houses heat is turned on 

 at night and off in the morning as the sun is so 

 warm during the day that no other heat seems 

 to be necessary. The Garden Magazine is 

 always a delight and joy — it shows us in how 

 many ways our gardening and flower growing 

 can be made easier by the use of simple and in- 

 expensive tools; and it also teaches us what very 

 beautiful results our Eastern growers are obtain- 

 ing, and to inspire in us the hope of obtaining 

 similar results with the use of their own plants. 

 But we have this difficulty. Is it the soil, and 

 different climatic conditions that affect the 

 transplanting? Do they have the same dif- 

 ficulty at the Arnold Arboretum; and does 

 a time come when plants develop their pos- 



sibilities even when far away from their 

 own native places? — A. M. Merrill, Oakland, 

 California. 



— Acclimatization is a debated question and 

 it is held by some scientists that the thing is im- 

 possible. Certain it is, as everyone knows, that 

 plants cannot be shifted about indiscriminately 

 from one region to another. There are biolo- 

 gical factors that govern the adaptation of 

 plants to different locations. If this were not so 

 we would have no such thing as local floras or 

 vegetation characteristic of a particular region, 

 or — which is perhaps only another way of express- 

 ing it — of a particular condition. Of course, the 

 extremes are patent to everyone. You do not 

 look for Water Lilies on a bleak mountain top 

 but there are other, more subtle divisions of a bio- 

 logical climatic nature. The region east of the 

 Rockies presents a climate that is biologically 

 very different from that west of the Rockies and 

 the floras of the two regions are radically dif- 

 ferent. A few striking exceptions where plants 

 of one region adapt themselves to the other only 

 serve to emphasize the conditions. As it is true 

 that many of our eastern plants may not thrive 

 on the Pacific Slope, so equally, we have to forego 

 the multitude of plants of California. The 

 Mariposa Lily is one of the elusive gems; the 

 California Poppy, of course, is the notable excep- 

 tion. The range of the annual mean rainfall is 

 a determining factor. Climatically, California 

 is allied with Europe; whereas the Eastern 

 United States finds its parallel in Western Asia. 

 Hence, in the past much of the disappointment 

 in eastern gardening resulted from the effort to 

 transplant into the Eastern United States the 

 garden material that was most characteristic 

 of Western Europe. It fits California, however. 

 These are fundamental factors of a biological and 

 climatic nature. Plants are living organisms and 

 they will not always take to a climate of our 

 selection. The problem of the gardener is to 

 find the plants that fit his conditions. That is 

 good gardening; rather than forcing a struggling 

 existence for a plant that is palpably crying out 

 against being made to endure in a place where 

 it would prefer to die. — Editor. 





