244 



THE GARDENERS MONTHLY 



[August, 



collected by Maximowicz, and others, and by 

 one of Bunge's original specimens of C. Bungei, 

 collected in northern China and labelled in his 

 own hand-writing. This specimen agrees exactlj' 

 in foliage with the dwarf C. Bungei of gardens. 



[Feeling satisfied that Prof. Sargent must have 

 had some different plant in his mind from that 

 which we had, we have retained this article on 

 hand till we could visit Cambridge, and see the 

 plants and specimens there. We now find that 

 Prof. Sargent is correct in his view that the 

 dwarf foi-m, looking like a huge currant bush, 

 and with leaves and shoots exactly like the com- 

 mon Catalpa, and which for the past thirty years 

 has been distributed from continental nurseries 

 as C. Ktsmpferi, is not that species. There is no 

 doubt but C. Kaempferi is the small tree which 

 has been in many cases known as C. Bungei. 



We were, however, quite right in supposing 

 that this dwarf kind could not be the G. Bungei, 

 as described by Prof. Sargent. It may be that 

 the true C. Bungei is in this country. There is a 

 plant under this name in the Cambridge garden, 

 but it did not seem to the writer to correspond 

 with a specimen in Dr. Gray's Herbarium, or to 

 be different materially from what we have now 

 to know as C. Kaempferi ; and we feel that it is 

 best to wait a little while longer before deciding 

 on what cultivated plant, if any, is really C. 

 Bungei. 



So far as we have gone the only certain points 

 gained are these : The small tree with long slen- 

 der pods is Catalpa Kaempferi ; the dwarf form, 

 like a huge currant bush, often called C. Kaemp- 

 feri, must be called the dwarf American Catalpa, 

 or if one wants it in Latin, Catalpa bignonioides 

 nana. C. Bungei is something else. — Ed. G. M.] 



EDITOR IAL NOTES. 



Forest Fires.— Our attention has been called 

 to the following from the New York World : 



"A lecture of Mr. B. G. Northrop, Secretary of 

 the Connecticut Board of Education, on " Rural 

 Improvement," has been published in pamphlet 

 form, and deserves careful reading. An especially 

 interesting portion of it, in view of the wholesale 

 destruction of our forests year after year by fire 

 and the dangers which are thus threatened, is 

 that which deals with trees and tree-planting. 

 Mr. Northrop urges importing and cultivating the 

 European larch, which combines the three quali- 

 ties of durability of timber, rapidity of growth and 

 symmetry of form, and grows well in sterile soil 



and on exhausted hillsides, where it will crowd 

 out useless stubble and undergrowth. Hardly any 

 other tree is so valuable as the larch in fertilizing 

 effects, since its foliage is peculiarly dense, and, 

 being deposited annually, forms In time a rich 

 vegetable mould from which excellent pasture 

 will grow. By the planting of this tree waste 

 lands abandoned now to hardback, sumac and 

 other worthless brush may be reclaimed. It 

 attains maturity long before the oak, and serves 

 well for nearly all the purposes of that sturdy 

 and storied tree, and from a mercantile point of 

 view is much more valuable, a larch thirty years 

 old sometimes selling for $15, while oaks of the 

 same age are not worth $3 each. In Scotland, 

 where the tree was first planted on the estates of 

 the Duke of Athole, matured crops of larch of 

 sixty-five years' standing have sold for from $750 

 to $2,000 per acre, when the land was originally 

 worth but three or four dollars per acre. The 

 extent to which tree-planting would be valuable 

 in the reclamation of such regions as the sand- 

 barrens of the Atlantic States, the shores of 

 Florida, the Gulf coast and the eastern shores of 

 Lake Michigan is indicated by Mr. Northrop in 

 a quotation from Mr. George P. Marsh, who says 

 that there is no question that the sand dunes of 

 Denmark, which cover 160,000 acres, those of 

 Prussia, extending over 110,000 acres, and in 

 short the whole 7,000,000 acres of drifting sand 

 in Europe, might for the most part be reclaimed 

 by simple tree-planting. In France this work 

 has been going on for some years and gives 

 promise of great results." 



We do not understand that Mr. Norlhrop's 

 views in regard to the value of the larch is drawn 

 from American experience. We have known of 

 some cases where the larch has been raised and 

 the timber seemed to be all that can be desired, 

 but in other cases it has not proved to be as good 

 as was expected. The larch is eminently a cool- 

 country plant, and it is doubtful whether it will 

 retain its value as a timber tree in hot ones. 

 We should have more faith in White Pine than 

 Larch as a profitable timber tree. Even in Scot- 

 land, referred to by Mr. Northrop, it is found 

 that the larch is not as generally reliable as the 

 quotation reference implies. 



The point made about crowding out under- 

 brush as a partial security against forest fires is 

 a very good one. It is doubtful whether very 

 serious fires would often occur, but for the 

 accumulation of dead wood and withered leaves 

 favored by undergrowth. 



