PARK AND CC/HCTCRY 
273 
Yuccas at Lincoln Park, Chicago. 
The accompanying illustration shows a rustic 
nook in Lincoln Park that I have long known, and 
liked. It is a simple quiet place as inconspicuous 
in its way as a wild violet. A bank lying between 
the foot path in the foreground and a driveway 
eight feet above, on the level, and just beyond the 
planting, serves as a basis for a good naturalistic 
scheme that includes wild grapes climbing at will 
over small trees, shrubs in variety and Yuccas grow- 
ing among rocks. A fringe of trees dividing the 
driveway from the embankment serves as a back- 
ground and shelter to this admirable and attractive 
arrangement. 
When I came upon this nook the first week in 
July ’p5 and found the Yuccas in flower I thought 
the effect pretty enough to be carried away by my 
camera for the readers of PARK AND CEMETERY. 
And to make the picture of more practical use, I 
learned through the kindness of Mr. Stromback, the 
park gardener, that the Yuccas were Y. filamentosa 
that had been planted three years, and that they are 
very hardy, requiring here only a slight winterpro- 
tection of dry leaves. The plant surrounded by 
rocks, growing just below the large central spike of 
Yucca blossoms, is prostrate Juniper, (Juniperus 
Virginiana prostrata,) and the shrub-like plant of 
weeping habit that stands beyond and higher on the 
bank than the same Yucca is Lycium Barbatum or 
Matrimony Vine. In the foreground at the left, two 
or three plants of Rosa rugosa stand under the 
shadow of an overhanging wild grape that makes a 
graceful canopy about a small tree. The soil of the 
embankment is sandy loam and is carpeted with 
ordinary lawn sod. The component parts of this 
pretty effect are thus seen to be simple and easily 
obtained, but for an artist to be so familiar with 
his material as to unerringly produce such effects, 
and to have the taste to design them — ^well, that’s 
another story. Fanny Copley Scavey. 
The Manna of the Old Testament. — A 
Long Island correspondent, desires information as 
to what was the Manna of the Old Testament and 
sends the following from the Christian at Work. 
“On the first Sunday in June the Sunday 
schools consider the subject of the supply of man- 
na. It has been a question upon which commen- 
tators have differed — and upon what questions 
have they not differed? — as to whether a relation 
exists between the natural manna — the Egyptian 
niannu, being the exudation of the Tan.arix nian- 
nifera — and the spiritual manna (Exodus xvi. et 
seq.) The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia says: 
‘The sweetish exudation of the tamarisk has 
nothing to do with the bread furnished by the Lord 
to the Israelites.’ Smith’s Bible Dictionary also 
says: ’The manna of Scripture we regard as 
wholly marvellous and not in any respect a product 
of nature’. Both these expressions are very posi- 
tive; but Professor Franz Delitzsch thinks different- 
ly, holding that the gift of the quails and the gift 
of the manna are certainly correlated in our Biblical 
narrative. No one supposes the quails to have 
been specially created birds, but such as have 
been noted in Algeria, where acres of ground have 
been found covered with them at daybreak where 
there where none the night before. So it is 
claimed by Dr. Delitzsch the 
manna is the ordinary tamarisk 
juice, of which the Bedouins 
speak as, ‘raining from heaven, 
because it falls from the trees 
like the dew.’ Of course the 
subject is purely speculative; 
still it enters into a distinctive 
school of thought of to-day — 
that which draws upon the mira- 
culous to that extent only in 
which the supernatural is ne- 
cessary. In this view the same 
interpretation would be given 
to the manna as to the quail 
miracle, the supernaturalness 
being placed upon the miracul- 
ous abundance of the supply, 
and not upon the article of 
food.” 
It should be sufficient to say 
A RUSTIC NOOK. 
