April 8, 



Garden and Forest. 



141 



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. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL S, 1S96. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles : — Dangerous Enemies of Street Trees 



Sowing White Pine Seed 



Proposed Plan for Madison Square, New York. (With figures.) 



M. G. Van Rensselaer. 



Foreign Correspondence :— London Letter IV. Watson. 



Plant Notes: — Quercus Calitornica. (With figure.) Francis E. Lloyd. 



Cultural Department :— The Earliest Spring Flowers J.N. Gerard. 



Orchids at Langwater Gardens T. D. Hatfield. 



Bomareas N. J. Rose. 



Seasonable Flowers in the Cool Greenhouse Edward J. Canning. 



Clianthus Dampieri -E. J. C. 



Hippeastrum Ackermanni T. D. H. 



Hardiness of Aspidistra lurida Joseph Median. 



Correspondence :— Nurseries at Bay Ridge M. B. C. 



Protection tor a Public Interest Professor F. A. Waugh. 



Recent Publications 



Notes . 



Illustrations:— Present Arrangement of Madison Square, Fig. iS 



Suggestion tor the Improvement of Madison Square, by E. Hamilton Bell 

 and Daniel W. Langton, Fig. 19 



Quercus Calif ornica, in Oregon, Fig. 20 



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145 



Dangerous Enemies of Street Trees. 



HOW much the beauty and comfort of public high- 

 ways, and especially of streets in towns and cities, 

 are increased by a border of thrifty and symmetrical 

 trees can be appreciated by those who have driven under 

 the avenues of Live Oaks and Laurel Oaks in some of our 

 southern towns and cities or beneath the long arches of 

 Elms a century old which can be found occasionally in 

 New England, and yet not one town or city in a hundred, 

 take the country through, is able to show a row of street- 

 trees of any considerable length which are what they ought 

 to be. As we have often explained, mistakes are made at 

 the very outset by selecting short-lived trees like the Syca- 

 more Maple, or those which lack vigor like the European 

 Ash, or others with brittle branches like the Ash-leaved 

 Maple, or Poplars whose trunks are soon riddled by borers. 

 And even when the proper kinds are selected no adequate 

 care is taken to insure anything like wholesome growth by 

 a proper preparation of the ground in which they are to 

 stand, although there is no more excuse for planting a tree 

 in imperfectly prepared soil than there would be for sow- 

 ing wheat on an unplowed field. If the young tree has 

 abundant food for its roots and room for its branches to 

 spread, and is properly anchored until it gets firmly set, it 

 probably is left unmulched, and therefore exposed to 

 drought and changes of temperature, or it has no guard 

 against the teeth of horses, no opening in the asphalt about 

 its base to receive water, or it is mangled by some ignorant 

 tree-trimmer and its wounds left bare to invite the rot fun- 

 gus. The hopeless part of the case is that its natural pro- 

 tectors, the people about it, have no affectionate interest in 

 it. They see it languish without any attempt to revive it. 

 They do not consider one who wounds and bruises it a 

 public malefactor. 



No doubt, the way to insure satisfactory street-trees is 

 to put the whole business in the hands of a skilled com- 

 mission. There is no reason why a man should be allowed 

 to select the tree to plant along the street before his house, 

 or to plant it in his own crude way, any more than he 

 should be permitted to build his own sewer or his own 

 sidewalk to suit his personal whims. Where there is a 

 commission of men who understand their work like those 



in Washington every tree is inspected before it is planted, 

 so that specimens of even growth and similar shape are 

 secured. They are then scientifically planted and cared 

 for, and, more than that, they are systematically pruned, 

 an operation which street-trees need above all others. 

 Until the planting and care of these trees is considered an 

 important municipal matter, like providing a water-supply, 

 and one which as truly demands expert ability, the trees in 

 our streets will be likely to excite commiseration rather 

 than pride. Reformation in our city practice as to street- 

 trees will come like other reforms, only after a strong pub- 

 lic sentiment is enlisted in its favor. 



Because there is no such sentiment — that is, because the 

 trees have no active friends — 'they suffer from another cause 

 which is one of the most serious dangers at present threat- 

 ening them. Since the increased use of electricity, wires 

 for telephones and trolleys are run through every village 

 and almost every country road, so that no tree which 

 stands on the public highway is out of danger from the 

 axes of linemen. Occasionally some indignant citizen has 

 mustered courage to bring these vandals into the courts, 

 and in some cases exemplary damages have been secured, 

 but the destruction seems to go on unchecked all over the 

 country. In a late number of the Michigan Cyclist, Mr. 

 Charles A. Garfield writes that a gang of telephone men 

 utterly destroyed, with no apparent reason, the most beau- 

 tiful Maple-tree in the southern part of the city of Grand 

 Rapids. It had been trained and pruned into comeliness 

 and had become a delight to every one who passed it, but 

 in five minutes its beauty was destroyed forever. These 

 marauders unloaded poles upon shrubbery and dug a hole 

 for a post in the midst of a group of shrubs by the road- 

 side, and when remonstrated with they replied that they 

 thought this was wild brush which ought to be cleared 

 away. This pole with its weight of wire stood at a street 

 corner, and to make it steady, guy wires were wrapped 

 about a noble Walnut which had been cherished for more 

 than fifty years ; its branches were cut and its trunk half- 

 girdled. Professor Beal added that his experience corroborates 

 entirely that of Mr. Garfield. Two fine White Oaks nearhim 

 had half their tops cut away and the limbs were left where 

 they fell. A thrifty young Elm and an elegant Beech, trees 

 with trunks more than a foot in diameter, had most of the 

 branches on one side cut away and reduced to stubs from : 

 one to six feet in length. Reports of this kind come from 

 all parts of the country, and it is time that some associations 

 like village-improvement societies or forestry associations 

 should unite to try their rights before the law. 



What is primarily needed in all such cases is a public 

 sentiment which appreciates the value of a tree, for when 

 the use and beauty of these wayside trees are thoroughly 

 understood their owners will defend them as they will 

 any other property. Meantime, the natural enemies of 

 trees are increasing. The imported Elm-leaf beetle has 

 become a pest of the first magnitude, and although we 

 may expect that its ravages will be checked by natural 

 causes after a time, this may not happen until many of 

 our finest trees are killed, for certainly no tree can endure 

 defoliation for several successive summers without lo 

 constitutional vigor and early death. Science has taught us 

 how to meet these attacks as well as those of the tussock- 

 moth, the bag-worm and other pests of this sort, and the 

 matter has seemed so important that the Division of 

 Entomology of the United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture has issued a special circular on the subject in advance 

 of a more complete article which is prepared for the Ye 

 Book of the department. There is no need of repeating 

 here what has been frequently said about the necessity ol 

 spraying, the proper material to use, and the time of appli- 

 cation. The serious question to be dealt with is the sp 

 ing apparatus, especially where there are Lugo trees which 

 are infested. Hand pumps havebeen used by the ( lipsy-moth 

 Commission of Massachusetts for trees in streets and parks, 

 but since it is necessary to work rapidly to get over the 

 trees just when the remedy will be dual a steam 



