1883. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



213 



hard-wood trees, if protected from fire, will long 

 occupy the ground, and the original pine forest 

 will not appear again until the land, long enriched 

 by an annual deposit of leaves, has been again 

 stripped of its tree-covering, and mellowed by years 

 of cultivation. Such land nearly all over New 

 England, if freed from the plough and the scythe, 

 and guarded from fire and pasturage, grows up 

 again with pine. The different processes, however, 

 by which white pine land, on which the forest has 

 been destroyed by fire, has been again brought 

 into the condition to produce spontaneously an- 

 other crop of pine, have occupied a long period of 

 time, — so long, indeed, that it must extend through 

 generations of human life. The forest fire, then, 

 which destroyed the pine trees growing upon the 

 land, destroyed, also, the capacity of the land to 

 produce again a similar crop of trees during a 

 period which may be set down at from fifty to one 

 hundred years. The damage inflicted upon the land 

 by forest fires is, of course, not irreparable in a 

 climate like that of New England, where the an- 

 nual rain-fall is sufficient to always ensure a growth 

 of trees of some sort, if the ground is left entirely 

 undisturbed, and sooner or later, in the ordinary 

 workings of nature's laws, forests will succeed 

 each other here. But in some parts of the country 

 where the rain-fall is so slight that there is a con- 

 stant and severe struggle between the forest and 

 the plain, and where trees under the most favor- 

 able conditions barely exist, a forest fire not only 

 kills the forest but it makes any future growth of 

 trees impossible. 



We, in New England, are more fortunate, and it 

 is entirely within our power to regulate the compo- 

 sition of our forests, and maintain a proper propor- 

 tion between forest areas and farming land. 



If, however, forests are subject to constant and 

 unnecessary danger of destruction by fire, there 

 can be no proper system of forest management in- 

 troduced into the usual economy of the community. 

 There is little inducement to plant a fores!., or pro- 

 tect and encourage the growth of natural wood- 

 lands, so long as the condition of public sentiment 

 is such that the authors of forest fires are not held 

 responsible for their acts. A man cannot be ex- 

 pected to expend money or labor on his trees, or 

 allow them to grow a year after he can find a 

 market for them, if he has the danger of forest fires 

 constantly before his eyes. There is no induce- 

 ment, under these circumstances, to allow a forest 

 to mature for timber; it is safer to cut it off for 

 cord-wood at the earliest possible moment, and 

 thus reduce the risk of probable loss by fire. 



Under these circumstances it is useless to adopt 

 any of the methods of thinning or pruning by 

 which the value of young forest; trees for timber 

 may be vastly improved, or to guard the woods 

 from roaming and destructive cattle ; and it follows 

 that a large portion of the profits which our forests 

 could be made to yield, under a different policy 

 are lost. 



The forest fires, then, destroy the trees. They 

 destroy the capacity of the land to produce again 

 during long years similar trees ; and, finally, they 

 so shake the public confidence in the permanent 

 value of forest property that, even in a State like 

 Massachusetts from which the original forest has 

 long disappeared, and where the value of all forest 

 products is enormously high, capital will not en- 

 gage in forest production, which, with the condi- 

 tion of our forests, could certainly be made 

 enormously profitable, until the risks from fire are 

 reduced to a minimum. This is a matter of special 

 interest to New England to-day, because upon it 

 largely depends the country's supply of white pine, 

 and the greatly enhanced value in the early future 

 of much New England land. 



(To be concluded.) 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Forest Destruction in China.— Writing to 

 the London Garden, Mr. Maries says: "Many 

 grand trees and shrubs must have been completely 

 lost by the unmerciful cutting and burning of all 

 vegetation on the hills in China; none but the 

 toughest could possibly survive. Year after year 

 they are lopped to the ground, and when the coarse 

 grass gets too thick they burn, or if a tiger or 

 leopard is in the mountain they burn again. This 

 has been going on for centuries now. They never 

 plant or take the slightest trouble to grow trees, 

 and the result is bare, barren tracts of mountain 

 land, once evidently forest, now useless. 1 visited 

 Kuikiang Mountains in April, 1878, when the hills 

 were covered with a growth of two or three years. 

 I went to the same places in December the same 

 year, and all was either cut or burnt. It was with 

 the greatest difficulty I was able to get a few of 

 the fine plants I found there the April before. 

 Many of the plants when growing in England 

 still bore the marks of the Chinese mountain fire." 



Forest Fires. — In view of the great import- 

 ance of this topic, we give this month, part of a 

 paper by Prof. Sargent, originally communicated 

 to the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture. 



