May 13, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



191 



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, MAY 13, 1896. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article:- — Some Timely Lessons from the Forests of India igi 



The Flora ot the California Coast Range. — I Carl Purity. 192 



A Botanical Journey in Texas.— IV £. N. Plank. 103 



Plant Notes : — Magnolia stellata. (With figure.) 194 



Cultural Department: — Culture ot the Garden Bean Will U*. Tracy. ig4 



Flowers of the Season ?. A r . Gerard. 196 



Notes from Baden. Baden Max Leichtlin. 196 



Canna Notes 67. . 4. Woolson 196 



The Lily Garden C. L. Allen. 196 



Saxifraga crassifolia. Menyanthes trifoliata, Stylophoruin diphylUim, 



Edward f. Canning. 1Q7 



Pampas Grass, Viola pedata G. IV. O. 197 



Tussilago Farfara Wilfred A. Brotherton. 197 



Correspondence : — The California Frosts Charles H. Shinn. 19S 



The Evonymus Scale in Japan Professor T D. A. Cockerell. 198 



Notes from West Virginia Danske Dandrdge. 19S 



Maple Sugar in Vermont Professor F. A. Wangk. 19S 



R ecent Publications 199 



Notes 200 



Illustration : — Magnolia stellata in a New Jersey Garden, Fig. 31 195 



Some Timely Lessons from the Forests of India. 



INDIA has given to the world the most conspicuous 

 example of a national forest policy adopted over a vast 

 area. It is not, like Europe, a forest-producing country 

 throughout, and while its tropical and subtropical climate 

 differs widely from our own, we can pick out climatic par- 

 allels between portions of India and of the United States 

 more readily than we can between the United States and 

 Europe. India contains evergreen forests of great density 

 and luxuriance, and large areas like our own great interior 

 plain, where no natural forest growth can exist, and be- 

 tween these extremes we find every variety of condition 

 in regard to water-supply, evaporation, etc., most of which 

 can be repeated in our own country. Under the sway of 

 the Mohammedans, which lasted 750 years, the forests of 

 India were recklessly destroyed, chiefly by fire, to pro- 

 vide grazing ground for cattle, and under the British rule 

 which followed vast areas of Government land were alien- 

 ated, only a small portion of which was fit for agriculture, 

 and as herds multiplied more forests were wiped out by 

 fire. Meanwhile the large construction of railways and the 

 increased demand for timber and fuel consumed the forests 

 with incredible rapidity under the management of the lum- 

 ber speculators and contractors, who had present profits in 

 view, with no thought of the future. Americans need only 

 look at home to see how forests can be devastated simply 

 by clearing lands for cultivation, regardless of the future, 

 and by unchecked logging and generally careless treat- 

 ment. The analogy between the forest conditions and the 

 forest abuses of the two countries is so clear that Mr. 

 Berthold Ribbentrop, the present efficient Inspector-General 

 of Forests in India, during a recent journey in the United 

 States wrote for our instruction a brief statement of some 

 of the salient features of the Indian forest policy. This 

 paper is too long to publish entire in this journal, but we 

 select a few points in the recent forest history of India 

 which will, perhaps, be found specially instructive to 

 American readers. 



When the Indian Government began to find the timber 

 fail for local public works it recognized at once the neces- 



sity of a more conservative use of forest products, but it 

 was years before the people of the country recognized the 

 indirect value of forests upon agriculture and came to 

 believe that no high degree of civilization can exist perma- 

 nently without some systematic and adequate forest man- 

 agement. Our own country is now passing through this 

 educational stage — that is, the people at large are only 

 beginnintr to learn these truths. Just at this critical period 

 the British Government secured the services of Mr. (now 

 Sir Dietrich) Brandis, who recognized at once that conserv- 

 ative management could only be initiated by the Govern- 

 ment, the greatest landlord of the empire, and that it was 

 necessary to acquire and maintain possession of a large 

 area of forest-land and secure legal and executive powers to 

 protect it. This was an uphill struggle, largely because 

 there were so many prescriptive rights to use the forest for 

 various purposes. Without explaining the interesting legal 

 complications involved, it is sufficient to say that Mr. 

 Brandis preferred to make an early settlement with the 

 holders of forest rights and take possession under a modi- 

 fied condition of possession rather than enter into long and 

 uncertain legal controversies foramorecompleteownership. 

 Our own Government would meet with no such obstacles, 

 for no one has rights of pasturage or rights to cut a given 

 amount of timber on our national forest domain. What 

 Mr. Brandis did then was simply to settle those rights — that 

 is, to define and limit them and to prevent any increase of 

 them in the future. Under these laws 80,000 square miles 

 have up to date in India been formed into permanent 

 forest reserves, in which the rights of the state and the 

 adverse rights of the communities and private persons have 

 been finally determined. Fifty thousand square miles more 

 are in process of settlement, making 130,000 square miles 

 in all. 



As soon as it was resolved to protect the forest proper- 

 ties of the state and exploit them under direct Government 

 supervision, a few officers were appointed with a staff of 

 subordinates. These officers were generally selected from 

 the military or medical staff, perhaps because they had 

 some knowledge of botany or were considered specially fit 

 for some other reason. A knowledge of technical forestry 

 was not insisted upon then, and Mr. Brandis was the first to 

 bring such knowledge to bear on the question. As soon as 

 he was appointed Inspector-General he saw the need of 

 technically trained assistants, and he at once took steps to 

 organize a technical department, and brought over two 

 trained German forest officers in 1S66 — Messrs. Schlich and 

 Ribbentrop — both of whom have been his successors in 

 office, and at the same time he made arrangements for the 

 professional education of young Englishmen in France and 

 Germany. Before these trained officers were available the 

 staff was augmented by the appointment of young officers 

 in India, who began their service in lower grades, and were 

 promoted as they learned by experience. Later on, how- 

 ever, and especially since the establishment of the forest 

 school at Cooper's Hill, every addition to the force has 

 been a trained forester, except on one occasion, when a 

 large number of officers were suddenly needed to take 

 charge of new forests. The number of officers in the con- 

 trolling grades now amount to two hundred, and they 

 have the prospect of regular promotion and pension, 

 In 187S a forest school was also established in one 

 of the north-western provinces at Dehra Dun, in which 

 the education was at first superficial, but since 1887 

 it takes rank with the best institutions for educating 

 a subordinate staff in any country of the world. The 

 support of this school and the rest of the forest estab- 

 lishment costs four millions of rupees a year, and this 

 expenditure must soon lie largely increased, as the subor- 

 dinate staff is now too small to keep pace with the ever- 

 increasing work. On the other hand, the revenue has more 

 than kept pace with the growth of the expenditure. The 

 net average surplus for five successive five-year periods, 

 beginning with 1867-8 and ending with 1891-2, is as 

 iOWS; (I) 1,339,000 rupees: (2) 2,129,000 rupees: (3) 



