1882. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



181 



started with renewed vigor, threatening the vil- 

 lage of Bellport. The churcli bells were rung, 

 and the inhabitants turned out and fought tiie 

 flames until daylight, when they succeeded in 

 subduing them. Early to-day a tire started south 

 of the Lf ng Island Railroad, between Bartlett's 

 Station and Yaphank, and burned rapidly 

 toward Carman's River." 



The paragraph is reprinted here in order to 

 emphasize the point often made in this maga 

 zine, that no one should be allowed to maintain 

 acres of dead underbrush to the endangering of 

 thousands of dollars worth of other people's 

 property. So far as railroads are concerned, 

 they should certainly be held to great care ; but 

 on the other hand, the owners of property 

 should also contribute their share of caution. 

 The wood's underbrush, or even the timber and 

 all, should be cleared for a hundred feet at least 

 from the lino along all railroads. The man who 

 allowed gunpowder to lie around loose would 

 be thought as culpable as the man who walked 

 over the powder-strewn path with a cigar in his 

 mouth. 



Value of the Ailanthus Timber. — A Cana 

 dian paper has the following: 



" The Ailanthus is another valuable timber 

 tree which is easily grown. The timber is very 

 durable, and is especially valuable for railroad 

 ties, as it holds a spike with great tenacity and 

 bears a great strain without crushing." 



Can any of our readers tell us on what rail- 

 road this has been tried, and just exactly all 

 about it? It is very important in cases of for- 

 estry where, if a man make a mistake in plant- 

 ing, it cannot be remedied to his benefit, every 

 statement should be well authenticated. 



Polygonum amphibium for Tanning. — Some 

 years since we noted that this plant has good 

 tanning properties. The Kansas City Science 

 Revieiv says that gentlemen of that city are pre- 

 pared to put the discovery into practical opera- 

 tion. It is said to have three times the amount 

 of tannin that an equal weight of oak or hem- 

 lock has. One advantage will be that the de 

 struction of forests will not interfere with the 

 supply. 



An Old White Pine. — A tree of remarkable 

 dimensions was felled recently a Crystal Spring, 

 Yates County, New York. The tree was perfectly 

 sound and vigorous, thirteen feet in circumfer- 

 ence at the ground, and nearly two hundred 

 feet in height. The " rings" on its stump indi- 

 cate an age of three hundred and fifteen years, 



and it is estimated that 4,000 feet of lumber will 

 be cut from its trunk. 



Michigan Forests. — According to Wheeler 

 and Smith's catalogue, " the annual production 

 of pine lumber in Michigan, for the last decade, 

 has exceeded 2,000,000,000 feet. Yet, in spite of 

 this enormous consumption, it is safe to say that 

 Michigan still contains more valuable pine than 

 any like area in North America. The lumber 

 interest alone enriches the State something like 

 $40,000,000 a year." 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



Notes from Waukegan, III.— R. Douglas & 

 Sons write : " Your experience with Yellow Pine 

 corresponds with ours. We have purchased 

 seeds of Yellow Pine time and again, and found 

 them turn out P. rigida ; indeed we have now 

 for the first time true Yellow Pine, P. mitis, two 

 and three years old. 



" We have been fortunate in that we always 

 found out before sending out the trees, so that 

 we have never sent out rigida for Yellow Pine. 



"It seems to me that some one of you botanists 

 might be smart enough to find distinguishing 

 features in the Red Spruce to make of it a distinct 

 species. The cone and even the seeds are diflferent 

 from either the black or the white. The tree differs 

 in form and color from either of the others ; even 

 thfi odor of the bruised young twigs. I fancy 

 differs from the others, and last, but not least, it 

 reproduces itself from seed every time, so as to 

 be very readily distinguished from either of the 

 others, even when in the seed bed. 



''If only a variety of the Black Spruce, one 

 would suppose that they would mix so as to show 

 all grades between the red and black, but this is 

 not so. The red and black differ in appear- 

 ance much more than the white and the black ; 

 indeed half the nurserymen do not know the 

 white from the bla(;k without the cones, but 

 any one can see the difference between the red 

 and either of the others." 



Size op Honey Locust.— An Ohio correspon- 

 dent asks: " How large does the Honey Locust 

 grow ? I saw two trees a few days ago in a river 

 bottom in Hardin Co., , over twenty inches in 

 diameter, and thought they were the largest I 

 had ever seen." 



[This is very well, but it is but an average 

 growth for Pennsylvania. Without having the 



