January 22, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



33 



its stigmas. The heads were marked by a thread. Seeds 

 were formed, which being sown germinated in the autumn 

 and in the following year bore flowers, which were 

 purple, with a yellow base. These also bore seed that 

 matured. An account of the plant was given by Linnaeus 

 in a prize essay on the six plants sent to the Academy of 

 Sciences of St. Petersburg in 1760.* It is mentioned in a 

 later paper read at Upsala in 1762 by one of his pupils as 

 being annually propagated by seed.f Focke, who has 

 given us a convenient summary of what is known of hybrid 

 plants, both spontaneous and artificially produced, calls 

 this plant of Linnaeus "the first hybrid intentionally pro- 

 duced for scientific purposes," and adds that the objections 

 which have been brought against its hybrid character by 

 Kohlreuter and others "are not sound, since they deal 

 with plants of the second generation."! The seeds of the 

 hybrid seem to have reverted to T. pratensis, which was 

 one of the grounds of Kohlreuter's objections, and of his 

 disbelief in the spontaneous production of crosses when 

 the plants were left free to be pollenized by their parents. 

 A spontaneous cross between these species has, however, 

 been reported from the Danish islands of Laaland and 

 Fiinen, "the outer flowers brown-violet, the inner yellow." 

 A limitation is made in the above cases to crosses pro- 

 duced artificially for scientific purposes, for it can scarcely 

 be disputed that Thomas Fairchild, the nurseryman and 

 florist, of Hoxam, near London, had before 17 19 artificially 

 crossed Dianthus caryophyllus and D. barbatus. This has 

 since been cultivated under the names of Fairchild's Sweet 

 William, The Mule and D. hybridus hort. The authority 

 given for this is Richard Bradley, an English writer on 

 horticulture and husbandry of the first half of the last cen- 

 tury. Hence the credit for the earliest authenticated cross 

 intentionally made is due to a man engaged in the practical 

 work of gardening. 



Chicago. 111. -£• /• "III. 



The Box-Elder on the Plains. 



I HAVE been interested in studying the problem of the 

 distribution of native trees upon the Great Plains and 

 their adaptation to the peculiar conditions which prevail 

 over this great central region of the continent, and no tree 

 has attracted my attention in this region more than the 

 common Box-Elder, or Ash-leaved Maple, Acer Negundo. 

 As it grows upon the Plains it is a stocky tree with a trunk 

 ten or twelve inches in diameter and not more than six or 

 eight feet in length, bearing a rounded bushy top, giving 

 to the tree, as a whole, much of the appearance of a well- 

 grown Apple-tree in an eastern orchard. It occurs along 

 the streams in Nebraska from the Missouri River to the 

 Rocky Mountains, and here and there in favored localities 

 it has pushed away from the streams a mile or so. It 

 appears to be perfectly hardy, and I am sure that I have 

 never seen the slightest indication of injury from the 

 greatest exposure to severe cold. 



The Box-Elder has been used very freely by the settlers 

 who took up " tree claims," and for many years, until 

 the repeal of the timber-claim law, there were millions of 

 these trees planted every year in the state of Nebraska 

 alone. The young trees transplant easily and are 

 readily handled, the per cent, of loss usually being very 

 low. Then, again, it is a very simple matter to grow the 

 trees from the seeds, which insures the low price of the 

 young trees. A few years ago I visited a large establish- 

 ment in southern Nebraska where from eight to ten mil- 

 lions of young Box-Elder trees were grown each year. 

 The winged fruits were collected in the autumn and care- 

 fully protected in a great barn, and in the spring these 

 were sown in drills, just as a farmer sows any of his crops. 

 In a short time the little plants pushed through the soil and 

 began to shoot upward. The fields of Box-Elder seedlings 

 were cultivated from time to time, and when a few inches 



high properly thinned to prevent overcrowding. The crop 

 of trees required little more care than a crop of Corn, and 

 not as much as a crop of Onions or Sugar Beets. Late in 

 the autumn they were taken up by the aid of a special plow, 

 gathered into bundles and stored away in damp, cool cel- 

 lars, ready to be sent out in early spring. Few trees are 

 as easily propagated and handled. In fact, one could very 

 easily cover hundreds of acres with this tree by simply 

 planting the seeds and caring for the young trees a few 

 years. 



The wood is light and easily cut and split, and makes 

 good fuel. The tree might very profitably be grown for 

 supplying fuel, its rapid growth giving it a special fitness 

 for this purpose. Something, too, might be said for it as 

 an ornamental tree. Its rather regular top and light green 

 foliage, which is usually free from insects, make it desira- 

 ble for the grounds near the house. 



University of Nebraska. Charles E. BeSSey. 



* Amenitates AcademicitE , Gilibert ed. ( 1787-S8, vol. i., 



t Ibid., p. 182. 



X PJlanzen MichlingcF, pp. 221, 430. 



What is the Forest Policy of European Nations ? 



WHENEVER we are about to advocate or inaugurate 

 a new national policy it is wise to see what other 

 nations are doing or have done in the same direction, even 

 though we may not see proper to imitate them. 



In regard to its public lands, the policy in the United 

 States has been for the Government to get rid of them as 

 quickly as possible, until in 1891 a new policy was feebly 

 inaugurated with reference to forest-lands by giving the 

 President power to set aside and reserve such areas as he 

 saw fit. This policy has, however, not as yet been safely 

 established, and arguments for upholding it and for secur- 

 ing further application are still in order. 



In Europe the tendency at the end of last and beginning 

 of this century had also been to divest the Government of 

 this kind of property under the misapplication of the theo- 

 ries of Adam Smith and the doctrine of individual rights, 

 urged to its most extreme consequences. France, during 

 and after the Revolution, took the lead in this dismember- 

 ment of its forest property, selling during the years from 

 1791 to 1795 nearly one-half of its state forests and contin- 

 uing to reduce the area until there remained in 1874 but 

 one-fifth of the original holdings of the state. Many of the 

 German principalities followed the same policy, selling off 

 the forest-lands which had been preserved in the Govern- 

 ment for centuries. 



But during the last fifty years or so of this century a 

 reaction set in ; the fearful consequences of unrestricted 

 exercise of individual ownership over this class of property 

 had made it plain enough that the necessity of a change 

 arising from communal interests had come, and now it can 

 be stated that the policy is entirely reversed, that all 

 European nations have the tendency, not only to hold their 

 forest property in Government hands, but to extend it in 

 area and in efficiency, and also to exercise stricter control 

 over the use of private forest property wherever damage 

 to communal interests might result thereby. 



Instead of selling, most Governments now buy. There 

 is. to be sure, also selling of Government forest property, 

 but only for the purpose of making the Government forest 

 property more efficient, of consolidating it and of making it 

 serve to the best advantage the purposes of protection to 

 agricultural interests. Thus, in Prussia, agricultural land 

 under forest is exchanged or sold for non-agricultural land 

 or devastated forest property, and servitudes resting on the 

 state forest property from olden times are sometimes 

 removed by cession of forest-lands, so that the bare statis- 

 tics of the increase in the area of state forests do not tell 

 the whole story. 



In France, since 1870, no sales have been made, and by 

 gradual acquisitions a small and steady increase of forest- 

 land has taken place. The difference between the areas in 

 1872 and 1892 was over 300,000 acres, the state holdings 

 representing now about ten percent, of the total forest area, 

 and in addition the state has spent in the neighborhood of 



