8 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
and saw it bloom at the North, when it seemed to me 
somewhat lighter in color. I wrote my friend Trum- 
py about this, and he then said : ‘‘A weeding bov 
bad thrown the plants away, thinking them too small 
and no good,” and that he had got another from Vir- 
ginia. 
Well, many years have elapsed since then and the 
demand for the dogwood has 
steadily increased in the mean- 
time; all have been sold that the 
nurseries could supply. 
One of the Meehans recently 
stated that there is but one pink 
dogwood and that the darker or 
lighter color depends upon soil 
or exposure. I have written my 
friend Trumpy again about it, 
and he says the same thing, but 
with reference to the first plants 
he says : ‘The first I received 
from you— from South Carolina 
— I got some of them but lost 
them again, how I do not know 
and further, “The one we put 
in trade is one we got from 
Virginia from Mr. Mosbv, and 
sold it to Mr. Meehan many 
years ago; it took years before 
we could sell many. Now we are 
short again, such is the demand. 
It is first class.” 
In a later letter Mr. Trumpy mentions that some- 
one mixed the two varieties. 
The Mosbys for many years have been proprietors 
of the Richmond Commercial Nurseries, Va., and are 
relatives of the historical Colonel Mosby. Mr. A. 
F. Mosby says he remembers his late brother sending 
his foreman into the woods to dig up a pink dogwood 
for the Parsons, and that such trees have long been 
known in the country about Richmond, and this 
agrees with the statement of Col. Preston, and also 
Asa Gray. A really dark pink, however, is scarce, and 
I feel sure that the Preston tree possessed no trace of 
white. 
James MacPherson. 
eral Preston, who was then or had recently been the 
President of the First National Bank of Columbia, 
S. C., for the history of the tree, and he very kindly 
informed me that he found it growing 20 miles from 
that city, and sent out men and a team to dig it up and 
transplant it to- his garden. I sent the General’s let- 
ter to the Messrs. Parsons, and maybe they have it 
CORNUS FLORIDA. 
Illustration courtesy Harlan P. Kelsey. 
yet. He said it was the deepest pink he had seen. 
The Preston place had by this time (after some vicis- 
situdes) been rented by New York parties and Trum- 
py told me he had to metaphorically go on his knees 
for grafts, and also promise them young plants. This 
was during the summer of 1881, and at that time 
something less than a dozen grafts had taken nicely. 
During the next year or two I met Veitch’s late trav- 
eler, Mr. Court, and speaking to him of the find, he 
told me he had bought two of the little plants from 
the Parsons for a good round price. Trumpy can- 
not remember the sale, however, but it seems likely 
from the above that the Preston variety may still be 
in existence. For some years after 1883 I heard noth- 
ing of the pink dogwood, but subsequently planted it 
A Grotto. 
Nature furnishes many fine examples of dark 
underground caverns, and the more inaccessible their 
interior, the greater our desire to explore them. 
The construction of a grotto in landscape work is 
far more difficult than the inexperienced would sup- 
pose; the landscape designer dreams of certain effects, 
but the materialized dream falls far short of his ideal. 
It has been well said that “Those succeed best who 
can form definite ideas of what they are going to do, 
before they start to do it;” and I may also add, “and 
do the right thing in the right place.” To see and 
know just what feature, if any, we may add to nature’s 
work, does not come altogether from book-learning, 
but from the studious observation of Nature and her 
ways. 
In the November issue of Park and Cemetery and 
