141 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



Forestry in North America. — In the last number or two of 

 the Gardener's Monthly we have been reading a translation of a paper 

 bearing the above title and written by John Booth, Klien Flottbeck, 

 Germany. After considering the observed evil effects of forest de- 

 struction in various parts of the United States, the writer comes to the 

 following rather somber conclusion, which may have more of truth in 

 it than we will care to acknowledge : 



"What then are the conclusions to be drawn from the above 

 . remarks for the future of North American Forestry ? 



"We have seen how all authority is wanting to enforce even the 

 simplest regulations on forestry. The only man in America who ever 

 undertook to carry out his absolute will in this, as every other 

 respect, was Brigham Young, who in this one matter has our decided 

 sympathy. The communistic theory that the "forests are the prop 

 erty of every single American," and that he has a perfect right to cut 

 down as much timber as he needs, is so widespread; the corruption 

 in official circles, an unavoidable consequence of perpetual rotation 

 in office, is so general ; the necessity in which both parties find 

 themselves of not offending the mass of voters, is so great, that we 

 can hardly call unjustified the assertions of competent and i)atriotic 

 American authorities as to the impossibility of enforcing any pro- 

 tective laws on forestry. In view of such conditions we can neither 

 hope for any beneficial results from the "Commission to inquire into 

 the European Laws on Forestry," asked for by Mr. Secretary Schurz 

 in his annual report to the President; nor expect Professor Sargent, 

 of Harvard, to achieve much by the three years' survey of American 

 forests, with which he has lately been entrusted. A more competent 

 man, or a better authority on all incidental questions, could not be 

 found; but of what use can laws be if there exist no authority to en 

 force them? It is to be feared that, unless aff .irs take some entirely 

 unexpected turn, the words of the Secretary of the Interior for 1877 will 

 come true — that "in twenty years at the most, the United States will 

 no longer be able to fill the demands for home consumption for their 

 own forests," and that they will have to import at an enormous outlay 

 what they might have had at a trifling expense! What the consequences 

 will be in other respects, we have already foreshadowed; it is impossi- 

 ble to overrate their importance." 



Some Impurities of Drinking-Water Caused by Vegetable 

 Growth, by Prof. W. G. Farlow, M. D. — This paper should have 

 been noted before, but it was accidentally crowded out of the last 

 number. It is extracted from a Report of the Massachusetts State 

 Board of Health, etc., and contains two plates, illustrating eight 

 plants. It is a pamphlet that should be in the hands of every one 

 interested in water furnished by ponds or reservoirs. There are 22 

 pages of it, from which we cull out here and there a passage, 

 although it is exceedingly difficult to select in such a fragmentary 

 way from a paper that is so complete in itself that any omission seems 

 like mutilation. — 



