370 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[December, 



the trees, would cost as much for pruning and re- 

 moving as the full cost of furnishing the trees, 

 planting and cultivating them till the present time, 

 viz., one and one-half cents per tree. 



These dead branches will fall off gradually, so 

 that when the trees are sixty feet high they will 

 show a trunk of forty feet without a limb, and, as 

 may be seen in the native forest, the branches 

 will have decayed gradually and assisted in fur- 

 nishing nutriment for the living trees. 



These trees are making height so fast that, on 

 measurement, we found leading shoots of this 

 season's growth on three-yearold trees over 6 feet 

 long, and on four-year-old 7 feet long, showing 

 that they need all the living side branches to sup- 

 port the stem. 



It is true that, to an ordinary observer looking 

 in among these trees, the dead lower branches 

 will have a ragged appearance, and aside from 

 these there are misshapen and crooked trees, but 

 even these are better left standing than if removed, 

 as they afford shade for the trunks of adjoining 

 trees. 



There will always be " cull " trees in the nur- 

 sery, and such trees, even with the best of pruning, 

 will still be culls. 



I would not be understood as offering the fore- 

 going remarks as an apology ; very far from it, as 

 the plantation is a surprising success. This plan- 

 tation is on a larger scale than any other in the 

 country (unless it be the one nearly adjoining, 

 that we have recently planted for Mr. H. H. 

 Hunnewell) ; and 1 would urgently recommend 

 that the trees be allowed to stand undisturbed — 

 except to remove the branches that reach out into 

 the forest roads — till the first planting is at least 

 ten or twelve years old ; but in the meantime if 

 fence posts be required within that time, they can 

 be thinned out as wanted, without damage to the 

 plantation. 



If trees are required for planting at any of the 

 stations of the company's road, or for parks or 

 other purposes, thousands can be taken out of the 

 three-year-old trees, near the section house, with- 

 out injury to the plantation, and they are of the 

 very best size and condition for that purpose. I 

 would suggest that if they are required for any 

 such purpose, an experienced man should be em- 

 ployed to see to the proper digging and planting, 

 as this would not only be the most successful but 

 the most economical way that the work could be 

 done. IVaukegan, III. 



[These are extracts from R. Douglas & Sons' 

 Forestry Report to the Kansas City, Fort Scott 

 and Gulf Railroad Company, and are facts worth 

 whole volumes of speculative treatises made up 

 from European experiences. There is one point 

 suggested by Mr. Douglas' report that yet re- 

 quires exact figures to properly settle, namely, the 

 most profitable distances to set forest trees. It is 

 too wide a subject just here, and we ment'on it 

 only that our readers may remember that it is 

 something the future will be interested in. — Ed. 

 G. M.] 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



CocoANUTS IN New Jersey. — The following is- 

 from a Philadelphia paper : 



"It will no doubt surprise our readers to learn 

 that successful efforts have been made by Eng- 

 lish capitalists to domesticate in England certain 

 species of cocoanut palm that is now growing there 

 at all seasons and producing fruit, which, if it be 

 true, we shall have efforts made to domesticate 

 the same tree on the Jersey coast, so that the sea- 

 side resorts along that shore may in due time 

 assume a tropical aspect with palm trees growing 

 in the open air." 



The original paragraph was of course intended, 

 as the English say, as a "rig" on the ignoramuses 

 who do not know that tropical heat, and a tem- 

 perature never lower than 45O, is necessary to grow 

 a cocoanut palm of any "species." Our Philadel- 

 phia friend had better get out of the hole by assev- 

 erating that he was simply playing a game on the 

 Jerseymen. Still, with the dense popular ignor- 

 ance of the simplest facts in gardening which so 

 thoroughly prevails, the nurserymen and seeds- 

 men will soon, as in the case of the famous 

 Eucalyptus, be run down with orders for cocoa- 

 nuts of "a certain species" for planting along 

 the coast from New Jersey to Labrador, and they 

 had better provide themselves with something, 

 even though they be Osage Orange balls, for the 

 silly people who will have something or deem you 

 "one-horse concerns, not up to the times," if you 

 have not what they ask for. 



Profitable Forestry in America. — We are 

 sure it will be a surprise to the readers of the 

 Gardeners' Monthly to learn from a European 

 magazine that Thomas Meehan believes that 

 forests cannot be planted to any profit in America. 

 Thomas Meehan has said that it is unlikely forests 

 can be profitably planted on the thick setting and 

 thinning plan, but to his mind this is a totally 

 different question. No one has been more strongly 

 given to urging forestry planting than Thomas 

 Meehan. 



But then among the lost arts seems to be the 

 power of correctly stating the argument of an 

 opponent. 



Spotted Leaf in Pine Trees. — The spotted 

 leaf, the work of a fungus, yEcidium Pini.is proving 

 seriously injurious to some forests of Scotch pine 

 in France. 



American Woods. — The strongest wood in the 

 United States, according to Professor Sargent, is 

 that of the nutmeg hickory of the Arkansas region, 



