18 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
Prof. Waugh of M. A. C. Gives Informal Talk 
on the Subject Before North Shore 
Gardeners. 
Prof. Waugh of the Mass. Agricultural 
College, Amherst, gave a talk on land- 
scape gardening before the North Shore 
Horticultural society, Manchester, on 
Friday evening, Dec. 17. 
Prefacing histalk with an allusion to 
the grand opportunity for gardening in 
this section of New England and the 
beautiful estates on the North Shore, and 
the money spent in gardens and in laying 
out estates, Prof. Waugh spoke at 
Jength of American landscape gardening 
and of the men who were most promi- 
nent in the work in this country. 
Andrew Jackson Downing, he said, 
was the first strictly American landscape 
gardener. He had written three fine 
books, two dealing with architecture and 
the other with landscape gardening. He 
designed a few places, but none can be 
found today. It was Olmstead that in- 
troduced the lIral.an garden into this 
country. 
““ They are really American gardens 
as they are made-in America, but are 
made in the Italian style and copied from 
the gardens in the old world. ‘These 
gardens have caused a great deal of dis- 
cussion among our gardeners and most 
of them prefer our own style which is 
more natural and adapted to this country. 
] have seen many of these gardens and 
some I call very fine, in fact the best that 
can be done along this line, but I think I 
prefer our own style. Charles A. Platt 
of Boston has designed many of these 
gardens. He is one of the most skillful 
designers in the Italian style, and possibly 
knows less about gardening than any man. 
He dves not know anything about it and 
does not pretend to, but he excels in de- 
signing and has good men to carry out 
his ideas. 
** American gardening is entirely differ- 
ent from all others and has to be de- 
signed accordingly. We are impressed 
by the bigness and vastness of America 
when compared with other countries. 
Take for instance the great Niagara 
Falls; the ranges of the Rocky Mountains, 
none other like them in the world; the 
lakes, which are called the Great Lakes; 
our laree river, the biggest in the world 
with one exception and that is in the 
wilderness. The miles and miles of 
planes. These features are strictly 
American and this bigness belongs to 
America alone. This is the landscape 
we have to work with. ‘The gardeners 
over here have vast estates to lay out, 
acres of forests, Jawns and gardens. 
There is a great contrast between these 
and the small estates in England, Scot- 
land, Germany, Italy and other coun- 
tries. 
** Possibly some of you have ridden on 
the Midland Railroad in Scotland and 
have seen the scenery there. Nice 
smooth banks, everything as neatas a 
front yard. Compare it with a journey 
inthis country. The roads are hewn 
out of large bowlders and rough forests 
and dirty gravel pits. It will be thous- 
ands of years before this country is laid 
out anything like England. We are just 
in our infancy. “The landscape garden- 
ers have to contend with the bigness and 
and vastness of everything and adapt their 
designs accordingly.”’ 
Prof. Waugh spoke at some length of 
Olmstead’s work. He is considered one 
of the best architects that the American 
continent has ever produced 
“‘Franklin Park in Boston is one of 
the best samples of his work. Some of 
this is his work and some of it is not. 
It has been under the supervision of dif- 
ferent people and some of them have not 
carried out his schemes. It really takes 
fifteen or twenty years to develop a place 
of this kind and your ideas can begin to be 
seen. By this time the founder is dead. 
Olmstead tried to adapt his designs to 
the scenery and surroundings. Some- 
times the landscape is more important 
than the garden and sometimes the gar- 
den is more important than the land- 
scape. He rejuvenated the natural style 
in the parks and made it as natural as 
possible, using domestic shrubs and 
plants. He differed very much from 
Downing inthis respect. Downing took 
great delight in importing odd plants 
from Asia, Japan and other countries, 
while Olmstead would rather have su- 
machs or other native shrubs more 
adapted to American surroundings. 
Downing would use one plant while 
Olmstead used carloads, or if the place 
would permit, would use several carloads. 
However, in massing, this was only done 
in certain places where it was suitable 
for thick and heavy growth. It does 
not mean that this can be done every- 
where. He would place one plant here, 
amass over there and rocks in other 
places, according to the surroundings 
and advantages. 
‘*Olmstead also had his peculiarities 
about making roads. It is said you can 
always tell a road that has been laid out 
by him. He always brought the best 
spots to advantage. Mr. Parker of 
Hartford, Conn., says that Olmstead’s 
roads were la‘d out in nodes and _ inter- 
nodes. “These nodes were sort of cen- 
ters where a striking contrast was made 
so there would be no repetition along the 
road. There would be a curve or a 
certain vista which would show to ad- 
vantage in justthis place and then the 
road would extend along till it crossed a 
small brook with a rustic bridge or some- 
thing to break the monotony and uni- 
formity so that one driving along could 
not help but notice these breaks.’’ 
In summing up he said that America 
Ter 
has some of the most beautiful places. in 
the world. Natural scenery abounds and 
is aided by our skill in trying to introduce 
everything beautiful in the large, indus- 
trious cities. 
Literary Society. 
A meeting of the Literary Society of 
the Story High school, Manchester, was 
held Thursday whenan act from asketch 
entitled ‘*School’’ was presented with 
the following characters: 
**§School.’’ Extracts from Act I., II. and IV. 
Lord Beaufoy, George Rust 
Dr. Sutcliffe, Elmer Smith 
Jack Boyntz, Frank Floyd 
Mr. Krux, Winthrop Younger 
Mrs. Sutcliffe, Agnes Edgecomb 
Bella, Mildred Peart 
Naomi Tigne, Elsie Northrup 
Tilly, Alice Hoare 
@lara; Hazel Semons 
Laura, Lizzie Coughlin 
A Child, Ely Kinsella 
After the play the following literary 
program was carried out: 
Comp., Old Christmas Customs in England, 
Bernard Tyler» 
Rec., On The Shore, Byron Hobbs 
Piano Solo, Fifth Nocturne, Dora Marshall 
Serial Story, Chap. V., Autobiography of a Boy 
Who Ran Away, Roland Knight 
Rec., Peace on Earth, Gladys Semons 
The scholars presented Principal:Saben 
with a beautiful picture, ‘‘ Sir Galahad,’’ 
after the exercises. 
(Omitted from our last issue. ) 
John Drew at the Hollis. 
There are only a few real light come- 
dians on the American stage and of these 
John Drew is easily the most _distin- 
guished and the most deservedly popular. 
His annual engagements at the » Hollis 
Street Theatre are always events which 
attract the most fashionable and the 
smartest audiences of the season. It is 
expected that such an audience will be 
present on Monday night, Jan. 3d, 
when he begins an engagement of two 
weeks in his latest comedy success, ‘‘ In- 
constant George.’’ A certain sentimen- 
tal interest will attach to this occasion in- 
asmuch as it will mark Mr. Drew’s first 
return to the stage since his recent acci- 
dent in Central Park, New. York, an ac- 
cident which required the sudden ending 
of his run at the Empire Theatre. 
“*Inconstant George’’ provides this 
popular player with a typical John Drew 
role. He plays the part of George Bul- 
lin, a Parisian gentleman of the world 
without a serious motive ora sincere pro- 
pelling principle. This gentleman is 
somewhat unusual in that he suffers from 
a mild form of neurasthenia which he 
himself calls ‘‘ anemia of the will pow- 
.’ ‘This renders it impossible tor him 
to make decisions and keeps him con- 
stantly entangled in four or five love af- 
fairs simultaneously, it being absolutely . 
impossible for him to decide which of his | 
adored ones he likes best. aot dal 
Breeze Subscription $2.00 a-year 
