23 
March, 1921 
SOME GARDENS AT BAR HARBOR 
Where the Climate and Soil of the Maine Coast Make Possible a Variety and Perfection of 
Flower Growth that Can Hardly Be Rivalled Elsewhere 
T HE thing that kept Diocletian down 
was his lack of travel. Could he have 
sailed around the matchless rock head¬ 
lands of Mount Desert, Maine, and landed 
and strolled through Bar Harbor, his cabbages 
would have suffered, but how the man would 
have gained! For it is not possible to be de¬ 
voted exclusively to cabbages when you can 
walk through your garden in the cool of the 
evening and observe your foxgloves rising six 
feet and more high, your larkspurs attaining 
MERVIN JAMES CURL 
eight and even nine feet. Unfortunately for 
the emperor, no regular line of steamships was 
running to Mount Desert in his time; but for 
such gardens as Bar Harbor can show, well 
might he have abdicated a throne. 
Among the well known gardens are those of 
Herbert L. Satterlee, Murray Young, and Mrs. 
John S. Kennedy of New York City; Mrs. 
Edgar Scott, Mrs. John Markoe, and Miss 
Coles of Philadelphia; Mrs. Farrand of New 
Haven; Mrs. J. T. Bowen of Chicago, and 
Mrs. George Vanderbilt of New York City. 
Of these the senior Olmsted designed the Van¬ 
derbilt gardens; Mr. James L. Greenleaf, the 
Blair garden; Mrs. Farrand, her own and those 
of Mr. Satterlee, Mr. Young and Mrs. Scott; 
Mr. Herbert Jaques and Mr. Joseph Curtis, 
the Bowen garden. 
Well might the finest designers spend their 
efforts here, because floriculturists declare that 
the climate of Mount Desert is the finest along 
our eastern coast for the growing of flowers. 
The Bar Harbor region is a land of wooded hills and blue water, 
of far-reaehing views and the romantic wildness of a North that 
strongly suggests the Scottish coast. Informality is the keynote 
everywhere. From here, on the summit of the Beehive, one 
looks down upon the Satterlee estate with its gardens and bunga¬ 
lows hidden away among the trees. Great Head lies beyond 
