1876.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



87 



Dr. Lamborn once told the "writer of some gate 

 posts of Catalpa that were sound after fifty years. 

 Our own personal experience is limited. We 

 know of some fence posts of Catalpa, we think 

 eeven years old, which appear as good as the day 

 they were put in, and see no reason why they 

 ehould not last fifty by their present appearance. 



The Ra>'ge of American Forests. — Prof. 

 Brewer, in discussing the distribution of Ameri- 

 can woodlands, says, that though Maine is the 

 great source of Pine and Spruce lumber, the 

 hardwood species predominate in that State. 

 The wooded area of New England is not dimin- 

 ishing, but the amount of sawed lumber is lessen- 

 ing — an indication that the trees are cut younger. 

 In the Middle States the wooded area is sensibly 

 and rapidly becoming smaller. The New Eng- 

 land and Middle States furnish hardwood trees ; 

 in the Southeastern States, from Virginia to 

 Florida, is a belt of timber which supplies the 

 hard and yellow pine ; and the Northwestern re- 

 gion contains immense areas of common pine. 

 From the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean 

 stretches a treeless area 350 miles wide in its 

 narrowest part, and 850 miles wide on our north- 

 em boundary. West of this region is the narrow 



wooded Rocky Mountain region, and west of this is 

 the barren region ofthe Great Basin. On the Pacific 

 coast are some ofthe noblest forest regions ofthe 

 world, and official government reports say that 

 the forests in some parts of Washington Territory 

 are heavy enough to " cover the entire surface 

 with cordwood ten feet in height." 



Slow Tree Growth. — At a recent meeting of 

 the St. Louis Academy of Science, Dr. Engelmann 

 exhibited a section of the trunk of Juniperus 

 californica var., which was not quite four inches 

 in diameter and yet showed an unmistakable age 

 of 127 years, each ring being on an average about 

 one-fifth of a line wide. The largest growth in 

 ten years had been about 4 lines, the smallest 

 during a similar period about 1^ line. 



QUERIES. 



Work on Forestry. — B. M. — One of the most 

 beautiful and complete works on forestry that 

 we know of in our language, is an 'English work 

 by a Scotch gentleman : " Forestry," by James 

 Brown. If you read French "Cours Elementaire 

 Culture des Bois," by M. Lorentz, is a still better 

 one.— Ed. G. M. 



ATURAL MlSTORY AND fgiCIENCE. 



CO MM UNICA TIONS. 



POTATO ROT. 



BY M. 



You asked me in last month's paper, " why no 

 frosts, &c. had these destructive effects previous 

 to 1846," which I might honestly answer by ask- 

 ing you another question. Is it a/act that pre\a- 

 0U8 to 1846 potatoes were not affected by both 

 vxiter and frost, so as to produce those diseases 

 known as potato rot and potato blight? But in 

 place of that I will answer you to the best of my 

 recollection. I was bom in Ireland, where, when 

 a boy, I had often seen frosts in May cut down 

 to the ground acres of potatoes that had made 

 six, eight, and even ten inches of growth, — such 

 destruction being mostly upon low, boggy ground. 

 I came to this country with father and family in 

 1820, and in 1831 was settled upon the farm on 



which I still reside. About 1841 or 1842 I broke 

 up a piece of old meadow which I planted with 

 potatoes. The summer and fall being wet, so that 

 water for days would lie upon parts of it, I found 

 at lifting time that wherever the water lay, that 

 all the potatoes were rotted ; while on the dry 

 knolls they were sound. Several miles of under- 

 draining was commenced about this time. It is 

 about twenty-five years since I planted some two 

 or three acres with Neshanock potatoes, upon a 

 piece of boggy, coal formation soil. Something 

 prevented, so that the planting was kept back till 

 July. One day, early in September, I was pass- 

 ing by my potatoes, when I found that a blight 

 had passed over my beautiful patch, leaving it 

 exactly like fields that I saw this summer blight- 

 ed in Ireland. Now, sir, being entirely ignorant 

 (and I confess it) of all the mysterious working! 

 of funguses and spores, and the telegraphic man- 

 ner in which they destroy fields of potatoes, I 



