1877. J 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



211 



the busy season. We have had a backward 

 Spring, but rye has been in head for two weeks, 

 and wheat is now heading out. The locusts, 

 which hatched out in vast numbers have nearly 

 all disappeared. Prospects are flattering for a 

 splendid crop. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



The Yellow Pines. — The investigations of 

 Prof. Sargent show that in all the large lumber 

 centres — Wilmington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, 

 New York and Boston — " Yellow Pine " is exclu- 

 ♦ sively applied to the timber of Pinus australis 

 (Pinus palustris of Lambert). Muv-h of the con- 

 fusion in "Yellow," perhaps, arises from the 

 fjict, that the prevailing " Yellow Pine " of old 

 lumbermen, was P. mitis, which is now rarely 

 (if ever) in market. 



Forestry in Massachusetts. — Some of the 

 Western States encourage planting by legisla- 

 tion. Nebraska has its " Arbor Day," when pre- 

 miums are given to those who plant out the most 

 trees. But Massachusetts is planting by indi- 

 vidual exertion, and among these public spirited 

 individuals, few have done more to encourage 

 the practice successfully, than Prof. Sargent and 

 Mr. C. S. Hopkins. 



The great difficulty has been in getting native 

 trees for planting. The habit of ruiniing to 

 Europe for everything, gave American nursery- 

 men no chance. If a nurseryman raised a hun- 

 dred thousand trees, the chances were that lie 

 would sell but five or ten thousand. The rest 

 having to be thrown away, the prices had to rule 

 high; with anything like a certainty of selling 

 regularly, the prices would rule considerably 

 lower. American planters are beginning to feel 

 the force of this, and by ordering beforehand, 

 inquiring, and other symptoms of encourage- 

 ment, find that they can be well served by their 

 neighbors around them. 



Mr. Hopkins, in a recent letter in the Rrgistcr, 

 on New England Forest Planting, has this en- 

 couraging sentence: — "We count our acres in 

 these young trees by thousands. Tiie few plan- 

 tations on the Cape containing a good variety of 

 young trees, depended mainly upon importa- 

 tions from England for seed and seedlings. For- 

 tunately at the present time, by the foresight 

 and energy of our native nurseries during the 

 past few years, it is no longer necessary to cross 



the Atlantic to secure at low prices the basis of 

 our future forests, and as a consequence, it ia 

 hardly possible for the most sanguine to overes- 

 timate the great improvement by tree planting, 

 that is sure to occur on the Cape within the next 

 ten years. Our people generally, are alive to the 

 fact that whether they own one, or one hundred 

 acres of land, a few years will double its value 

 by planting half in trees.". 



Paper from Cactus. — The Greeley 7Vz6une tells 

 us that the manufacture of paper of excellent 

 quality from the species of Cactus growing in 

 great abundance in the Mojave Desert, has re- 

 cently been tested at the Lick paper mill, at San 

 Jose, by parties interested, who propose, if pos- 

 sible, to obtain control of all the paper-mills on 

 the coast, and set them in operation on this ma- 

 terial exclusively. The Cactus paper is said to 

 be very strong, and the supply of material un- 

 limited. 



Pear Timber. — We learn from the Derby Mer- 

 cury that during the late storm, a large Pear tree 

 in the orchard of Mr. Robert Hay, Chase Farm, 

 Ambergate, was blown down. Mr. Hay says 

 that when his great-grandfather took possession 

 ofthe place in 1750, or 127 years ago, it was a 

 much larger tree than when he (Mr. Hay) was 

 born, in 1800; and since then it has lost several 

 large linibs in exceptionally high winds. Mr. 

 Hay believes it to be considerably over 300 years 

 old, and the dimensions taken to-day, as below, 

 will to some extent bear out his assertions. The 

 tree has been a great favorite with the old gen- 

 tleman, and last year it bore a large crop of very 

 good fruit. It had two trunks, dividing about 

 3 ft. from the ground line. The measurements are 

 —Circumference at ground, 9 ft. 6 in.; at 3 ft. 

 above ground, 11 ft.; of largest trunk, 6 ft. above 

 ground, G ft. G in.; of smaller trunk, 6 ft. above 

 ground, 5 ft. G in.; of largest bough, 4 ft. 6 in. ; 

 next largest bough, 4 ft.; height from ground to 

 top, 45 ft. 



[The above is from the Gardener's Record. In 

 the vicinity of Philadelphia, Pear timber is in 

 great request by mill-wrights. — Ed. G. M.] 



Timber Conifers in Massachusetts.— We give 

 below, the following letter of Mr. J. W. Manning, 

 to the Ploughmnn, because of the implied value 

 ofthe Scotch Pine as a timber tree in Massachu- 

 setts. We su]>pose there must have been sulli- 

 cient observation of its growth in Massachusetts 

 to warrant what is said of it there, but it is pro- 

 per to say that in many other parts of the Union 



