The American Garden. 



Vol. XII 



JULY, i8cji. 



No. J. 



THE GARDENS OF NEWPORT— II. 



A GARDEN HOME MADE BY " THE 



RECENT wi'itei" echoed a some- 

 what popular feehng when he 

 said, in substance, that a pleas- 

 ure garden should be construct- 

 ed as near as possible in imi- 

 tation of nature, and that 

 every departure therefrom is, 

 in an important sense, a loss 

 rather than a gain. Such a statement is altogether 

 too broad. Nature's gardens are the forests and 

 the fields, the swamp and the bogs. These, though 

 sometimes grand and lovely, and interesting always, 

 are rather the sources from which to obtain sup- 

 plies than the perfection to which civilization as- 

 pires. Every step in the higher life of humanity is 

 an improvement on nature ; and there is as wide a 

 field for progress in ornamental planting as in any 

 other department of human activity. It is the 

 landscape artists' work to make selections, bring 

 together the choicest gems, and arrange them in 

 their order as best fitted to serve the pleasure and 

 add to the enjoyment of cultivated taste. 



Sir William Temple says: "If we believe the 

 Scripture we must allow that God Almighty esteem- 

 ed the life of man in a garden the happiest he could 

 give him, or he would not have placed Adam in the 

 garden of Eden." And so gardens have been spoken 

 of by poets and historians of all ages as sources of 

 pleasure and evidences of refinement, and many a 

 man, weary of the turmoils of statesmanship and 

 the whirl of business, has turned aside to find sub- 

 stantial enjoyment in the beauties of nature as 

 therein set forth. We read many praises of the 

 gardens of antiquity and of the men who created 

 them, but though some of the old pleasure grounds 

 were, perhaps, more pretentious than any we now 

 have, especially in their artificiality, we may well 



RICHEST WOMAN IN AMERICA. 



doubt if any of them were equal, on the whole, to 

 those of our own time. 



In the autumn of 1881, Miss Catherine L. Wolf, 

 understood at the time to be the richest unmarried 

 woman in America, purchased a lot of land con- 

 sisting of about ten acres, located on what is known 

 as Ochre Point, on the Newport cliffs, as a site for 

 a summer home. She immediately proceeded to 

 build a palatial residence and surround it with the 

 richest and best possible collection of trees, shrubs, 

 vines and flowers that could be brought together 

 and harmonized in artistic combinations. A visit 

 to these grounds today, will show that what fol- 

 lowed was largely a realization of her fondest wishes 

 in that direction. " Vineland " possesses many 

 charms in both its natural attractions and its rich 

 and varied adornments . The buildings are of brown 

 stone, artistic and capacious. The lawn is of am- 

 ple proportions, and the masses of shrubbery and 

 flowers that line the graceful curves of the walks 

 and carriage ways, and nestle in the nooks and cor- 

 ners, speak eloquently for the many lands from 

 which the various specimens were gathered, and 

 which they so worthily represent. Miss Wolf lived 

 to enjoy this work of her creation but a few years, 

 when her kinsman and friend, Louis L. Lorillard, 

 succeeded to the possession of the estate. 



To create such a garden as this, even under the 

 most favorable circumstances, is no easy task. 

 I3ut here there were unusual difliculties to be over- 

 come. It had long been understood that the situa- 

 tion was so swept by ocean winds that trees could 

 not be grown there at all, and the former proprie- 

 tor, a wealthy New Yorker, who had passed many 

 summers on the spot, had thought himself fortunate 

 in having kept alive two or three groups of stunted 

 evergreens on the lawn, in each of which fifty or 



