1879. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



183 



"The Button Ball, Plataniis occidentalis, at- 

 tain a large size. One at Wheatley, in Queens 

 County, is twenty-one feet in girth and a few 

 feet above the ground has five immense branches, 

 their girth being respectively, ten, nine and one- 

 half, eight, and seven feet. The trunk above 

 the branches is thirteen feet around." 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Forestry in Japan. — The forestry question 

 is exciting as much attention in Japan as in 

 America; and new forests are being planted in 

 locations wherein it will probably prove profit- 

 able in comparatively few years. 



Forest Fires. — Forest fires require more 

 looking after than the woodman's axe. It is a 

 ditiicult question to decide what to do. It has 

 been suggested that premiums should be paid to 

 those who put them out before they extend far ; 

 but this would tend to inci'ease fires. It would 

 be often a profitable way of starting a job. Laws 

 might be enacted against the careless hunter, or 

 camper out, or negligent railroad company; 

 but laws are too expensive to enforce, and de- 

 linquents hard to find. Perhaps if careless peo- 

 ple could be traced, and made rigorously re- 

 sponsible for damages to the extent of their 

 means, it might do some good in estaLblishing a 

 habit of carefulness. Forest fires have been un- 

 usually heavy this season, and they deter forest 

 planting more than perhaps any other difficulty 

 the planter is liable to encounter. Still this does 

 not interfere with small and isolated plantations. 



European Growth of the Douglas 

 Spruce. — The Journal of Forestry gives an ac- 

 count of some Douglass Spruces planted in 

 Ireland thirty years ago that are now seventy- 

 five feet high, and the stem at five feet from the 

 ground girths four feet. In the same time the 

 Menzies Spruce has reached eighty feet, and a 

 girth of six feet. The Sequoia gigantea from 

 which so much was expected, suffers from the 

 same fungoid attack which has made its culture 

 in the United States impossible. 



The English Oak in California.— The 

 coniferous timber of the Pacific States forms no 

 mean portion of her wealth ; and yet the hard 

 woods have to be imported from the Eastern 

 States. Quantities go from Virginia. Sugges- 

 tions are being made to plant the English Oak 



extensively in California. In the Eastern States 

 the English Oak grows faster than it does in its 

 own country ; faster than any indigenous species. 



A Large Tulip Tree.— A daily paper tells 

 us that what is supposed to be the largest tree 

 in the Southern States is a Tulip-bearing poplar, 

 near Augusta, Ga., which is 155 feet high and 

 nine feet in diameter, its lowest branches being 

 fifty-five feet from the ground. 



A Large Eucalyptus. — The exact figures 

 of the Giant Blue Gum of Australia are seldom 

 met with. The Queenslander notes the cutting 

 of a giant Eucalyptus felled in the Dandenong 

 Range, Australia, that had attained the lieight 

 of 300 feet. The following were its dimensions: 

 At one foot from the ground the circumference 

 was sixty-nine feet, at twelve feet from the 

 ground the diameter was eleven feet four inches, 

 at seventy-eight feet diameter nine feet, at one 

 hundred and forty-four feet diameter eight feet, 

 at two hundred and ten feet diameter five feet. 



Pecan Nut Hickory. — The Indiana Farmer 

 says; " Montezuma is the most northern point 

 in Indiana that this tree grows wild. Some trees 

 under culture bore in twenty years from plant- 

 ing the nut ; but we suppose they would fruit 

 earlier then this under favorable circumstances." 



Duration of Larch Timber. — An edito- 

 rial note in the Country Gentleman says : " Its 

 durability is greatly controlled by the soil in 

 which it grows. The timber obtained from 

 mountains has been found to hvst a long time ; 

 that which has been raised in the rich valleys of 

 the West has decayed rapidly." 



Timber Planting in Massachusetts.— The 

 Massachusetts Legislature a few months ago 

 enacted " that all plantations of timber trees in 

 this commonwealth, upon land (not at the time 

 of said planting woodland or sprout land, and 

 not having been such within five years pre- 

 viously), the actual value of which at the time 

 of planting does not exceed fifteen dollars per 

 acre of any of the following kinds, to-wit : Chest- 

 nut, Hickory, White Ash, White Oak, Sugar 

 Maple, European Larch and White Pine, in 

 number not less than two thousand trees to the 

 acre, shall, together with the land upon which 

 the same are situated, be exempt from taxation 

 for a period of ten years from and after said trees 

 shall have grown in height four feet on the 

 average, subsequently to such planting ; provided 

 that said exemption shall not extend beyond 



