The City Natural: Garden and Forest Magazine and the Rise of American Environmentalism

2. Two Minds, One Magazine

29 2 W illiam A. Stiles had neither the time nor the mood to celebrate Christmas and the new year of 1888. Besides his routine editorial writing for the New York Tribune, he had accepted a new job as managing editor of the forthcoming weekly magazine Garden and Forest. The idea for this new publication had come from Charles S. Sargent, the founder and director of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard, but he was hit by a sudden case of typhoid in mid-December 1887. Sargent’s unexpected illness disrupted the entire plan. Stiles felt that he was “left hanging in air.” The publishing company had to be formed as soon as possible; several blank advertising pages in the magazine had to be sold; thirty thousand names had to be organized for mailing the prospectus; the correspondence from the contributors had to be answered. However, the most overwhelming and urgent work to be done at this moment was to get enough money to publish the first few issues of the magazine.1 Sargent himself was one of the major financial backers, and all the other investors were his friends and long-term benefactors of the Arnold Arboretum , including Frederick Ames, Jack Gardner, and Horatio H. Hunnewell. After sending $250 to Stiles, Sargent was preoccupied by his bout with typhoid, Two minds, one magazine 30 TWO MINDS, ONE MAGAZINE leaving all the challenges, especially the financial ones, to Stiles. After working extremely hard for two months on preparing for the day of publication, Stiles had not yet received a single dollar for his service; on the contrary, he had to pay for many things out of his own pocket. He was confident and eager to see the success of the magazine, but both he and it faced strained financial circumstances. He barely had any personal contact with those rich patrons from Boston, and he did not want to approach Sargent or his wife about business matters when Sargent was so ill. Articles and plant specimens were coming in from everywhere, and he had already sent out fifteen thousand announcements about the magazine. Money or no money, it was clear that “we can’t stop—or make any show of stopping,” because “this has all been done in his [Sargent’s] name, & his honor is at stake.”2 For help in launching the magazine, Stiles went to Frederick Law Olmsted, a frequent correspondent and mentor. From 25 to 30 December, he wrote to Olmsted almost every day, and Olmsted did not disappoint. He was generous in both advice and money. Right after he received Stiles’s letter, Olmsted sent encouragement, along with five hundred dollars. And a couple of days later, a check arrived from Boston businessman Frederick Ames, rescuing the magazine from its first financial crisis. Stiles wrote to thank Olmsted, promising optimistically that this was a “safe investment.” He was looking forward to publishing a first-class, or even the best, magazine in its field.3 In the winter of 1888, after being postponed for almost three months, the first issue of Garden and Forest: A Journal of Horticulture, Landscape Art, and Forestry was published in New York City. It cost ten cents, and a yearly subscription cost four dollars. As everyone had expected, the magazine proved to be superior to any others in its category.4 The content was broad, the editorials were insightful, the essays were well chosen, the layout was tasteful, and the illustrations were superb. For the next ten years, Garden and Forest maintained this high quality in all aspects. Stiles was right in his judgment that the magazine was going to be interesting and influential on many subjects related to plants, design, and conservation. He would never be able to deliver on his financial promise, however. Although a great success in many ways, the magazine would fail as a business proposition. In the last issue, published on 29 December 1897, Sargent announced the end of the magazine in a short note on the final page: TWO MINDS, ONE MAGAZINE 31 With the present issue, which completes the tenth volume, the publication of garden and forest ends. . . . This experiment, which has cost a large amount of time and money, has shown conclusively that there are not persons enough in the United States interested in the subjects which have been presented in the columns of garden and forest to make a journal of its class and...