December 17, 1898. 
m- THE GARDENING WORLD. 
unique place. St. Louis is well situated for parks, 
but I am afraid the politicians there are diverting the 
money appropriated for park purposes to other and 
possibly personal uses. Indianapolis has just com* 
menced on park work, and has one very nice park, 
but the method of getting to it is not the happiest, 
the approach being through an unattractive suburb. 
A string of parks is being planned here which will be 
very creditable, and the projected boulevard system 
will be fine. Cincinnati, if the city can raise the 
$2,000,000 which it is trying to do, will also stand 
well in regard to parks. Cleveland has a chain of 
parks that you may say is unequalled in character in 
he United States, and two fine isolated parks. They 
have planned boulevards of about thirty miles in 
extent, and it is expected that the work will be com¬ 
pleted in about two years' time. If the political men 
can only be kept out they will be aDle to decorate 
with flowers, but for the present must be content 
with trees. Buffalo has some fine parks,and a particu¬ 
larly fine sweep of meadow. They are not forgetting 
the children there, and have provided places for them 
to dig in the sand and to paddle in the water. 
“In brief, the parks I have visited in America from 
this city westward, have furnished one of the most 
refreshing and delightful trips, and the memory will 
form one of the most delightful reminiscences I am 
likely to entertain for the rest of my life. At the 
present time you are not a nation of gardeners, but 
you are rapidly coming towards it. To see your 
homes and nicely graded and planted grass plots, or 
lawns, in front of them, well kept and evidently 
highly valued, was a delight to my mind. A lady 
recently said to me that she should like to go to 
England to see the beautiful lawns there. I said to 
her, ' Bless me, you have finer lawns than we have. 
Every house here has its closely-shaven lawn, green 
as an emerald, than which nothing could be more 
beautiful.’ A touch of the colour of flowers is needed 
for the sweep of grass, and it must come, and the 
parks will bring it, and bring it rapidly. 
" Here you are not touching flowers yet in your 
parks, but that will all depend upon the money you 
devote to such things, for nothing can be 
gotten without the expenditure of the 'almighty 
dollar.’ Seneca park, on the two banks of 
the river, is something very unique. Those 
two beautifully clothed bluffs with something 
like 120 species of native trees is something you 
might search the world over and not match, and if 
you want to astonish visitors make all possible haste 
in completing the pathway on each side of the river 
close to the bank under the bluff, and you will have 
something to show visitors which cannot be seen in 
any other city in the United States. The waterfall, 
the immense volume of water, smoothly flowing and 
rapidly, not like the sluggish Avon, but smoothly, 
backed by the magnificent banks of trees that Nature 
has provided for you, which all the money and all the 
men in Rochester could not have put there. Nature 
has done a vast deal for your parks, far and away 
more than for any parks I have seen elsewhere. 
“ The Rochester people have no occasion to grudge 
pay for the parks, because a tenth of the money 
required for the Cleveland parks, for instance, would 
be sufficient to cover the cost of everything here. 
Nature has done so very much for you. Then you have 
two of the most admirable men in Superintendent 
Laney and Assistant Dunbar. If you will only take 
care that no political influences interfere with them, 
and you give them the means, you will get what no 
other park system in the United States possesses, 
and that is the collecting together of the wild plants 
of your State. But they must be brought here in 
truck loads, not armfuls. I am told that you have 
beautiful wild plants, and the parks are sufficiently 
diversified in character to accommodate them all. 
" In Genese Valley Park you have a grand sweep 
of meadow. It is magnificent, broken by the grand 
reach of the river and backed by trees, and requir¬ 
ing very little to be done to it except the making of 
boulevards and planting of suitable trees. Near the 
entrance is a forest of all kinds of trees, with a 
carriage drive through it, making a unique spot. 
Immense quantities of native wild plants could be 
introduced here with great advantage. 
" Now I come to Highland Park. I visited it three 
times in three days, and if I were to stay here six 
days longer I should visit it six times more. It is an 
inexpressible pleasure. Those beds of flowering 
shrubs arranged in some fifty odd families, with all 
the varieties and species that can be secured, I 
venture to say that there is not another place in the 
United States or out of it that will compare with it. 
I was fairly startled by it. Its natural conformation 
of hills and dales all tumbled about is charming. 
The effect is beautiful, and what will it be ten years 
hence ? Every year it will go on improving. There 
are many rare Coniferae there, and if additions are 
continued you will have a pinetum perhaps un¬ 
equalled in the world. You have the men with the 
knowledge, if they are only provided the means.” 
Dangers of Deforesting. 
Presumably that Democrat and Chronicle reporter was 
deeply interested in what Mr. Barr had to say about 
the American Parks, for he repeated his visit during 
the evening of the next day to the New Osburn Hotel 
where the earth-girdling traveller was staying. 
Mr. Barr said that the deforesting of the land was 
surely leading to climatic conditions inimical to the 
best interests of the country, by reducing the amount 
of the rainfall. He, in common with others with 
whom he had been conversing, deplored the general 
apathy that exists at the Department of Forestry, 
Washington, where it was admitted that the Govern¬ 
ment was practically doing nothing in the matter of 
reforesting. Arbor Day was practically a dead- 
letter, because only the children in the United States 
concerned themselves with tree-planting on Arbor 
Day, and the trees they planted usually died. 
He himself had been scattering the seeds of 
reforestry all along the path of his journey in 
America. The reckless destruction of forests without 
replacing them will lead to untold disasters. Indi¬ 
viduals cannot and will not undertake such work, and 
the conscience of the State would have to be reached. 
The state should take the subject up as a matter of 
self-preservation, and with a view to profit. Laws 
would have to be enacted to override the rights of 
individuals for the benefit of the community. He 
would suggest that tree nurseries be established for 
the raising of such trees from seed as should be in 
the greatest demand and bring the most money as 
lumber. The work should be supervised by men of 
experience. This should be done in the State of New 
York,and neighbouring States before the atmospheric 
moisture was entirely lost, which is created by vege¬ 
tation. 
Unless something is done presently the Western 
part of the United States will become a howling 
wilderness like Spain, having rivers without water. 
The destruction to which he had referred had been 
brought about by forest fires, sometimes unavoidable, 
but often through the avarice of sheep farmers, who 
wanted grass for their flocks. Primeval forests had 
been destroyed, and the seedlings that sprang up had 
again been destroyed before they had been able to 
mature seed, and now a wilderness was the result. 
The great prairies could be made very fertile by the 
planting of several miles of forests at intervals of fifty 
or one hundred miles. 
He also referred to the action of the Western rail¬ 
road corporations which, in planting trees on their 
government concessions, had planted trees that were 
commercially worthless. The financial return to 
posterity from intelligent tree planting would be 
many thousand fold, besides the betterment to 
climatic conditions. Mr. Barr also mentioned the 
destruction of forests in Sweden to secure wood-pulp 
for paper making, and the evil effects were already 
visible. The deforestation of Spain is said to have 
commenced with the felling of timber for the great 
Armada, but Mr. Barr is convinced it commenced 
before that, with the result that the rivers of Spain 
are now dry, and the land in places so sterile that no 
effort was made to secure a crop oftener than once in 
three years. 
CHRYSANTHEMUMS FOR COTTAGE 
AND FARM HOUSE GARDENS. 
Every encouragement should be given to the culti¬ 
vation of these in the open garden, and this the 
more so for cottage and other small gardens. Those 
who frequent country districts are often brought 
face to face with the fact that the Chrysanthemum 
plays an important part in making these gardens 
gay during the last three or four months in the year, 
and this the more so if suitable kinds are grown. 
There is just a little danger of our losing some of 
our best kinds for the open garden, through there 
being so much value set on the big Japanese kinds, 
which are good enough in their way, but apt to mis¬ 
lead those who are unacquainted with their needs, to 
get good blooms. Many an amateur has gone to a 
Chrysanthemum show and seen these fat monsters, 
and come away with the idea he could grow them in 
his garden, although not so fine. 
I say to all who visit these shows, do not be misled 
with these and give up the good, useful kinds you 
are now growing, which make your garden look gay 
and give you good cut flowers. I have never seen a 
big Japanese kind I would care to grow in the open 
for blooming in the end of October and in November. 
I would far rather grow such kinds as Annie Salter, 
President, Soeur Melaine, Julia Lagravere, and others 
of this type. For growing against a north wall, 
Source d’Or, M. Wm. Holmes, Lady Selborne, 
&c., are most suitable. This has been a wonderful 
season for those in the open. Cottage gardens at 
this end of Somerset have looked very gay for several 
weeks, and at Montacute, recently, I saw a glorious 
mass of many colours growing in open beds.— J. C., 
Chard. 
-» l> - 
THE FLOWER GIRL. 
There's never a delicate nurseling of the year, 
But our huge London hails it, and delights 
To wear it on her breast or at her ear, 
Her days to colour and make sweet her nights. 
Crocus and Daffodil and Violet, 
Pink, Primrose, Valley-lily, Clove-carnation, 
Red Rose and White Rose, Wallflower, Mignonette, 
The Daisies all—these be her recreation, 
Her gaudies these ! And forth from Drury Lane, 
Trapesing in any of her whirl of weathers, 
Her flower girls foot it, honest and hoarse and vain, 
All boot and little shawl and wilted feathers : 
Of populous corners right advantage taking, 
And, where they squat, endlessly posy-making. 
W. E. Henley. 
■I* 
REDBRAES NURSERY. 
The Redbraes Nursery of Messrs. James Grieve & 
Sons is situated in the Broughton Road, Edinburgh, 
and is largely taken up with the cultivation of 
florists' flowers with which Mr. Grieve, Sen., has for 
many years been connected. Trees and shrubs are 
not, however, neglected ; while the glasshouses are 
occupied with a great variety of other subjects. 
We had a hurried run through the nursery about 
the time the Pansy and Viola cuttings were being 
inserted by the thousand, and were informed that 
ioo.ooo would be required to meet the demand for 
bedding and other purposes. These would include 
show and fancy Pansies as well as the best of the 
now popular Violas. About J acre of ground is 
devoted to the cultivation of stock from which the 
cuttings are taken and inserted in frames. The old 
plants that had not been cut down for the encourage¬ 
ment of young shoots were growing vigorously, and 
a mass of bloom as they had been all the season, 
constituting the admiration of visitors. Seedliogs 
are annually raised in considerable numbers, and the 
range of variation to be noted amongst seedlings from 
Joseph, raised at Redbraes, is remarkable ; 'though 
few are equal to the original. All the best of the 
named sorts of various raisers are kept in the collec¬ 
tion so that it is needless to enumerate them here. 
The utility of Chrysanthemums is not overlooked, 
for something like 2,000 were standing about in pots, 
and 5,000 were planted in the open to be lifted and 
flowered under glass. No doubt most of them have 
given a good account of themselves long ere this 
time. A supply of flowers is, however, kept up by 
them till Christmas, particularly those that are 
planted out in a house occupied by Tomatos in sum. 
mer. Most attention is given to those which are 
grown in bush form for the supply of cut flowers. 
As an indication of this we need only name early 
flowering sorts such as Mdlle. Marie Masse, Mytchet 
White, M. Gustave Grunerwald, Mme. C. Des- 
granges, G. Wermig, Harvest Home, Queen of the 
Earlies, etc., some of which are disbudded in order 
to get large blooms. Alice Butcher is a beautiful 
bronzy variety. For later work the beauty and 
utility of M. Wm. Holmes, Source d’Or, Viviand 
Morel, Ryecroft Glory, Lady Fitzwygram, Mme. de 
Sevin, and La Triomphante are too well known to 
require praise or other comment from anyone. The 
yellow La Triomphante also finds a place here 
as well as the bronze variety. 
