THE EDGE OF THE ROSE GARDEN, WOODED ISLAND.
The now famous rose-garden lies in the southern end of the island, approached through winding walks, garlanded with flowery shrubs of every habit and hue, of graceful blossom-burdened spiræas, drooping as with a weight of snow, or varied with rare foliaged plants which vie with the flowers in the endless play of their brilliant colors. Through the skilful foresight and planning of Mr. John Thorpe, the custodian of this realm dedicated to Flora, the fair goddess has crowned him with a new decoration of wreath or laurel for every week, from the earliest yellow glow of May to the brilliant maples and the final autumnal glory of the chrysanthemum.
JAPANESE BUILDING ON WOODED ISLAND.
Japonica! Japonica! How continually does the spirit of the flowery land hover here! It is, indeed, scarcely a surprise that the actual, familiar outlines of its quaint massive gables suddenly confronts us, looking down above a mass of the Mikado’s own chrysanthemum, and we suddenly find ourselves transported to Tokio or Yokohama, surrounded by a veritable epitome of Japan, embracing all the actual features, floral, ornamental, and utilitarian, with which, through the educational influence of painted fan and screen and household gods of vase and kakemono, we have become so pleasantly familiar.
The long, low-roofed, wooden temple is surrounded from its foundation by a characteristic terraced garden, embracing many examples of those “precious goods done up in small parcels,” which have always been the particular fad of the Japanese horticulturist—tiny giants of trees, so to speak, arranged in miniature parks, which, for the moment, make the beholder seem to be upon a mighty cliff or in flight with the soaring falcon, else how could he thus gaze down upon the summit of such a huge, lofty pine as this which he now sees beneath him! A fine example of one of these arboreal paradoxes is to be seen in the Japanese exhibit in the Horticultural Building—an aged dwarf of an arbor vitæ (Thuja) like a gigantic cedar of Lebanon, which, while having all the inherent characteristics of an actual age and dignity of over one hundred years, is still, with the big vase which it occupies, barely the height of one’s shoulders.