12 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
A CLASSIFIED BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
Just nineteen years ago the essentials of the 
grouping in the plan which appears on the oppo- 
site page were published in leading Horticultural 
journals of England and America, and I am pleased 
to know that both publications still live and enjoy 
prosperity. This was before international copy- 
right became a fact and the method during all that 
time has been at the mercy of anyone with know- 
ledge enough to adopt it. Even now copyright is 
sought merely for the sake of record, for so far as 
landscape gardening is concerned I cannot find that 
it affords the least protection; anyone is at liberty 
to plant from plans if they can, and a certain edu- 
cational state aided institution in Pennsylvania ob- 
tained them a few years ago, and are now about to 
rest on the statute of limitations! 
The plan given is a comprehensive one, embrac- 
ing the plants of many zones and mostly every 
phase of gardening in the various divisions. 
For this reason it is beyond the power of the 
contracting planter, and affords but little help to 
the mere imitator. Success with the method will 
depend upon a degree of knowledge possessed only 
by thorough gardeners, such as I am pleased to 
know are now finding their way into the leading 
public parks. But the problems are uncommon and 
too much attention cannot be given to the selec- 
tion and disposition of the plants destined to em- 
bellish the various departments and allied groups, 
for their character must vary with every change of 
climate and soil. At the south for instance Mag- 
nolia grandiflora and Michelia Fuscata may be used 
in group i; in southern California Michelia 
Champaca, M. excelsa, M. nilagirica, Talaumas, 
Anonas, Stauntonias, Holbaelias, Berberis Dar- 
winii, B. Leschenaultii, and many others may be 
grown with irrigation, while northward none of 
these can be used and the group must depend al- 
most entirely upon deciduous plants. To select the 
reliable species and varieties of each alliance, de- 
termine their proportionate representation, group 
them into the best possible series of pictures, har- 
monize them and give them connection, and do the 
work with an economy and finish which may event- 
uate in either the beautiful or the picturesque, such 
is the problem, and such the possibilities within the 
reach of the progressive and versatile gardener. 
There cannot be haphazard or miscellaneous work, 
and those who persist in interlarding “botanic gar- 
dens” through irremovable native woods, may as 
well try to claim the lost treasure of Captain Kidd 
as hope for perfection. Kew, with all its resources, 
and in spite of the eminence of its botanists, its 
biographers, and its gardeners, has never attained 
greatness as a landscape production, or as a good 
example of sequential planting, largely no doubt 
because it was founded upon a kitchen garden and 
hewn out of a Beech wood. Besides, scientific cock- 
sureness would waste time by the half century on 
problematical Deodar avenues, when Lebanon Ce- 
dars were tried and known beyond question. Sci- 
entific hypothesis can never take the place of practi- 
cal experience without risk of disaster, and ruinous 
experiments are follies. 
Two years ago the method here proposed was so 
far advanced for the grounds of a State Hospital in 
New Jersey, that everything was ready for the 
planting. It then turned out that a committee man 
or somebody had promised it to a contractor. He 
might as well have promised it to the man in the 
moon; it would have made no difference so far as 
knowledge was concerned. 
The executive work of a park or a garden is not 
and cannot be a committee’s function. 
These things are so vital that they can scarcely 
ever be ignored in this country, but where the 
proper ability is employed and given power the 
following details of the plan may be useful. 
Forty-eight groups representing the whole gar- 
dening part of the vegetable kingdom are provided 
for, each one strictly confined to an alliance, but 
within itself quite at the command of the gardener 
to select and arrange at his pleasure, and according 
to his skill. Upon his taste and ability will depend 
his success in uniting some degree of science to the 
landscape and the certain avoidance of monotonous 
miscellany. The Key to these groups has often 
been published and their composition is being to 
some extent indicated in the series of papers on 
“garden plants” in “Park a^d Cemetery.” It 
only seems necessary to say that in'the present plan 
Rosales are divided into Legumales, Rosales, and 
Saxifragales. Unisexuales into Euphorbiales, Ur- 
ticales, and Quernales. Coniferales into Abietinem, 
Cupressinea;, and Taxinem. Narcissales, into Mu- 
sales and Narcissales and |,Glumales into Cyperales 
and Graminales. The Ferns may be planted in 
tribes where their representation is possible in suffi- 
cient numbers. 
Whenever aquatics are represented in a group, 
a tank or a sunken tub may take the place of a 
round bed, and other beds may be filled with soil 
adapted to the requirements of bog-plants or any 
special growths. Sub-tropical foliage, flowering 
herbaceous, bedding, or annual plants, may prevail 
according to taste and fashion. Generally about 
six feet is wide enough for these beds, and will give 
a sufficiently striking mass of form or color. 
The groups containing trees and shrubs should 
be diligently studied and the trees never over- 
crowded. R^nember: the only really reliable time 
