284 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF NEW JERSEY. 



Red-cedar {Jimiperiis virginiand] is an excellent tree for the 

 dry sandy upland. No American tree has a more interesting 

 and instructive oecology.* It ranges from Cape Cod to Van- 

 couver's Island, from Canada to Florida. In the north it inhabits 

 dry, rocky uplands ; in the south it grows in swamps, which are 

 often covered with water ; in the rich bottom-lands of the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley it is a lofty and noble tree ; in the limestone 

 regions of northern Alabama it is almost a bush ; and along the 

 shores of New Jersey it is flat-crowned and irregular, but a beau- 

 tiful tree in spite of shifting sand and salt sea breezes. The 

 quality of the wood also depends upon the region in which it 

 grows. In many places it is of little worth ; in others it is excel- 

 lent in quality, strongly aromatic, rich red in color and famous 

 the world over for pencils. It is one of the commonest trees in 

 Southern New Jersey, quickly producing a highly prized wood 

 on soil the surface of which at least is sterile. Its fruits are 

 devoured by birds which scatter its seeds. When growing alone 

 it is pyramidal in shape, with many branches. Sometimes the 

 twigs and leaves are stiff and prickly ; sometimes soft and pendu- 

 lous. The wood of these knotty trees is extremely beautiful, 

 and the limbs are of use for boat knees, rustic fences, etc. It is 

 also an excellent wind-break, although subject to a fungous dis- 

 ease which infests the apple and quince, f 



*The basis of silviculture is oecology or the science of trees in relation to their environment, many 

 of the most important points of which in reference to American species are unknown. Much may be 

 learned of the habits of trees by studying them in regions in which they are not indigenous. More is 

 known of the silvicultural peculiarities of several American trees in Europe than in America. A careful 

 study of the tropical forest will throw light upon many physiological problems, especially those which 

 have to do with climatic conditions (see Haberlandt's Tropenreise). It behooves the Americans to 

 emulate the Dutch in Java and the English in India, and establish in their new possessions experiment 

 stations, schools and laboratories where northern students may study plant physiology, the sine qua non 

 of agriculture and silviculture. 



t The cedar-apple (Gymnosporangium macropus) is common throughout the State, and is of special 

 nterest because it leads a dual life, one phase of which is on the red-cedar (Juniperus virginiana), and 

 the other has the cultivated quince, apple and their allies for its host plants. On the twigs of the cedar 

 it causes brown, irregularly lobed excrescences, as large as chestnuts, over the surface of which there are 

 slight indentations or centers in which the teleutospores are located. These spores are thick -walled, 

 brown, two-celled bodies, which in warm, moist spring weather, germinate, that is, the cell- wall breaks, 

 and there protrudes from each cell of the teleutospore a hypha or tube on the end of which several 

 small spores or sporidia are formed. All the germinal tubes from one center adhere together, forming an 

 orange-colored, gelatinus, tentacle-like growth. Several of these gelatinous masses, distributed over the 

 surface of the whole excrescence, give it the appearance of a crysanthemum a short distance from the 

 tree. Very often many hundreds of these may be seen on a single tree, and when they are in the height 

 of their germination are peculiarly striking. The sporidia are borne long distances by the wind to the 

 young, tender leaves of the apple and quince, on which, if the conditions are right, they soon germinate, 

 and produce the other stage of this peculiar disease, which, on its orchard hosts, causes the well-known 

 "rust." Although this fungus does practically no ir jury to the cedar, "the rust" is a very serious 

 disease, especially in the south. It is more dangerous to quinces than to apples. The spores can be 

 carried by the wind several miles. Although not wise to plant orchards in the neighborhood of red- 

 cedars, or -vice-versa, this disease is not of sufficient seriousness to discourage the propagation of the 

 red-cedar in South Jersey, because the apple industry is there of little importance. 



