1883.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



117 



Forestry. 



COMMUNICATIONS. 



FORESTS SUCCEEDING FIRES. 



HY R. DOUGLAS, WAUKEGAN, ILL. 



I am glad to learn from the February Monthly 

 that some one in Europe has noted the fact 

 that the aspen sprung up on the burnt lands in 

 Russia, as this will bring it to the notice of Ameri- 

 can writers on forestry, while my notes on the 

 same subject would be likely to pass unnoticed. 

 I called attention to this matter mainly to show the 

 great damage that is being inflicted on the country 

 by forest fires covering land with this worthless 

 tree, that would in time produce valuable timber if 

 the fires were kept out. There is nothing to excite 

 wonder in this tree being found occupying the 

 burnt lands in this country and Europe, at least 

 not to you or me ; as its habits, or rather its seeds, 

 are adapted to this purpose more than that of other 

 trees, and while its seeds are distributed freely 

 over both burnt and unburnt forest lands, their na- 

 ture is such that they can only germinate in the 

 fire-burnt soil or in moist ground and in swamps, 

 and it is reasonable to suppose that if there had 

 been no forest fires this tree would have been con- 

 fined entirely to moist land. 



I think many of our writers have not given this 

 matter of seeds the attention it deserves. What 

 they call swamp trees are, many of them, well 

 adapted for growing on high lands, but the seeds 

 are of such a nature that they will not germinate 

 on high lands in the natural forests. 



The willows, the elms, the silver and red ma- 

 ples and numerous trees are only found on the 

 borders of streams or in moist lands, while under 

 cultivation they make an excellent growth on up- 

 land. They grow in moist places only, because 

 the seeds could not germinate anywhere else. I 

 think it is a wise provision of nature, for if the 

 seeds of many of these trees could germinate nat- 

 urally all over the high lands they would be a det- 

 riment to the more valuable kinds. Fortunately, 

 the aspen is a small tree, and not very lasting, so 

 that more valuable trees can in time recover their 

 lost ground gradually. This also is a fact quite no- 

 ticeable to any who travel extensively through 

 the woods with their eyes open. But even one 

 generation is a matter of some consequence to us, 



and it will take more than one generation for the 

 valuable woods to "run out " the aspens on the 

 high lands in the most extensive burnt districts. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



The Future of the Wood Supply. — In an 

 argument for the general introduction of wood 

 fibre for paper making, Mr. Thomas Christy says: 

 "The supply of wood is practically inexhaustible. 

 During 188 1, five million tons of wood for paper 

 making were introduced into the United Kingdom 

 from Europe, and nearly as much from the United 

 States. There is not the slightest ground for 

 believing that the full supply of this raw material 

 will ever fail." Mr. Christy evidently does not 

 beheve that we are near the end of our forest 

 products. 



Legislative Forestry. — The most remarkable, 

 incident of the popular forestry excitement is that 

 legislative bodies, moved to act under this excite- 

 ment, take no counsel with those who could wisely 

 advise them, but follow the lead of empirics or 

 visionaries who, while they know a great deal 

 about what was the direful result of cutting away 

 forests in the old world a couple of thousand years 

 or so ago, can scarcely tell a post oak from a pitcher 

 plant, or plant or prune a tree successfully to save 

 their lives. It has been the constant work of the 

 Gardeners' Monthly to save forestry from the 

 work of these people, because nothing so injures a 

 good cause as egregious ignorance. Take the va- 

 rious timber culture acts of the United States, the 

 looseness of which we have so often exposed. It 

 is a well-known fact now, that, though there have 

 been a few meritorious examples of intelligent 

 good faith, the great bulk of the grants under the 

 acts has been wasteful or fraudulent. In the lan- 

 guage of a correspondent of the Tnter-Ocean, "very 

 few, if any, entering lands under the timber cul- 

 ture act, ever continue the culture after securing 

 their lands, and after completing their proofs there 

 is very little timber on the land that amounts to 

 anything. They simply plant a few scrub cotton- 

 wood trees, and after acquiring the title to the 

 lands, allow the fire to run through them, and that 

 is the end of their timber culture." 



