142 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 424. 



apparatus would be altogether preferable. The most ap- 

 proved apparatus is described, but the special suggestion 

 which will be most valuable for towns and cities is that an 

 old steam fire-engine can be readily arranged for this spray- 

 ing work among the shade-trees. Indeed, a steam fire- 

 engine without any modification is a valuable aid against 

 many kinds of insects which can be washed from the 

 branches and foliage by the simple force of the water. But 

 in cities of any size a fire-engine is occasionally retired, 

 and a little work by a competent steam-fitter would trans- 

 form it into an admirable insect destroyer. 



If the city authorities refuse to do this work, cooperation 

 by citizens can accomplish much. Private individuals can- 

 not invest in an expensive apparatus for the few trees on 

 their own grounds, and, therefore, combination is essential, 

 and here, as this bulletin points out, is an opportunity for 

 the new business of spraying at a given price for each tree. 

 Mr. W. S. Bullard, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, has con- 

 structed several cart sprayers, and during the months of 

 June and July he sprays the trees on the grounds of private 

 individuals and along the streets in front of them under 

 contract, guaranteeing to keep them in fair condition during 

 the season. His work has been directed solely against the 

 Elm-leaf beetle, the only insect of importance in Bridge- 

 port, and last year any one driving through the streets of 

 that city could easily pick out the trees which had been 

 placed under his care. These were green, while others 

 were brown and nearly leafless. Of course, if every owner 

 of property or resident would agree to employ a tree- 

 sprayer there would be no need of the cooperation of the 

 city authorities, but some might be unwilling to do this. 



After all, as we have repeated, the ultimate protection of 

 the trees rests upon public opinion, and it is to this end the 

 circular suggests the banding together of citizens in a tree- 

 protectors' league. Last summer one of the Washington 

 newspapers in every issue through the summer contained 

 a coupon reciting briefly the desirability of protecting the 

 shade-trees and enrolling every signer as a member of 

 such a league, pledging him to do his best toward de- 

 stroying the injurious insects upon the city's shade-trees 

 adjoining his residence. If every household could be 

 made to take a proper interest in this matter the work 

 would be half done. What is needed is intelligent work 

 at the proper time — the burning of the webs of the fall 

 web-worm in May and June, the destruction of the larva? 

 of the Elm-leaf beetle about the bases of the Elm-trees in 

 late June and July, the picking of the eggs of the tussock- 

 moth in winter and equally simple operations for other 

 insects when they become especially injurious. The sub- 

 ject is one worth the attention of the Agricultural Depart- 

 ment, and we hope this paper prepared by Professor L. O. 

 Howard will be widely read and heeded. 



In a recent issue of Jlie American Cultivator, Mr. J. D. 

 Lyman, of Exeter, New Hampshire, describes a plantation 

 of White Pine made about forty years ago in Enfield, Con- 

 necticut, by Omar Pease, one of the colony of Shakers 

 which settled in that place toward the end of the last cen- 

 tury. A sandy plain, which had been cropped with Corn 

 and Rye until what little fertility it had ever possessed was 

 exhausted so far as the production of profitable farm crops 

 was concerned, was planted with the seeds of the White 

 Pine. Two quarts of the Pine seed were mixed with rye 

 or buckwheat sufficient to sow an acre of ground, the seed 

 being scattered as if the crop of grain was the only object 

 of the sowing. In this way from year to year, as Pine 

 seed could be obtained, rather more than two hundred 

 acres were sown. After the death of Omar Pease one of 

 his fields, about forty acres in extent, covered with Pines a 

 foot high, was plowed up in the belief that it would pro- 

 duce Rye more profitably than Pine trees. Nothing has 

 been done to the land since the seed was sown, and noth- 

 ing has been done to the trees, which now cover something 

 nvrr one hundred and sixty acres. Omar Pease's good 

 work ended with sowing the seeds. Neither he nor any of 



his successors have ever thinned the plantation, and Mr. 

 Lyman finds many Pines growing in a space where there 

 should be only one, and his belief is that the trees have 

 made less growth than they would have, had the planta- 

 tion been properly thinned from time to time. He adds : 



In one place, selecting what appeared an average growlh, 1 

 found ninety trees on four square rods, or 3,600 to the acre. 

 Cutting what I thought an average tree I found, as nearly as I 

 could judge by counting rings in stump and rows of limbs, 

 that the tree was forty-three years from the seed. It was forty- 

 nine feet high and seven inches in diameter at the stump. In 

 another part of the plantation I found eighty-four trees to the 

 square rod, or 13,440 tothe acre. An average tree was here 

 2 8-10 inches in diameter at the stump and twenty-nine and 

 one-half feet in height ; as it had twenty-seven rows of limbs 

 I concluded that it started from seed about thirty-one or thirty- 

 two years ago. Properly thinned from time to time there 

 would have been of these trees some four hundred to the 

 acre and they would have been about eight inches in diameter 

 at the stump and, perhaps, four or five feet taller. The first 

 trees, instead of being seven inches in diameter, would, by 

 proper thinning, have been about one toot. 



It is a prevalent idea, supported by the results of many 

 experiments, that it is a difficult matter to raise White Pines 

 from seed sown in the open ground, the young seedlings 

 of this tree being very susceptible to exposure to the full 

 sun. Omar Pease, by demonstrating that poor, sandy land 

 in New England can be seeded with White Pine as success- 

 fully and easily as it can with the far less valuable Pitch 

 Pine, has rendered the country a service, and his plantations 

 can, perhaps, be made to serve a valuable object-lesson for 

 demonstrating the necessity of thinning young White Pine 

 forests in order to secure the largest results in the shortest 

 time. 



Proposed Plan for Madison Square, New York City. 



ON another page are reproduced the plan of Madison 

 Square, in this city, as it is to-day, and a plan for its 

 rearrangement which was shown at the recent Architectural 

 League Exhibition, by Messrs. Bell & Langton, landscape- 

 architects. 



Sixty years ago few buildings, except rural ones, stood 

 north of Union Square, and the area now called Madison 

 Square was an open tract some ten acres in extent, in the 

 centre of which stood a House of Refuge for unruly boys 

 — an altogether neglected and unsightly tract, of which 

 the only useful feature was a little pond used for skating in 

 the winter. When the House of Refuge burned in 1839, 

 efforts were made to improve the place, but nothing sub- 

 stantial was accomplished until the mayoralty of James 

 Harper, between the years 1844 and 1847. This was some 

 ten years before Central Park was thought of, and although 

 Downing had already done some of his best work, he had 

 not yet laid out those urban squares in Washington which 

 first showed American eyes what might be accomplished 

 in this direction. 



When studied on paper the plan of Madison Square shows 

 the working of design, not of accident ; yet its treatment 

 is so petty and monotonous, so wanting alike in broad 

 unity, in effective variety and in conspicuous points of 

 interest, that, we believe, few New Yorkers realize that it 

 has any plan at all. When seen from the encircling streets 

 it has a pleasantly verdurous and shady look, and it con- 

 tains some very good trees, an Elm which stands near its 

 north-easterly corner, opposite the University Club, being 

 the most symmetrical and beautiful tree which New York 

 possesses south of Central Park. But its trees are not prop- 

 erly grouped — they are simply scattered about, lis lack 

 of shrubs permits the surrounding houses to reveal them- 

 selves too clearly from all points of view, and deprives it 

 of that charm of mystery, contrast and surprise which may 

 be achieved even within very narrow limits if shrubberies 

 are artistically employed. It affords no proper place for 

 the display of flower-beds, and none for the proper placing 

 of statues. The one virtue of the design is that those who 

 wish to cross the park diagonally may do so with reason- 



