H6 AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE BULLETINS. 



No. 28.— BOTANICAL DEPARTMENT. 



FOREST PRODUCTS OF THE MUSEUM OF ECONOMIC BOTANY. 



Some years ago the writer was consulting an eminent professor in an 

 Agricultural College in reference to plans for a museum of vegetable pro- 

 ducts. After a little he exclaimed somewhat as follows: "What do you 

 want of a museum, anyhow? What is it good for after you collect it and 

 ^ut it in order ? " 



The present bulletin is prepared, among other things, to partially answer 

 such questions. It is true that our classes have the long vacation in winter 

 when vegetation is dormant. It is true that during most of the period for 

 class-work, our students have the advantage of a rich native flora, a park, 

 an arboretum, a botanic garden, a greenhouse, with flower beds in summer, 

 vegetable and fruit gardens, orchards and fields. These contain vastly more 

 than any student can make use of, or can comprehend, although large num- 

 bers of these things are plainly labeled. Notwithstanding all of these 

 there still seems to be need of a museum. 



The second story with a gallery above, in the building devoted to botany, 

 is used for a museum of plant products. There are about 4,000 square feet 

 of floor surface in the museum. Many of the specimens are in well made 

 glass cases. At present I shall only speak of the timber collection or forest 

 products. 



Some portions of these specimens were collected and exhibited at Phila- 

 delphia in 1876, and again at New Orleans in 1884. For these exhibits the 

 college has received two diplomas. 



As a visitor passes about the rooms, he sees plainly labeled a collection of 

 natural root-grafts of large pine stumps, white cedar and beeches, and fifteen 

 or twenty natural grafts of stems above ground, including a union of two 

 beech trees, each about fifteen inches in diameter. They were united twenty- 

 five feet above ground by a branch about seven feet long, which is about six 

 inches in diameter in the smallest place. United they stood, united they 

 fell, and still remain one and inseparable. One of the most interesting 

 natural grafts is that of a black oak and a white oak — oaks belonging to 

 widely different sections of the genus. Other specimens illustrate various 

 stages in the process of uniting. 



Natural grafts of the stems of silver maples are more common in this 

 vicinity than those of any other species. They frequently sprout at the 

 ground, forming several trunks; the bark is thin and the trees grow rapidly. 



Here are roots of white willow which had run a hundred feet to fill a 

 three-inch tile twice in four years, and a large mat of roots which had filled 

 one-third of the diameter of a tile eighteen inches in diameter. And here 

 are some roots from a cottonwood which had run a long way and filled a 

 tile. The willows and the cottonwood and some elms were felled to prevent 

 further trouble. 



When a long limb grows in a position where the end is much swayed back 

 and forth by the wind, its base will thicken to enable it to stand the strain, 

 making a large, stout shoulder. In a similar manner the base of a second- 

 growth tree which has grown in an exposed place will be broad, stout and 

 tapering ; while one in a dense forest not so exposed will be much more 



