August 24, 191 1] 



NATURE 



'■47 



contingent are valuable on account of their more 

 hardy nature. The explanation of the various hybrids 

 is difficult, and calls for the special knowledge pos- 

 sessed by the author. Famous collections, cultural 

 directions, and a list of species make up the contents 

 of a volume which every gardener — save perhaps the 

 dweller on limestone — should purchase and study. 

 The Practical Flower Garden. By Helena R. Ely. 

 Pp. xiii + 304. (New York : The Macmillan Co., 

 London; Macmillan and Co., Ltd., iqu.) Price 

 Ss. 6d. net. 

 If the descriptions of experience and garden stock 

 presented by Mrs. H. R. Ely may be accepted as a 

 trustworthy exposition of garden practice in the 

 mi States of North America, we are justified in 

 assuming that there is very little difference between 

 the methods pursued and the plants cultivated on the 

 two sides of the Atlantic. We had anticipated that 

 there would be at any rate very marked differences 

 in the trees and shrubs; also that certain herbaceous 

 plants would be better suited to the more extreme 

 conditions prevailing in the States, whereas with few 

 exceptions, such as Boltonia and Baptisia, all the 

 border perennials mentioned in the author's lists are 

 offered in any British horticulturist's catalogue; of 

 the climbers or vines, Dolichos japonicus and Vitis 

 labritsca are rarely grown in English gardens. 



The reader who is searching for useful hints is 

 likely to be rewarded by a perusal of the advice re- 

 garding fertilisers and plant remedies, although the 

 pronounced commendation of a fertiliser of unknown 

 composition passing under the name of Bon Arbor 

 is tantalising if not savouring of quackery. It should 

 also be noted that the author, like every good hor- 

 ticulturist, has a favourite specific, which in her case 

 is bone-meal, especially for Delphiniums. Advice is 

 offered on the subjects of colour-schemes and the 

 making of lawns, but a more original note is struck 

 in the account of a garden prepared for the growl li 

 not cultivation — of indigenous plants. It may be con- 

 jectured that Mrs. Ely does not claim to be a botanist, 

 as certain inexactitudes are apparent, although the 

 only flagrant mistake is in the misuse of the term 

 " annual." 



1 Short History of Ethics: Greek and Modem. By 

 R. A. P. Rogers. Pp. xxii + 303. (London: Mac- 

 millan and Co., Ltd., 1911.) Price 35. 6d. net. 

 A USEFUL historical survey, chiefly descriptive but 

 partly critical. The author's primary object is to give 

 a short and accurate description of the leading Greek 

 ethical systems and of those systems which represent 

 the best type of modern philosophic ethics, from 

 Hobbes to the end of the nineteenth century ; 

 secondarily, to show, by criticism and comparison, 

 the connecting links between systems and the move- 

 ments of thought by which new systems arise. Some 

 familiar names are omitted, where the type of thought 

 has already been illustrated by other thinkers; e.g. 

 Reid is represented by Butler, and the French em- 

 piricists by Hume. Such recent systems as those of 

 Wundt, Paulsen, Nietzsche, and the pragmatists are 

 also omitted. The systems most lengthily considered 

 are those of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, 

 Hobbes, Butler, Hume, Kant, the German idealists 

 culminating in Hegel, and the English utilitarians 

 through Bentham, Mill, Spencer, and Sidgwick to 

 T. H. Green, whose doctrine specially commands the 

 author's admiration. 



The book is well written, in commendably judicial 

 tone throughout. It makes a modest claim — calling 

 itself short and elementary — but those students who 

 thoroughly master it will have obtained an excellent 

 and more than elementary introduction to the subject. 



NO. 2l82, VOL. 87] 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 [The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.] 



The Forest of Auchnacarry. 



The letter in Nature of June 1 would come as a shock 

 to foresters throughout the world. It states that the 

 Scotch pines at Auchnacarry are perhaps the largest and 

 finest fragment that is left to us of the primaeval Cale- 

 donian forest. In area about 1500 acres, the forest con- 

 tains trees 200 to 300 years old of huge size, up to 6 feet 

 in diameter. The scenery of the forest is of great beauty, 

 and, save for a few isolated clumps, is all that we know 

 to remain of the great forest of Scotch pine that once 

 spread over all suitable ground in central Scotland. The 

 writer also remarks that nothing is left so noble, so exten- 

 sive, so worthy of preservation as this doomed forest of 

 Lochiel's at Auchnacarry. 



The photograph is striking. It is difficult to believe that 

 forest such as this was once in the place of desolate and 

 dreary bogland such as the Moor of Rannoch. But it was 

 no farther back than Napoleon's time that the great forest 

 of Rannoch was cut down and turned into the dreary waste 

 of to-day ! 



Surely there is here a strong case — the strongest possible 

 case — for the Development Commissioners ! We read that . 

 they have 500,000!. yearly for five years, and this year an 

 extra vote of 400,000!. in addition ; and that a portion of 

 their funds is to be devoted to forestry " by the purchase 

 and planting of land." 



The distant view is sometimes the clearest. To the man 

 at a distance it is as clear as daylight that, whatever may 

 be done for minor objects, this forest of Auchnacarry, this 

 unique national monument, should be acquired for the 

 country at any cost. 



Italv has done much since it became a nation, but it 

 has, perhaps unavoidably, neglected much. The most 

 patriotic Italian will at once admit that Italy has neglected 

 its forestry. Japan does more forestry in a week than 

 Italy in many years ! Yet Italy has nationalised the re- 

 mains of its Apennine forests at Camaldole and Vallom- 

 brosa. Here are giant silver-firs not to be surpassed by 

 any on this globe. And these most beautiful forests remain 

 as national monuments ever pointing the way towards 

 national regeneration, the restoration of the dreary and 

 ruined Apennines to the beauty, the fertility, and the value 

 of past days. 



Spain is preserving the remnants of its ancient forests ; 

 Portugal is guarding them jealously. Is British forestry 

 to sink to the level of Chinese? Surely, cost what it may, 

 this remnant of the primaeval Caledonian forest should be 

 nationalised and preserved. 



There is one important point to remember. The Italians, 

 the Spaniards, and the Portuguese can replant and restore 

 their national forests whenever they are strong enough as 

 nations to do it. But these northern forests in Scotland 

 and Sweden, near the limits of tree growth, can be restored 

 only with extreme difficulty, if at all, when once they are 

 destroyed. They seem to be the product of conditions that 

 have passed away, or perhaps of geological time. Witness 

 the Moor of Rannoch and many forests in northern 

 Sweden. When once they have passed into bog and the 

 great draining action of the trees has been removed, tlirir 

 restoration to forests seems nearly impossible at any prac- 

 tical expenditure. With forest near its climatic limits, this 

 is the case in other lands and other climes. 



D. E. Hutchins. 

 (Late Chief Cons. Forests B.E. Africa.) 



Kenilworth, near Cape Town, July 20. 



The Drought and the Birds. 



As a rule, water has been left in my garden for the wild 

 birds, and they have taken full advantage of the oppor- 

 tunity for bathing and drinking. 



On Monday, however, a hen blackbird rather surprised 

 me. The hose was working in a shady spot. Her ladyship 



