1879. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



209 



The "Tender" Catalpa at Muscatine. — 

 111 the Forestry Annual Mr. Suel Foster speaks 

 of comparative trials with the " hardy " and the 

 " tender" kinds at Muscatine, and finds that the 

 one flowers three weeks before the other kind. 

 But as we have to take it for granted that the 

 tender kind has to be preserved in a greenhouse 

 during the Winter or otherwise protected, there 

 will naturally be some difierence in the time of 

 flowering. 



Arboricultural Theology. — Generally 

 we read what horticulturists write, perhaps for a 

 whole life time, without being able to detect 

 the political or theological opinions of the 

 writers. But in an address by one of our dis- 

 tinguished forestry advocates, describing a scene 

 in the Rocky Mountains we read : 



" While contemplating these noble trees, we 

 suddenly came upon a scene of appalling deso- 

 lation. Upon a tract of many square miles in 

 extent, as far as the eye could reach in every di- 

 rection over many thousands of acres, there was 

 not a living tree to be seen. All, all were stand- 

 ing bare, stark and stiff in death, their tall, dead 

 trunks blackened by fire, except where time had 

 come to their relief and stiipped ofi" the bark, 

 leaving the bare poles that stood beside the 

 way like shivering ghosts in purgatory, waiting 

 until the storms of years should come to their 

 relief and prostrate them to the earth that bore 

 them, when they would at length gradually 

 crumble into mold to renovate the soil, which 

 had been deprived of all its humus by the fierce 

 flames." 



By this we see that in our friend's view of 

 purgatory it has a remarkably cool climate. 



The California Walnut.— Mr. W. C. L. 

 Drew has a good word for this tree, in the Rural 

 New Yorker he says : 



" Trees of this kind were found growing only 

 in one locality in the foot-hills of the Sierra 

 Nevada, but from there they have been intro- 

 duced into nearly all sections of the State. The 

 tree is a slow grower, and has to be from eight to 

 ten years old before producing fruit, but after it 

 has once borne fruit, it will never fail to set a 

 yearly crop. The tree grows from twenty to 

 forty feet high, is strong, hardy, and well 

 branched. The foliage is of a rich, dark green, 

 and quite different from that of the English or 

 Eastern Walnut ; it is unequally pinnate, com- 

 pound, from ten to fourteen inches long, the 

 leaflets, of which there are fifteen to thirty-five 



on a leaf, are lanceolate in shape, about three- 

 quarters to one inch across at their broadest por- 

 tion, and from two to three and a-half inches in 

 length; the foliage is very densely set on the 

 tree, much more so than in the English Walnut." 



Sequoia gigantea.— We learn from a Cali- 

 fornia paper that a contract has been let by the 

 Yosemite Commissioners to bore a hole in a 

 stump in the Tuolumne grove of big trees, so 

 that the stages can pass through. The stump is 

 thirty-three feet in diameter, and the hole will 

 be twelve feet wide by ten feet high, and was to 

 be completed by June 10th. 



The Blue Gum in California.— A corres- 

 pondent of the Pacific Rural Press controverts 

 the statement made that the Eucalyptus though 

 growing fast is useless as a forest tree. He 

 says : " In the gum forest near Hay wards, in 

 April, 1877, (the forest was planted in the win- 

 ter of 1869 and 1870) ten acres of it underwent 

 a thinning out, leaving per acre 100 of the best 

 trees standing. The yield from the ten acres 

 was 149 cords of wood, 600 poles the size of 

 telegraph, and 160 pieces of the size of railway 

 sleepers. Also on previous years, on the same 

 ten acres, some six or eight cords, or more, were 

 taken at different times. The 1,000 trees left 

 standing on the ten acres were from 80 to 100 

 feet in height; the largest six feet in circumfer- 

 ence near the ground. The cord wood sold 

 readily on the ground at from $5.75 to $6 per 

 cord. 



The English Walnut in California. — 

 The Pacific Rural Press says : " Experience 

 with the English walnut has taught us to regard 

 it as one of the most beautiful and rapid grow- 

 ing trees for purposes of shade yet introduced 

 on this coast. Independent of its desirability 

 as a shade tree, it is valuable as a timber tree 

 for various manufacturing purposes ; in addition 

 to which, the commercial value, after a few 

 years, of the nuts would pay a good interest on 

 the investment. It is very hardy and seems 

 peculiarly adapted to our Sacramento river 

 lands — to which alone our experience extends 

 in growing it. We think it no exaggeration to 

 say that fifty acres in walnut trees — set out now 

 — twenty years hence, would be worth more for 

 nuts and timber, thari 500 acres of the best land 

 in the county for grain. A grove of these trees, 

 if set out at one-year-old, would not preclude 

 the use of the land for other purposes beyond 

 the first two years after planting. The follow- 



