i8o 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[June, 



lina pine forest. The amount of annual product 

 of rosin appears to be decreasing with the increased 

 demand for it. Alrea'dy the newspapers of that 

 State are demanding "legislation." But at the 

 rate destruction is advancing it will soon pay to 

 plant without much encouragement from the law. 



Growth of Catalpa speciosa. — Mr. Suel 

 Foster gives the following figures of a tree planted 

 by Mr. A. Bryant, at Princeton, III, in 1840: 

 " Girth two feet from the ground, nine and a half 

 feet; girth five feet from the ground, eight feet; 

 height of tree, sixty-five feet; spread of branches, 

 eighteen to twenty-one feet from the trunk on all 

 sides." This is adding nearly half an inch of 

 growth a year, and is a good record. 



Timber on the Prairies.— Once on a time it 

 was fashionable to believe that there was some- 

 thing in the climate or the soil of the prairies 

 which accounted for the absence of arborescent 

 growth. No one would plant trees because every 

 one knew they would not grow. 



The whole United States is indebted to those 

 early pioneers who proved the falsity of this idea. 

 The time will come when these men will be sought 

 for, that posterity may do them honor. In an ad- 

 dress at Montreal, Dr. Warder, referring to these 

 benefactors, pays a handsome compliment to Jesse 

 W. Fell, of Bloomington. There is a large plan- 

 tation of trees from which the village of Larch- 

 wood takes its name, planted through the efforts 

 of Mr. Fell, who in a letter to Dr. Warder s^ys : 

 "On sixty-one quarter-sections of land we had 

 planted 323 acres of forest trees, that are now in 

 various stages of development, from those newly 

 planted to trees nearly forty feet high. Further, 

 we had planted on the survey lines, within a more 

 limited range, 53.68-roo miles of willow-hedging, 

 and one mile of Osage orange. The latter utterly 

 died out at the end of the second year." 



Kansas Forests.— It is said by newspaper re- 

 ports, which, however, are not always accurate, 

 that over 90,000 acres of forest has been planted 

 in Kansas. Whether strictly correct or not, there 

 has been a large extent planted. 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



Russian Mulberry.— An Arlington, Kansas, 

 correspondent says: "Are you sufficiently ac- 

 quainted with the so-called Russian mulberry 

 which was introduced into the United States a few 



years ago by the German Russian Mennonites, to 

 give me its botanical name and history ? The 

 Mennonites of this county, who came here from 

 Russia, about sixty miles north of the Azof sea, 

 brought seeds. with them and planted them in the 

 springs of 1876 and 1877, in this and adjoining 

 counties. I got some of their first seedlings and 

 some the next year, and now have many thou- 

 sands of them growing. I find marked differences 

 in the trees and leaves ; also in the size and color 

 of the fruit, some being white, some black and 

 some a pale red or dirty pink color. I have 

 thought that, perhaps the black fruited is of the 

 Morus nigra or Morus tartarica species, and the 

 white of the Morus alba. But there seems to be a 

 great difference between these Russian kinds and 

 the white and black kinds which we had in the 

 Lhiited States from other sources. The Russian 

 seems more thrifty, hardy and vigorous, and is 

 much more productive, so far as I have ob- 

 served." 



[The silk worm mulberry is Morus alba. Plants 

 from this come with leaves, fruit, and habits vary- 

 ing just as anything else does. We have black- 

 berries with white, reddish and black fruit ; white 

 and yellow peaches ; white, red and black grapes ; 

 just as we have black, white and rosy Morus alba. 

 This is translated "white mulberry," and it is still 

 white mulberry, though it has black fruit. The 

 Morus nigra of Europe might be translated 

 " black mulberry," but the black fruited white 

 mulberry is another thing. 



The white or silkworm mulberry has a wide 

 range in a wild condition, extending through Asia 

 and Northwest Europe. In different localities 

 they vary a little, but they are all of the Morus 

 alba or white mulberry species. There is Morus 

 japonica, the Japan mulberry ; Morus tartarica, 

 the Russian mulberry ; Morus Italica and M. mo- 

 rettiana, Italian mulberries ; Morus sinensis, the 

 Chinese mulberry, Morus Romana, the Roman 

 mulberry, and many others, all varying much 

 as one grape or one apple differs from an- 

 other variety of apple; but all Morus alba, and 

 nothing more. 



Just how far one of these varieties may be bet- 

 ter than others for silk worm feeding is yet an 

 open question. If we propagate the varieties 

 from seed the special variety will soon be lost, for 

 it is the tendency of all such things to vary. We 

 may decide a Baldwin apple to be a variety just 

 suited to our wants ; but if we raise it from seeds 

 it will soon be lost. How the mulberry variety 

 varies from seeds our correspondent's letter shows. 



