GEORGE W. VANDERBILT’S NURSERY.

As the private nursery, lately started near Biltmore station, may be an object of some interest to students of the neighborhood, the writer is permitted to comply with your request for a brief account of it. Any one interested in botany and dendrology, wishing other information than will here be given, or that can be obtained by observation of the plants and their labels, may seek it of the nurseryman in charge, Mr. C. D. Beadle.

1. It is intended that the greater part of the estate with which the nursery is connected, shall be occupied by a systematically managed forest, constituted mainly, at least, of such trees and bushes indigenous to the region, as are likely to be of commercial value. This forest will be in a large part formed [448]by the improvement, through thinning and otherwise, of the present young “second growth,” but considerable spaces, now bare of trees, or the trees on which are unpromising, will be planted. The extent of the forest is to be fully 4,000 acres.

2. Roads will be carried through the forest, in the laying out of which the motive of convenient transportation from its different parts will be modified by regard for picturesque interest, and the immediate borders of a part of these roads are to be planted with the object of gradually forming more interesting foregrounds than might otherwise be presented to view from them.

3. It is proposed to make a plantation, three or four miles in length, along the borders of a certain series of the forest roads, which will contain a few specimens, suitably classified and arranged for study, of each of the native trees of the region, and of all other trees that can be obtained from any part of the world with a reasonable hope that they will flourish under the conditions of climate and soil of the locality. This will be “The Arboretum;” in effect an Experiment Station and Museum of living trees. It may be hoped to be of considerable national value, as the trees acquire their mature character, perhaps fifty years hence.

4. It is intended to gradually form in some of the glens of the estate, passages of local scenery resembling those naturally occurring in many similar situation in the mountain regions of North Carolina, of which the more notable constituents are lustrous smooth-leafed evergreens, such as the Rhododendrons “(Mountain Laurel)” and Kalmias “(Ivy,)” Ilexes “(Holly)” and the Leucothoe (locally called “Hemlock.)” In the glens there are occasional partly flooded or water-soaked areas, in or on the edges of which grow cane, bullrushes, sagittarias and other aquatic forms of vegetation, mostly herbaceous. With masses of such evergreens as have been indicated above, it is designed to associate a comparatively small number of foreign bushes of a generally similar, glossy, evergreen character, by the introduction of which, if it can be successfully accomplished, greater variety and grace of form and vivacity of tint, and, at points, more complex intricacy of effect, may be obtained than if the planting were to be confined strictly to natives. Also the attempt will be made to naturalize a few foreign plants, as, for instance, certain Bamboos, Nelumbiums and Nymphaeas, each having qualities of its own, differing from, but to be pleasingly associated with, those of the native aquatic and water-side plants.

In the nursery there are now under propagation, or already in cultivation, young trees and bushes for each of the four above stated purposes. Of such of these as are designed to be used either directly, or as stocks for propagation, for the Arboretum, there are two or more examples each, of four thousand two hundred species and varieties. Of the different species of Rhododendron, Kalmia, Leucothoe, Andromeda, Ilex, Laurus, Osmanthus, Aucuba, Abelia and other smooth-leafed evergreens collected or otherwise obtained with a view to the fourth class of plantations above defined, there are now in the [449]nursery, or planted on the banks of Ram branch, 20,000 plants, not including those intended as ground-covering, such as Ivies, Evergreen, Loniceras and Running Roses, Hypericum, Periwincle, etc., of which the present stock is about 100,000. Among the Rhododendrons there are two examples each of four hundred hybrid varieties, mostly the result of crossing the Catawba Rhododendron, growing naturally on the high mountain tops of North Carolina, with others largely obtained from the Alpine regions of Europe and from the Ural and Himalayan mountain of Asia.

All of the plantations described are intended, as they come to maturity, to have a natural aspect, and to stand in harmonious and modest subordinate relations with the general landscape of this region of country. There will be a small space of “kept grounds,” near the dwelling of the proprietor, which, for the most part, will be laid out formally, with a view to domestic convenience and correspondence with the buildings, consequently, with a clearly defined demarcation from the natural landscape. There will be but little space given on the estate to what are commonly called “ornamentals,” and none to the exhibition of mere curiosities, eccentricities or rarities of vegetation. There is, consequently, little in the nursery of special interest from a gardening point of view. Its stock of trees and bushes of merchantable size now numbers about 100,000; of seedlings and cuttings propagated on the grounds during the last year, about 500,000. Some of the stock having been brought long distances (part from Southern Europe, part from Japan) and delayed on the passage, is not at present looking very thrifty, but after the next winter’s rest is expected to fully recover.

The entire undertaking looks to results that can be fully realized only after many years, and, except to a botanist, its value lies in its promises and experiments rather than its actualities.