January 8, 1896.J 



Garden and Forest. 



1 1 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1896. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles: — What is Forestry? n 



Home Classes in Agriculture 1 1 



Japanese Lilies as Articles of Food and Commerce Inazo Nitobe. 12 



Populus heterophylla. {With figure.) 13 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter IV. Watson. 14 



Plant Notes 16 



Cultural Department: — Seasonable Greenhouse Notes T. D. Hatfield. 16 



Euphorbia JacquinEefiora William Scott. 16 



Notes on Garden Vegetables W. N. Craig. 17 



Plants in Bloom at the United States Botanic Garden G. IV. O. 17 



Notes on Begonias R. Cameron. iS 



Kcclreuteria paniculata F. A. Waugh. iS 



Notes from the Botanic Garden of Smith's College.. . .Edward J. Canning. iS 



Correspondence: — Habits of Eerns W. E. B. 18 



North Carolina Bulbs for Forcing Professor IV. F. Massey. 18 



Recent Publications 19 



Periodical Literature 19 



Notes. 20 



Illustration : — Populus heterophylla. Fig. 2. 15 



What is Forestry ? 



THE question is often asked us what the word forestry, 

 which appears now so frequently in American period- 

 icals and newspapers, signifies in its technical acceptation. 

 Judging by the number of different things this word is 

 made to stand for, its meaning is not generally understood 

 in the United States, where the term forestry is made to 

 cover any and all operations in which trees play any part 

 whatever, with the exception of those of the lumbermen, 

 whose business it is to turn them as quickly as possible 

 into money. 



Forestry is the art of maintaining and perpetuating 

 forests. It is successful in proportion as the forest yields 

 the largest annual income in perpetuity. Forestry is not 

 the planting of trees in parks or in the streets of cities. A 

 man who sets a wind-break on the western prairies is not a 

 forester, although it has become the fashion in this country 

 to call him so, just as the man who lays out the flower- 

 beds in one of our cities bears the official title of city 

 forester. A knowledge of trees does not make a man a 

 forester any more than a knowledge of grasses makes a 

 man a good wheat farmer. A landscape-gardener may 

 know trees perfectly, from his point of view, but his point 

 of view is not that of the forester, the one planting for 

 beauty, the other for profit of a more tangible character. 

 The word is certainly used vaguely, and this vagueness, 

 by confusing the whole subject in the popular mind, in- 

 creases the difficulty of those who are working to establish 

 a scientific system under which forests in the United States 

 can be successfully and properly managed. 



Forestry as a branch of scientific agriculture is less than 

 three centuries old, although in Japan silviculture in a 

 restricted sense has been practiced for more than a 

 thousand years. Its importance, however, to the welfare 

 of the community is considered so great by the most 

 enlightened nations that men of first-rate ability have 

 found reward in bringing this art in a comparatively short 

 time to its present standing of almost an exact science. 

 In Germany and France no other branch of agriculture is 

 more carefully studied and practiced, and, in the long run 

 — that is, in periods of centuries — no other pays a larger 

 return upon the invested capital. 



In this country we have wasted in less than a century 

 enough forest to have supplied for all time a considerable 

 part of the world with lumber, just as we have robbed 

 through ignorance much of our best arable land of its 

 fertility. What seemed boundless wealth of natural re- 

 sources has made us reckless, and wealth has melted 

 away before we realized what the end was to be. It is 

 fortunately easier to restore plant-food to exhausted soil 

 than it is to build up a forest once destroyed. The Caro- 

 lina phosphates have brought back the lost fertility to 

 many cotton fields of the south, and the wheat fields 

 of western New York now produce a larger average 

 yield than those of the Willamette Valley, in Oregon, 

 which men not many years ago boasted were to 

 be productive forever. The wasted forest, too, can 

 be rendered productive again, and it is within the 

 possibilities of science not only to do this, but to 

 make any forest more productive, and, therefore, of more 

 value, than it could have been without the intervention of 

 forestry. Just as the care of the gardener makes the fruit- 

 tree more productive of fruit, the care of the forester makes 

 the timber-tree more productive of timber. When we 

 come to realize that forestry is just as important a part of 

 the economy of the nation as wheat-growing is, and under- 

 stand what forestry really means, we shall certainly 

 attempt to take advantage of the experience of other coun- 

 tries and adopt those general principles of forest manage- 

 ment which they have found successful. The great diffi- 

 culty we have to encounter in this country, however, 

 will be the establishment of a continuous management free 

 from political interference and uninterrupted by current 

 events. A forest crop may take from one to three centuries 

 to come to maturity. During all this period, if it is to earn 

 a fair return, it must be managed consistently under a plan 

 made before the seeds are sown and intended to cover 

 every operation in the forest, including its regeneration 

 when the original trees have passed to the saw-mill. 



The necessity of permanency, the idea that a forest can 

 and should last and continue productive for all time, can- 

 not be repeated too often in discussions of this subject ; 

 and if the Government of the United States decides to 

 manage the forests on the public domain in the hope that 

 their productiveness in timber will increase rather than 

 diminish, the public must understand that forestry is not 

 possible unless it is permanent and that politics will destroy 

 the best forest as swiftly and surely as it will destroy the 

 efficiency of an army or a navy. 



During the year past we have commented on efforts 

 in several states to furnish to farmers, and especially to 

 fruit-growers, instruction which is at once practical and 

 scientific. Some of this work has already proved to be of 

 substantial value, and all of it is promising. Not altogether 

 novel in character, but with some distinct features of its 

 own, is a project of the New Hampshire College of Agricul- 

 ture and Mechanic Arts, from which circulars for a non- 

 resident course of study under the title of Home Classes in 

 Agriculture have just been sent out for a second year. This 

 is nothing more than a phase of University extension, 

 which recognizes the fact that since few persons can go to 

 college, the college, so far as practicable, will go to the 

 homes of the people. What the New Hampshire College 

 definitely proposes is this : If ten or more persons in any 

 grange or agricultural organization will read certain books 

 and pamphlets on different subjects named in the list the 

 college will furnish one or more lectures upon such subjects, 

 provided the simple expenses of the lecturer be paid. The 

 books will also be furnished at a reduced rate. 



It is very often the case that the isolated lectures at insti- 

 tutes produce little permanent good, because the hearers 

 come with no special preparation in that line of thought, 

 and although they may be amused they tail to get the full 

 benefit of the teaching. On the other hand, a long reading 

 course is alarming to the majority of people, so that 

 the present proposition offers a medium between these 



