THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
118 
TRUE LANDSCAPE GARDP:NING. 
Attention has frequently been called in this journal 
to the nature of true landscape gardening. James 
McPherson of Trenton, N. J., Hon Charles W. Gar¬ 
field of Grand Rapids, and others, have written articles 
upon this subject. And now Professor L. H. Bailey of 
Cornell University, chief of the horticultural division of 
that institution has issued a bulletin in which he says ; 
“ There has been little attempt in experiment literature 
to discuss matters of ornamental gardening. The 
so-called practical problems connected directly with 
bread-winning have necessarily and properly absorbed 
the energies of investigators. But the ornamentation of 
rural and suburban homes is quite as much within the 
province of experiment station work ; and it should also 
be remembered that the growing of plants is itself an 
industry which enlists a vast amount of capital, and 
this nursery business has received little direct and 
explicit aid from experiment station publications. The 
present essay is undertaken for the double purpose of 
explaining certain fundamental principles in landscape 
gardening — a subject to which poplars readily lend 
themselves — and of unraveling a web of difficulties 
respecting the species and varieties of poplars, into 
which the nursery catalogues seem to have fallen. At 
the outset, I must be allowed to explain that landscape 
gardening is the embellishment of grounds in such fash¬ 
ion that they shall possess landscape or nature-like 
effects. This definition at once removes from our con¬ 
sideration all the formal effects of flower-beds and 
sheared trees, which, while useful at times, bear no 
closer relation to landscape gardening than a cup of 
paint bears to the fine art of painting.” 
Professor Bailey says he wishes that there were 
fewer Lombardy poplars in many parts of the country, 
fewer of the ugly white or silver poplars, and more of 
the American and European aspens, of the large-toothed 
aspen, of the cottonwood, and the Russian certinensis 
poplar. Taking all things into consideration, the cotton¬ 
wood is probably the best of the poplars for regular 
ornamental planting. The so-called Carolina poplar is 
only a very luxuriant cultivated form of the cottonwood. 
As sold by the New York nurserymen it does not differ 
otherwise from the wild Populus monilifera of our 
woods and creek borders. The Lombardy poplar was 
much prized in this country a hundred years ago. John 
Kenrick established a commercial nursery of orna¬ 
mental trees in Newton, Mass., in 1797, and two acres 
were devoted to the cultivation of the Lombardy poplar 
which was about the only ornamental tree for which 
there was any demand in those days. It is probable 
that few if any of the trees sold by Kenrick are still 
living, which is evidence that the tree is short-lived. 
The Lombardy has been planted too freely, but it is 
gradually dying out in the East, and time will no doubt 
eliminate its offensiveness in the landscape. 
ERUIT CULTURE IN ENGLAND. 
By no means the least satisfactory of the contents of 
the agricultural returns for 1893, published during the last 
few days, are the tables relating to the areas devoted to the 
cultivation of orchard and small fruits in Great Britain, for 
they prove to demonstration that the importance of fruit 
culture as an industry is being appreciated, and the move¬ 
ment which originated in 1888 with a view to improve and 
extend the cultivation of hardy fruits, has fully justified the 
views of the promoters of the great Fruit Conference at the 
Crystal Palace in that year says the Gardeners' Magasine. 
The results have, indeed, exceeded the anticipations of the 
most sanguine of them, and we have but little doubt that 
our friends, as well as ourselves, will have some difficulty 
in repressing a feeling of surprise on instituting a comparison 
between the returns of 1888 and those just issued, more 
especially if they call to mind the fact that the returns for 
that year showed a considerable decrease as compared with 
the acreage of 1887. In the case of small fruits, which 
comprise currants, gooseberries, raspberries and strawberries, 
the area has inereased from 36,734 acres in 1888 to 65,487 
acres in 1893, or nearly 29,000 acres in the comparatively 
short period of five years. The greatest increase has been 
in England, the acreuge in the two years mentioned being 
23,776 acres and 59,694 acres respectively. In Scotland 
there has been an increase in small fruits of rather more 
than 1,000 acres, and in Wales of about 500 acres, or nearly 
double. As compared with the previous year, the 62,148 
acres returned in 1892 have risen to 65,489 acres in 1893, 
the greatest extension having been in the counties of Kent, 
Essex, Cambridge, Sussex, Norfolk, Gloucester, Plants, and 
Devon. The relative increase in the average of orchard 
fruits is not so great as in that devoted to small fruits, 
nevertheless, it is sufficient to give abundant satisfaction to 
to those wdio are at all interested in their culture. In 1888, 
as stated in the Garden Oracle for 1892, orchards in Great 
Britian occupied 199,178 acres, whereas in June last, when 
the schedules from which the returns have been compiled 
were collected, 211,864 acres were devoted to orchards, an 
increase of over 12,000 acres, or an annual average increase 
of nearl)/ 2,500. As compared with 1892, there was an 
increase in 1863 of nearly 3,000 acres, the five English 
counties Kent, Gloucester, Hereford, Cambridge, and Sus¬ 
sex alone accounting for two-thirds of it. Of the entire 
area now under orchards it is interesting to learn that much 
more than one-half lies in the contiguous group of counties 
formed by Devon, Somerset, Gloucester, Worcester, and 
Hereford. The county of Kent ranks fourth as regards the 
acreage of orchard fruits, and is first in the matter of small 
fruits with 20,458 acres, as compared with 3,809 acres in 
Middlesex, which is second on the list. 
