SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 1887. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 

 Prof. C. S, Sargent, director of the Arnold 

 arboretum of Harvard college, takes occasion to 

 reverse some of his earlier advice, in an article 

 printed in a recent report of the Massachusetts 

 state board of agriculture on the subject of tree- 

 planting. He had been, like most American writers 

 on forestry, strongly impressed with the value of 

 foreign trees for general cultivation in New Eng- 

 land ; but as imported trees grow older they do 

 not fulfil the promise of their earlier years, and he 

 has therefore become convinced that natives are 

 better suited to our climate and soil than any 

 exotics can be. The willow alone, of all foreign 

 introduced trees, has qualities not possessed in a 

 greater degree by some native. The European 

 oak is perhaps the most unsatisfactory deciduous 

 tree that has been experimented upon : it grows 

 rapidly when young, but fails, when about twenty 

 years old, from the cracking of the main stem, 

 and then, after dragging out a wretched existence 

 a few years longer, miserably perishes. The Scotch 

 pine is a failure in New England as an ornamental 

 or a timber tree : it perishes long before reaching 

 maturity, and the discovery of its worthlessness 

 has cost American planters something in money 

 and a great deal in disappointed hopes. The Aus- 

 trian and the Corsican pine seem to be no better. 

 The Norway spruce has been for many years the 

 most widely cultivated foreign tree in Massa- 

 chusetts : it is cheap, easUy transplanted, and 

 grows rapidly and gracefully when young ; but 

 the general introduction of this tree into our plan- 

 tations must, nevertheless, be regarded as a public 

 misfortune. It must be acknowledged to be a 

 complete failure in eastern America : it will never 

 produce timber here, and it is decrepit and un- 

 sightly just at that period of life when trees should 

 become really handsome in full development. 



These facts cannot be generally appreciated, for 

 Professor Sargent estimates that five foreign trees 

 are now planted to one native. But some progress 

 in native sylviculture has been made in the south- 

 eastern counties of Barnstable and Plymouth, 



No. 213 — 1887. 



where the farmers have learned how to plant and 

 raise forests successfully and profitably. "It has 

 been demonstrated in Barnstable county that a 

 crop of pitch-pine can be raised from seed with as 

 much certainty as a crop of corn, and with much 

 less expense ; and that the loose and shifting 

 sands of Cape Cod, useless for every other pur- 

 pose, can, with the aid of this tree, be made to 

 bear valuable crops of wood." There are also 

 plantations of white-pine, dug as seedlings in the 

 woods, made forty or fifty years ago in the bar- 

 ren, sandy, exhausted soil of Middleborough and 

 Bridgewater. The young trees were set out in 

 shallow furrows at odd times with little expense, 

 and required no subsequent care. Men are now 

 living in these towns who have cut and sold white- 

 pine saw-logs at the rate of $150 an acre, from 

 seedlings set by themselves. These are no doubt 

 the most successful and profitable attempts at 

 sylviculture ever made in the United States ; and, 

 although the best methods of planting are not yet 

 so fully understood as in the case of the pitch-pine, 

 the experiments show that the white-pine, the 

 most valuable trees in New England, can be culti- 

 vated with success and profit. 



The supply of railroad-ties is a matter of grow- 

 ing importance for the New England farmer, and 

 certain experiments made at the suggestion of 

 Professor Sargent by the Boston and Providence 

 railroad have an important bearing on it. Fifty- 

 two ties were laid in December, 1878, on a track in 

 Boston where the traffic is very heavy, having an 

 average of sixty-five trains daily. Ten kinds of 

 wood were tried, five in the natural state and five 

 creosoted. None of the ties rotted, except one of 

 the ailantus : the others that had to be removed 

 had been injured by the hammering of the trains. 

 Spruce, hemlock, larch, and southern pine have all 

 suffered badly in this way. White-oak lasted well, 

 but it holds the spikes so firmly that they cannot 

 be drawn when the rails have to be shifted. Creo- 

 soted elm and birch did well, and are to be recom- 

 mended. Chestnut was unfortunately not in- 

 cluded in the experiment, although it is considered 

 one of the best woods for ties. The behavior of 

 the catalpa was one of the most interesting fea- 



