52 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 415. 



in their efforts to produce new crops of leaves to replace 

 those killed by the fungus, and the planting of the western 

 Plane cannot be recommended. The wood of this tree is 

 now used in very large quantities in the United States in 

 making furniture and in finishing houses. Formerly it was 

 almost the only material used in the manufacture of the 

 boxes made for packing tobacco, but the demand for wood 

 for this purpose has become so great that that of other 

 trees is now often substituted for plane-wood in the manu- 

 facture of tobacco cases. 



The second of the North American Plane-trees, Platanus 

 racemosa, inhabits the banks of streams in California, 

 where it is distributed from the valley of the lower Sacra- 

 mento River southward through the interior valleys and coast 

 ranges of the state, and finds its most southern home on San 

 Pedro Martir, a high mountain half-way down the penin- 

 sula of LowerCalifornia, where several other California trees 

 have retained a foothold. It is one of the largest and most 

 beautiful of the deciduous-leaved trees of California, and is 

 very common on river-banks in the neighborhood of the 

 coast from Monterey to San Diego, growing often to the 

 height of more than a hundred feet and forming a trunk 

 eight or nine feet through and sometimes erect and free of 

 branches for half its height, but more often divided near 

 the ground into several secondary stems which are erect or 

 inclining, or often prostrate, for twenty or thirty feet at the 

 base, and then turn upward toward the sky. 



The third species of the United States, Platanus Wrightii, 

 bears the name of the indefatigable botanical collector, 

 Charles Wright, who discovered it nearly fifty years ago in 

 southern Arizona when he was connected with the survey 

 undertaken to establish the boundary between the United 

 States and Mexico. It inhabits the banks of streams in the 

 canons of the mountain ranges which stretch along our 

 south-western boundary from the Rio Grande to the Colo- 

 rado, and, like most of the trees of these mountains, belongs 

 to the flora of northern Mexico rather than to that of the 

 United States. As it appears in the sombre canons of these 

 sun-baked mountains Platanus Wrightii, which frequently 

 attains the height of eighty feet and makes a trunk four or 

 five feet through, is a splendid object, rising high above 

 the Walnuts, Willows and Alders with which it grows, and 

 spreading far its great limbs, clothed in pale sea-green bark. 

 From other Plane-trees it differs in this coloring of the juve- 

 nile bark and in the shape of the leaves, which are divided 

 by narrow sinuses, sometimes nearly to the centre, into 

 from three to seven, but usually into five, elongated, acute 

 lobes, and are often deeply cordate by the downward pro- 

 jection of the two lower lobes. The Arizona Plane-tree is 

 the largest deciduous-leaved tree in the mountain forests of 

 the south-west and one of the most distinct and beautiful 

 trees of the genus. 



Forest Lands in Massachusetts. 



THE town of Washington, Massachusetts, is located 

 at the highest point on the Boston and Albany Rail- 

 road. About Washington, as a centre, a large area of land 

 is given up to second-growth timber, and a view from the 

 top of one of the higher summits of the mountain range 

 extending north or south from the railway will disclose a 

 large territory growing up to forests. Last summer I made 

 a carriage-drive over a considerable section of Berkshire 

 County, where this timber-land could be readily seen. 

 Numerous observations were also taken from high points 

 not ordinarily visited. Among these was Becket Mountain, 

 2,194 feet above the sea-level, from which a view is secured 

 extending from the Catskills on the west to the Holyoke 

 range on the east. 



A person unfamiliar with this region would be surprised 

 at the amount of land now occupied by growing timber. 

 Leaving out of consideration the immediate vicinity of the 

 towns, and a few rural homes about Lenox and Stock- 

 bridge, clearings are the exceptions, and not the rule. 

 Driving east or south from Lee extensive forest tracts are 



found. The country is rapidly becoming reforested. These 

 lands have a very low valuation. During the past year 

 Pittsfield and New York parties have been purchasing 

 extensively in Washington, so that already it is claimed 

 that one syndicate controls some 5,000 or more acres, for 

 which four dollars an acre have been paid. This land, it 

 is understood, is to be fenced, and, rumor has it, will be 

 kept as a game preserve. The people occupying this 

 region, so far as I have been able to learn, have no faith 

 in the future prospects of the forests as a source of revenue. 

 Hardwood, delivered, brings three dollars a cord in the 

 local market, and this price hardly pays the hauling over 

 poor roads. The supply of saw-logs is quite limited ; taji 

 bark is comparatively scarce, and the railroads get their 

 ties cheaper elsewhere. The country is now rapidly grow- 

 ing up to forests more extensively than ever in recent 

 years. 



Nevertheless, I believe that the timber resources of these 

 New England hills will have a significant value in the 

 future. The sources of timber-supply of the country are 

 becoming more and more restricted. Michigan, Minnesota 

 and Wisconsin no longer have extensive areas of tim- 

 ber. The big timber-fields adjacent to the good ship- 

 ping points are becoming scarce. In Massachusetts and 

 New England are many small forests twenty to thirty 

 years old that are producing promising crops of timber for 

 the future. Within ten or twenty years they will begin to 

 yield a revenue from timber-supply, without taking cord- 

 wood into account, and such lands as these ought to be 

 safe investments for the farmer and for the future. 



And this suggests a field for investigation for the agricul- 

 tural colleges in the several New England states. As an 

 example, would it not be desirable and appropriate for the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College to secure a block of, 

 say, one hundred or more acres of cheap land in second- 

 growth timber, and use it as a permanent field for syste- 

 matic forestry ? Many problems of a practical nature could 

 here be investigated that cannot be considered on the high- 

 priced land where the college stands. Here could be 

 maintained a summer school of forestry, where, for two or 

 three months, students might repair to study under condi- 

 tions at present unavailable in New England, if not in the 

 United States. The summer school is now accomplishing 

 work in many directions, but the first summer school in 

 forestry is yet to be created. 



A block of such timber-land might be made a great source 

 of instruction and benefit to the farmers of Massachusetts, 

 and the practicability of timber-culture in the state could have 

 a fair trial. The farmer needs to be educated as to the pos- 

 sibilities of these rough hills for forest purposes. He has 

 neither the time nor the money nor the training which 

 would enable him to make these investigations for himself, 

 and the state can well afford to help him and set the exam- 

 ple if this will encourage the study and practice of scientific 

 forestry by the people. 



In the mean time the timber reserves of the state are 

 growing, and some day their value as a source of income 

 will become manifest. _ _ „ 



Lafayette, Ind. C. O. F/umO. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



New Orchids. — The productions of the hybridist are the 

 only noteworthy recent additions to garden Orchids, and 

 there are only few of these that call for special mention. 

 Cypripedium Miss M. Ames, a hybrid between C. Curtisii 

 and C. concolor, raised by Messrs. F. Sander & Co., is 

 remarkable in form and in the yellowish green wax-like 

 flowers tinged with rose. The pouch is pinched laterally, 

 as in C. concolor. Another Sanderian hybrid, named Said 

 Lloyd, raised from C. Godefroyas and C. venustum, has 

 yellow and pale brown flowers, heavily blotched with 

 chocolate-brown; is sufficiently distinct to find favor with 



