1882.1 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



179 



use in China for 1,000 years, perhaps niiicn 

 longer, and yet how man^- millions have been 

 made in the United States alone, on the patents 

 taken out for that invention, say within the 

 last thirty years or thereabout ? 



" I have seen no account yet of damage done 



by the late frost on the 1st, 2d and 3rd of May. It 

 was quite heavy here. At sunrise the ground 

 was white, and ice one-eighth of an inch on the 

 3d. Cherries were only in full blossom yester- 

 day (5th). I think I have known them out 

 more than a month earlier." 



Forestry. 



COMMUNICA TIONS. 



FORESTRY NOTES, 



BY F. L. OLMSTED, BROOKLINE, MASS. 



I hope that your May editorial notes on 

 forestry and forest growth may be followed up. 

 As to effect of forests on water supply, it is in 

 question that the removal of forests increases 

 the variability of streams that have risen in 

 them? I suppose it is generally admitted that 

 in American experience the average supply, 

 taking periods of ten years, is not diminished or 

 increased. 



As to comparative rates of growth in England 

 and America, I have had a chance to observe 

 plantations of equal age from time to time for 

 twenty years past in both countries, and without 

 making exact measurements or a close analysis 

 of conditions, my impression is that in like soils 

 more trees, and especially European trees, grow 

 more rapidly on this side of the Atlantic. This 

 impression connects itself with another, which I 

 find not to be uncommon; that the natural life 

 of certain trees of the West of Europe, Conifers 

 more especially, is shorter here than there. Of 

 the Norway Spruces and Scotch Pines set out 

 from the nursery more than twenty years ago, 

 and which I have seen when eight or ten years 

 old growing luxuriantly, it appears to me that of 

 those still living, few are not now dwindling as if 

 prematurely old. In some cases, I have sus- 

 pected them to be enfeebled by overbearing, and 

 it would be interesting to ascertain whether 

 these and other European trees do rot produce 

 larger crops of seed at an earlier age with us 

 than in their indigenous climate. 



There are now in our country so many well- 

 equipped observers who had been students of 

 trees before they came here, and they are so 

 generally in correspondence with intelligent ob- 



servers abroad, that an invitation from you 

 might draw out some facts of value on this 

 topic. 



[It is a great pleasure to have the views of the 

 G.vrdener's Monthly endorsed by so eminent 

 and so careful an observer as Mr. Olmsted ; and 

 it will give great pleasure to the editor and to 

 many readers, if other intelligent correspondents 

 will furnish the additional observations as sug- 

 gested by the last paragraph of Mr. Olmsted's 

 note. 



As to the diminished quantity of water in 

 streams and springs, as an actual result of cut- 

 ting away the forests, this is a question in not 

 merely some, but a great many quarters. It has 

 been our province to show that the forests have 

 nothing whatever to do with springs or streams, 

 except in so far as they may serve in mountain 

 sides to obstruct the flow of surface water to the 

 low lands, and force it to sink down into the 

 strata along which the under-ground rivers flow. 

 Not so many years ago, when the matter was 

 broached in the American Association, on the 

 motion of Dr. 'Franklin B. Hough, the writer of 

 this took exception to the views entertained 

 there, and went over the meterological tables 

 kept by the United States authorities, and pub- 

 lished them, with other facts, in the New York 

 Tribune. Dr. Hough noted these papers, but in 

 his collection of items for his " Reports upon 

 Forestry," published by the United States Gov- 

 ernment, these collated facts were not thought 

 worthy of a place, while every point bearing on 

 the opposite views has been carefully noted. 

 We regret this persistency in one-sided evidence, 

 because forestry is a question which above all 

 others requires exact facts, whatever they may 

 be. In the Tribune papers the evidence that 

 forests are a result instead of a cause of meteor- 

 logical conditions was certainly suggestive. — Ed. 

 G. M.l 



