82 



Garden and Forest. 



Number 418. 



the southern forests Mr. Muir finds " that for every old 

 storm-stricken giant there are many in all the glory of 

 prime vigor, and for each of these a crowd of eager, hope- 

 ful, young trees and saplings growing heartily on moraines, 

 rocky ledges, along watercourses and in the moist alluvium 

 of meadows, seemingly in hot pursuit of eternal life." 



The largest Sequoia Mr. Muir has measured is in the King's 

 River forest, and is thirty-five feet eight inches in diameter 

 inside the bark four feet from the ground. Such a tree he 

 believes to be more than five thousand years old. His 

 observations upon the age of the Big Trees are interesting 

 and important. The stump of a tree in the Calaveras 

 grove, when examined many years ago by Professor Asa 

 Gray, showed about 1,300 layers of annual growth, and 

 led him to believe that the reputed age of these trees had 

 been greatly exaggerated. A tree cut in the King's River 

 forest, however, of about the same size as the Calaveras 

 tree, and not very old-looking, Muir found to be 2,200 

 years of age, while the King's River giant displayed over 

 4,000 rings in an incomplete section which he was able to 

 examine. " No other tree in the world," he says, " so far 

 as I know, has looked down on so many centuries as this 

 Sequoia or opens such impressive and suggestive views 

 into history." It has generally been believed, too, by 

 naturalists that the Sequoia was once far more widely dis- 

 tributed over the Sierras than it is at present. Mr. Muir, 

 however, has reached the conclusion that it has never been 

 at any time since the glacial period more abundant than it 

 is now, his careful examination failing to reveal a single 

 trace of its previous existence beyond its present bounds. 

 Sequoias, apparently, do not die a natural death, and, 

 barring accidents, appear to be immortal, living on indefi- 

 nitely unless destroyed by man or fire, smashed by light- 

 ning or thrown down by storms or by the sliding down of 

 the ground on which they stand. When one of the Big 

 Trees falls, the trunk, which is practically indestructible by 

 the action of the weather, may remain on the ground for 

 centuries, and when it is finally destroyed by repeated 

 burnings, a great trench, caused by the weight of the fall- 

 ing tree, permanently marks the place where it has laid. 

 Such trenches exist in all the Sequoia groves and forests, 

 but beyond their limits Mr. Muir has searched for them in 

 vain — conclusive evidence, it would seem, that the Sequoia 

 belt has not undergone any great diminution since the 

 close of the glacial epoch. 



The Sequoia was probably one of the first trees that ob- 

 tained a foothold on the Sierras after the ice-sheet began to 

 break up into individual glaciers, and its distribution in 

 isolated groves and forests may be accounted for, as Mr. 

 Muir suggests, by the fact that when it first appeared 

 on the exposed ridges the intervening space was occupied 

 by glaciers. The Sequoia belt, therefore, attained its great- 

 est development at the place where, owing to topographical 

 peculiarities, the ground had been most perfectly protected 

 from the main ice rivers that pour down from the summits 

 long after the smaller local glaciers had melted. Contrary 

 to the now generally accepted theory that the Sequoia 

 which existed in the Arctic Circle during the tertiary epoch 

 reached California from the north, Mr. Muir believes " that 

 as the Sequoia forests present a more and more ancient 

 aspect as they extend southward, the species was dis- 

 tributed from the south, while the Sugar Pine, its great rival 

 in the northern groves, seems to have come around the 

 head of the Sacramento Valley and down the Sierra from 

 the north. 



We wish space would permit us to speak of the chapter 

 devoted to the Douglas squirrel, the great Sierra forester, as 

 Mr. Muir calls him, the devourer and incidentally the dis- 

 seminator of coniferous seeds, and of the other animals and 

 birds whose habits he describes with such delightful fresh- 

 ness ; but for these we must refer our readers to the book 

 itself. During the last fifty years a number of books in 

 which nature and natural objects have been discussed in 

 what may, perhaps, be called the poetical method, have 

 appeared. None of them, however, in our judgment, com- 



pare with Mr. Muir's production in truthfulness of observa- 

 tion and beauty of expression, and The Century Company 

 has done a useful thing in collecting in a volume these essays 

 on the Mountains of California, which first appeared in 

 slightly different form in the pages of The Century Magazine. 



The Strawberry in New England. 



T T is well known that this fruit has been cultivated for cen- 

 ■^ turies in the Old World, but some misconception seems 

 to exist in regard to the date of the cultivation of the Straw- 

 berry in New England, as well as to its abundance in early times. 

 In the last report of the Connecticut State Board of Agriculture, 

 page 66, a member stated that hecould not find that the Straw- 

 berry was cultivated here in gardens previous to 1824. Dr. 

 Timothy Dwight, in his delightful volumes of Travels in New 

 England, published in 1821, though written earlier than 1817, 

 gives a list of five different varieties of Strawberries, four of 

 which he had under cultivation in his garden. He mentions 

 the following varieties : The Red Meadow, White Meadow, 

 Field, Hudson and Hautboy. Dr. Dwight says : "The Meadow 

 Strawberry of this country is the best fruit of the kind which 

 I have seen. It is rather larger than the Chili Sweet, and more 

 prolific. It also improves greatly by culture. I have seen 

 several which were four and a half inches in circumference, 

 many which were four, and bushels which were between three 

 and four." And he further states : " I have cultivated the 

 Wild Meadow Strawberry more than twenty years, and during 

 that time it has increased to twice its original size." 



In regard to the Field Strawberry, he says that it " is sweeter, 

 ten days earlier, but much smaller, than the Meadow Straw- 

 berry, and has not increased in size by a cultivation of eight 

 years in my garden. The plants become immediately much 

 larger, but the fruit has not been changed at all." He also 

 mentions the Hautboy and Hudson varieties as having been 

 in cultivation for many years in his garden. The former 

 variety is a well-known European form ; the latter is a form I 

 am not familiar with, although I suspect it to be an old culti- 

 vated variety common in these days. These statements of 

 Dr. Dwight, who died in 1817, show that the Strawberry was in 

 cultivation in New England before the beginning of this 

 century. 



He, moreover, states that the Hautboy Strawberry, Fragaria 

 elatior, has been found growing spontaneously in two dis- 

 tinct and remote localities in Connecticut. This statement, if 

 true, would undoubtedly indicate that they were introduced 

 through the agency of birds. 



The White Meadow Strawberry which he calls attention to 

 is a mere sport or variety of the ordinary Red Strawberry. It 

 is also mentioned by Dr. Dewey in his Plants of Massachu- 

 setts, 1S90, page 59, as occurring plentifully in the Berkshire 

 Hills. 



In regard to the abundance of the Strawberry in early times 

 there appears to be some misconception also. Every one is 

 aware that there are few places in Massachusetts where it 

 would be possible now for one to gather more than a few 

 pints of strawberries in a whole day. In early times, how- 

 ever, when there was more virgin soil than there is to-day in 

 New England the wild Strawberry was very abundant, and 

 frequently grew to a much larger size than at present; and 

 even within the recollection of men now living this fruit was 

 by no means rare in this state, neither is it in Nova Scotia and 

 New Brunswick to-day. William Wood, an early visitor and 

 accurate observer, states in his New E?igland Prospect, pub- 

 lished in 1635, that "there is likewise growing all manner of 

 Hearbes for meate and medicin, and that not onely in planted 

 Gardens, but in the woods, without either the art or helpe of 

 man. . . . There is likewise Strawberies in abundance, verie 

 large ones, some being two inches about. One may gather 

 halfe a bushell in a forenoone." And in 1643 Roger Williams 

 wrote : " This berry (Strawberry) is the wonder of all the fruits 

 growing naturally in those parts ; it is of itself excellent, so 

 that one of the cheiftest doctors of England was wont to say 

 that God could have made, but never did, a better berry. . . . 

 In some parts, where the natives have planted, I have many 

 times seen as many as would fill a good ship within a few 

 miles' compasse. The Indians bruise them in a mottar and 

 mixe them with meale and make Strawberry bread." Straw- 

 berry bread appears to have been in common use among the 

 Indians, as we find it mentioned by other writers, notably 

 Gorkin, who was a co-worker with Rev. John Eliot among the 

 Nipmucks and other Massachusetts tribes. These statements, 

 with many others which could be cited, show conclusively 

 that the wild Strawberry was once very abundant here in New 



