50 



GARDENING. 



Nov. /, 



the Chinese and Thunberg's are drooping 

 in coral, the chokeberry is laden, and sev- 

 eral species of thorn (Crataegus) are full of 

 red and showy fruit, and the Amelanchier 

 japonica with dark red. T' R. Trumpv. 

 Kissena, L. I., Oct. 31, '96. 



IRON-GLflD EVERGREENS. 



The following list of evergreens is per- 

 fectly hardy in the northwest: 



American arbor \itx (Thuja Occiden- 

 talis) and all of its varieties. 

 fir trees (Abies). 



Balsam fir (A. balsamea). 



Fraser's fir (A. Fraseri). 



Siberian fir (.4. Sibirica). 



Colorado white fir (A. concolor). 

 pine trees (Pious). 



White pine (P. strobus). 



Ked pine ( P. resinosa). 



Mountain pine (P. Mugho). 



Scotch pine (P. sylvestris). 



Austrian pine (P Austriaca. 



The pitch pine (P. rigida), and Wiscon- 

 sin gr<iy pine (P. lianksiana) are both 

 hardy, but not worthy of cultivation. 

 spruce trees (Picca). 



Norway spruce (Picea excelsa). 



White spruce [Picea alba). 



Colorado spruce (Picea pungens). 



Douglas spruce (Pseudotsuga Doug- 

 lasii) irom Colorado. 



The red and black spruces are also 

 hardy but hardly w orthy of cultivation. 

 junipers. 



Juniperus communis, procumbens, and 

 prostrata. The red cedar (Juniperus Vir- 

 giniana) is not worthy of cultivation as 

 it fails as a hedge plant, is dingy in win- 

 ter, and although very durable wood, 

 yet it takes fifty years to grow a single 

 fence post from seed. The Irish juniper 

 is not hardy. 



Rhododendrons and broad-leaved ever- 

 greens are not hardy in the northwest. If 

 nature ever attempted it she made an 

 absolute failure as the bearberry is the 

 only one we have and the leaves are not 

 larger than the ear of a mouse. [The 

 above was sent to us for publication in 

 Gardening. The following is part of a 

 private letter but it is so good that 

 we have asked for and received permis- 

 sion to use it too. — Ed.] 



All the evergreens that are hardy in the 

 northwest are hardy in the east. The 

 American arbor vita: (Thuja Occidentalis) 

 is hard}', also all the many varieties it 

 has produced, including Horeyi com- 

 pacta. Siberica, pyramidalis, golden, etc., 

 but the Pacific coastspeciesarenothardv. 

 I may say further that there is not a 

 Pacific conifer in all the Pacific slope 

 that is hardv in the northwest except 

 the few species that are found in 

 the Rocky Mountains, including Picea 

 pungens. Douglas spruce, Abies concolor 

 Picea Englemanii and Pinus ponderosa, 

 and even the seeds of these if collected on 

 the Pacific Coast will not produce trees 

 that will stand this climate. 



Some scientists (of the rising genera- 

 tion) dispute this fact on scientific princi- 

 ples, but Dr. Kngelman, C. C Parry, C. S. 

 Sargent, Thos. Median and the experi- 

 enced, know this to be a fact, and Mr. 

 Parsons and many of the old nurserymen 

 have learned it by sad experience. Mr. 

 Parsons of Flushing imported a large 

 quantity of Douglas spruce seeds at the 

 time of the California gold discovery forty- 

 seven years ago, and seedlings raised from 

 them were planted liberally all through the 

 eastas far southas Washington, D. C.and 



failed in a few years. During the summer 

 of 1868. I noticed Douglas spruce trees 

 that had been brought from Pikes Peak, 

 Colo., by gold hunters in their wagons, 

 and planted in Kansas, Omaha and 

 western Illinois, that had stood for 

 several years and had started from the 

 terminal bud every spring after the year 

 they were planted and the same was true 

 of Picea pungens. 



About 1870 Prof. C.S. Sargent received 

 from Prof. C. C. Parry, Douglas spruce 

 seeds from Colorado and they produced 

 trees that are now 30 to 40 feet high and 

 as hard}' as the Green Mountain native 

 conifers, the same is true of the seeds I 

 received from C. C. Parry at the same 

 time. In 1865 I imported from California 

 large quantities of coniferous seeds of all 

 the noted species and continued it for 3 

 years during which time I paid over 

 $1,500 for California seeds alone, as they 

 had grown well and were covered and 

 protected the first two winters. The final 

 result was that not a tree from all these 

 seeds ever left the nursery except in 

 smoke from the brush piles in which they 

 were burned. 



After I saw the trees brought by the 

 Pikes Peakers, and had received seeds of 

 Douglasii and pungens from Colorado, 

 Burnet Landreth sent me several pounds 

 of Douglassii to raise the seedlings until 

 2 years old to plant in his forests in Vir- 

 ginia. We sowed them side by side with 

 our Colorado seeds, his seeds made a 

 more rapid growth than ours, at the end 

 of the two years ours were sound and 

 hardy and his were so that they were all 

 dead or injured in the spring of the third 

 year. 



I could write a volume of such experi- 

 ences. I used to grow large quantities ot 

 red cedars from seeds. One year the trees 

 did not seed in this county, I bought a few 

 pounds in southern Illinois and a larger 

 quantity in Tennessee, butth^ trees raised 

 from them were tender and worthless 

 here. 



I saw a fine conifer over 20 feet high 

 standing on a bleak hill side full v exposed 

 to the north and west, on Mr. Hitchcocks 

 groundsill Hanover, New Hampshire I 

 went into the grounds and examined the 

 tree and found it to be Abies Nordman- 

 niana, now I have tried over and over 

 again commencing over 40 years ago to 

 grow a specimen of this tree, but always 

 failed after I left the leader exposed in 

 winter I went to see Mr. Hitchcock and 

 we found that he had the same experience 

 in trying to raise a black walnut tree, 

 while we had them, fine trees three feet in 

 diameter, cut up for cordwood when the 

 first railroad ran through to Milwaukee. 

 In all my experience with coniferous 

 seeds from the Pacific Coast with the 

 thousands on thousands of miles I have 

 travelled and the time and expense and 

 the trying of patience and strength I 

 have not been able to hold one tree for the 

 term of five years. 



My last experience was lour years ago 

 with the weeping spruce. I had written 

 to seed collectors to get me the seeds at 

 any cost. My son who was then in Cali- 

 fornia tried every way to get some oneto 

 collect it, so I wired him in August 1892 

 that I would come out and we would 

 hare it. The small group of these trees 

 stand on the summit of the Siskiyou 

 Mountains where it crosses the coast 

 range, and I thought that trees on such 

 an exposure would stand like those on 

 the bleak promontories in Colorado. After 

 leaving the railroad on the highest point 

 we went 40 miles in a hired carriage, 

 left it there, and another day brought us 



up to the summit of the peak of the 

 Siskiyou Mountains on horse back, but 

 such a day; how can I describe it? I was 

 in ecstacies from the waist up, but in ab- 

 ject misery from my waist down. Such 

 noble grand trees, varying in species as 

 we ascended, but when we reached the 

 summit in the evening the fog was such 

 as I had never experienced. I have seen 

 the heaviest London fogs, and the heavi- 

 est fogs in the Redwoods on the coast, 

 but I never saw a fog like that Siskiyou 

 fog We took men with us that could 

 climb like squirrels, we had eight pack 

 horses loaded with the small cones and 

 sent down to the eoait and shipped them 

 by the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco 

 then my son went back over this whole 

 route and took men and collected the 

 seedlings, only two hundred or so in all, 

 while he could have collected millions of 

 other kinds. 



The cones of this tree are small, the seeds 

 run 70,000 to the pound. I sowed the 

 seeds myself and they came up finely and 

 we had over 200,000 growing well. How 

 could we carry them through? They 

 made their first growth; in commencing 

 their second growth many went back, at 

 the end of the season we had half still 

 living about 3 ±inch high, and they stood 

 the winter well with protection, the second 

 spring they started in, we had hopes, but 

 in the attempt to start their second 

 growth they all failed and so did all the 

 transplanted trees my son brought before 

 the close of the third year. 



These pages were written for 3'ou per- 

 sonally. It helped me to kill time this 

 unusually cold morning. [Whenever 

 such grand old veterans in horticulture 

 as yourself, Isaac Hicks, John Saul, Wil- 

 liam Saunders, Josiah Hoopes, and 

 several others wish "to kill a little time," 

 please do it as you now have done, mak- 

 ing us the recipients of your labor. — Ed.] 

 Robert Douglas. 

 Waukegan, 111., October 11, 1896. 



TREES FOR STREET PLANTING. 



The Silver Maple, all things con- 

 sidered, continues to give satisfaction as 

 a high class street tree; it would not be 

 far wrong to give it the prefe ence if one 

 was confined to the use of one kind of 

 tree. Much of its value, however, de- 

 pends upon the treatment it receives when 

 young. Beginning in the nursery, a dis- 

 tinct central leading stem should be 

 maintained, and any luxuriant branch 

 likely to contest supremacy should be 

 promptly pruned back; this treatment 

 should be prominent for several years 

 after planting, but no heading back of 

 the main stem, should be allowed. 



The Sugar Maple is tjie most beauti- 

 ful of our maples, and an admirable street 

 tree, especially so is the variety known as 

 black sugar maple. These are of slower 

 growth than ths silver maple, but much 

 depends upon the nature of the soil in 

 which they are planted, where a good 

 depth of good soil is afforded them they 

 soon attain effective size. Their massive 

 growth rather tends towards a too dense 

 shade, but when this occurs a judicious 

 thinning out of the branches will modify 

 the evil. 



The Norway Maple is justly held in 

 high estimation for street planting. Its 

 growth is somewhat slow, and rather 

 dense and compact, but it is of sturdy 

 habit, and is rarelj' injured by storms. 



American White Elm is a good tree 

 for wide streets. Its only drawback is 

 its liability to injury from the leaf eating 

 beetle, although in some localities it is 



