KEPORT UPON THE SECTION OF FORESTRY 

 IN THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM. 1891. 



By B. E. Fernow, Honorary Curator. 



In view of the fact that but small space can be devoted to the exhi- 

 bition of forestry collections in the Museum, no systematic effort has 

 been made to increase the materials for such exhibit, and they are 

 allowed to accumulate as voluntary unsolicited contributions are made. 

 Hence the exhibits are still more or less heterogeneous and incomplete 

 in any one direction; the object of the displays being rather to bring 

 the existence and tlie diversified ramifications of the subject before the 

 beliolder than to permit an exhaustive study of any one branch. 



Besides the donations received during the year, which are in part 

 illustrations of physiological abnormities in tree growth, some of the 

 material used by the forestry division of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture in the Paris Exposition t)f 1889 has been installed, consisting of a 

 display of our most important timber trees by means of maps, showing 

 their botanical distribution, photographs of typical trees, and photo- 

 micrographs of the wood structure. This collection is by no means any 

 more complete than the other parts of the exhibit, but gives a fair indi- 

 cation of what should be done when space permits expansion. 



ACCESSIONS TO THE COLLECTION. 



The accessions during the year are as follows : 



No. 23845: Distorted white pine, oniled. 



No. 23897: Girdled pine. 



No. 24008 : Coco de Mer— double coeoanut palm, frnit and wood, Seychelles Islands. 



No. 24338: Bent wood — ash bent into the form of an evolnte without showing elas- 

 ticity. 



No. 24337: Natural graft — two separate oaks joined by a branch. 



No. 24296: Natural graft — pine branch inarched into its mother trunk. 



No. 24336: Forest jdantiug machine (model), intended for planting on the prairie 

 without previous breaking. 



No. 24335: View of Japanese cedars; a painting (d* an avenue of Cruptomeria 

 Japonica, planted over two hundred and sixty years in Nicko. Shimotsnka, Japan. 



No. 5318: Log of ebony — 6 feet long, polished. 



No. 24382: Argentine woods — sections of txnnks. 



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