Garden and Forest. 



[Number 410. 



is consumed young will sprout up and afford much tender 

 browse for cattle ; but where there is large old furze the fires 

 following the roots consume the very ground, so that for hun- 

 dreds of acres nothing is to be seen but smother and desola- 

 tion, the whole circuit round looking like the cinders of a vol- 

 cano, and the soil being quite exhausted, no traces of vegeta- 

 tion are to be found for years. 



The American public is to be congratulated on the oppor- 

 tunity to possess an edition of this classic in such a tasteful 

 dress and with many attractive pictures of Selborne as it is, 

 which probably differs less than we might suppose from the 

 Selborne of White's day. 



Village Streets and Country Roads. 



FOR the enjoyment of prospects on streets, good side- 

 walks and well-made roadways are necessary. In 

 the business portion of a village there is not much oppor- 

 tunity for growing trees successfully, but many other 

 details go to make a favorable or unfavorable impression 

 on citizens and visitors. Neat arrangements for hitching 

 horses are appreciated by persons who are driving. A good 

 and durable device is in use in the city of Hudson, Lenawee 

 County, in this state. When the main streets were paved 

 the merchants combined and put in three-inch gas pipes of 

 uniform height for posts, with a rail of the same pipe passed 

 horizontally from post to post on which are rings. A really 

 good sign is a rarity in a village, and generally the signs 

 of stores and offices are unattractive or disfiguring. Modern 

 plate-glass windows of generous size help to give a town 

 an enterprising air, as do cleanliness and freedom from all 

 sorts of rubbish. The tasteful arrangement of goods in 

 the stores is no small attraction, but a mixed variety is 

 often allowed to remain in a window for months with little 

 attention from the proprietor. 



Any attempt to make country highways attractive is 

 even more rare than an adequate appreciation of beauty in 

 village streets. Some of the roads near which I have lived 

 for the past twenty-five years I have made objects of ob- 

 servation and study. About twenty years ago a double 

 row of American Elms, more than a mile long, was planted 

 along the entire front of the Agricultural College farm. 

 The trees in the street were forty feet apart and ten feet 

 from the fence, alternating with others forty feet apart, four 

 feet inside the fence. In all such designs for planting the 

 idea seems to prevail that long, straight rows of one kind 

 of tree, planted at uniform distance, must in time make a 

 grand display. Such results are, however, rarely realized. 

 In this instance the ground is far from uniform in fertility, 

 and the trees are very uneven in size, some now having a 

 diameter of trunk five times that of others nearly the same 

 age. The shapes of the tops differ a good deal. Some 

 trees are crowded by other trees along the road which 

 have come up of themselves, and by orchard trees in adja- 

 cent fields. Occasionally a tree has broken off or been 

 split down. In several instances trees have died, leaving 

 unpleasant breaks in the rows. This season some were 

 much damaged by two or three kinds of insects, while 

 others were less molested. To the west, over a gently 

 rolling surface on the same road, nature and the orderly, 

 old-fashioned pathmaster have been at work. Native trees, 

 shrubs and perennial herbs in great variety have taken 

 possession of the road on either side, and the fences are 

 hidden from sight for much of the distance. Here is 

 a great variety of woody growth and some views such 

 as an artist would select for sketching. I noticed in 

 half a mile five or six kinds of Oaks, three of Poplars, two 

 of Elms, two of Ashes, three sorts of Hickories, eight of 

 Willows, three of Dogwoods, several kinds of Viburnums, 

 one kind of Hazel, a Sumach, three kinds of Maples, a Blue 

 Beech, Ironwood, Basswood, Wild Plum, Wild Crab-apple, 

 Sassafras, Butternut, Black Walnut, Grapevines, Virginia 

 Creeper, Button-bushes, two sorts of Wild Roses, Raspber- 

 ries, several sorts of Thorns, Asters and Golden-rods in va- 

 riety. Bunches of second growth or sprouts, where trees or 

 shrubs have been cut down, make pretty clumps, and 



groups of Hawthorns are beautiful when in flower, as also 

 in autumn when full of fruit. There are bunches of Wil- 

 lows beyond a bog of Sedges, and over the Willows fes- 

 toons of Virginia Creeper. On the knolls certain sorts 

 prevail, in the lowlands others are found, while the wet 

 places have still a different combination. The highway is 

 in excellent condition most of the year. 



To my way of thinking there is much more to admire 

 along this highway of half a mile, where nature has made 

 her mixed planting, than along the highway where stand 

 the double rows of American Elms. And this illustration 

 has a special application to village planting. I would 

 plant along the village streets, or leave, if already there, 

 some Hawthorns, Dogwoods, Virginia Creepers, Grape- 

 vines and a mixed lot of native trees and shrubs. Of 

 course, they should not remain as thick as in the highway 

 referred to, but choice selections could be placed or left in 

 certain suitable spots. To a considerable extent the same 

 general rule applies to the planting of roadsides in the 

 country and to streets in the village, although trees for 

 shade are more essential in the village. 



But owners too often do as others have done, cut away 

 all native plants, seed to grass and plant Maples thirty feet 

 apart, exactly one or exactly ten feet from the fence. Along 

 the road already referred to I recently sold an acre to each 

 of two Germans, and made the request, which they seemed 

 to assent to, that I might suggest some of the wild shrub- 

 bery that ought to be left. They built houses and began 

 so-called improvements by cutting out all wild shrubs and 

 trees, leaving only a few trees, which they trimmed up 

 from the ground. Still farther west on the road under con- 

 sideration a pathmaster has several times cut all the young 

 trees and shrubbery, excepting a few nearly in line by the 

 fence. He even cut down some of the largest and finest 

 trees a foot or more in diameter because they were not near 

 enough to the line to suit him. 



In planting trees for streets I should first seek some 

 native species, taking care to place each in soil suited for 

 its best development. Once in a while a stubborn planter 

 will persist in a straight row of Sugar Maples, and by so 

 doing the streets become an object-lesson, as they should. 

 It is well enough to plant trees thickly along the street, 

 but the trouble begins when half or two-thirds of them 

 should be removed to give the others room to make fine 

 specimens. Not one man in a thousand has the foresight 

 and the nerve to take out some of the pretty young trees 

 before all become crowded, slim and unsightly. Then it 

 is usually too late, and all are left to struggle with each 

 other. 



Agricultural College, Mich. W. J. Bedl. 



Opuntia arborescens in the South-west. 



THIS large Cactus, the Tasajo of the Mexicans, which 

 grows to be a tree on the Tucson plains (see fig. 1, p. 5), 

 was among the first of these plants described from the south- 

 west. It was brought back, with a number of other inter- 

 esting Cacti, by Dr. A. Wislizenus, from his tour to Mexico 

 in 1846 and 1847. His plants were entrusted to Dr. George 

 Engelmann that he might study and describe the many 

 novelties included in them ; and since its discovery it has 

 been cultivated by Cactus-growers, but it is not as popular 

 as many of the smaller and more compact species. 



This Cactus has a much more extended range than any 

 other of our cylindrical Opuntias. It is found to some 

 extent on the mountains and high plains of western Texas ; 

 extends northward into Colorado to the head-waters of the 

 Arkansas and Platte rivers ; westward to south central 

 Arizona, and southward far into Mexico. 



Although it has frequently been reported from the plains 

 of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, in this 

 Territory it does not occur north of the great rim which 

 separates the northern plateau from the southern plains. 

 Throughout northern Arizona its place is occupied by the 

 smaller, but closely related, Opuntia Whipplei, which ex- 

 tends west nearly to California and east into New Mexico. 



