234 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 433. 



Morning Glories, as in everything else, is odd, and the 

 crweping form which I saw in bloom one morning in May 

 had halberd-shaped leaves densely clothed with woolly 

 hairs and a fine white flower. The stem crept about a foot. 

 Ukiah, Calif. Carl Purdy. 



The Reproductive Powers of Our Forests. 



AT the present time the guard ranges of the Alleghany 

 Mountains, which extend into Monongahela County, 

 West Virginia, are covered with a mixed deciduous forest 

 of second-growth trees. This is one of the best examples 

 that have come under my personal observation of the natural 

 power of forest reconstruction. During the early half of 

 the present century this region, embracing several thousand 

 acres lying along the north bank of the Cheat River, was 

 the seat of an active iron-making industry. The moun- 

 tains afforded a bog ore which was accessible and of great 

 value. The mountain slopes were then heavily wooded, 

 and as the iron industry became established a demand for 

 charcoal was created, and to meet this demand the woods 

 were harvested and converted into charcoal. This industry 

 began about 1789, and was most active from 1822 to 

 about 1852, and continued in a small way until in 1868. 

 The largest proportion of the timber removed for charcoal 

 purposes was cut during the most active period of the 

 industry and before the middle of the century. 



As soon as the charcoal burning became unremunerative 

 from the exhaustion of the timber supply and the substitu- 

 tion of coke for charcoal in the reduction of ore, these 

 lands, which were too steep and rugged for profitable agri- 

 culture or grazing, were allowed again to fall into the hands 

 of Mother Nature. It is true that fire has done much injury 

 from time to time, but even with the adverse conditions of 

 soil, exposure and frequent fires, there is to-day upon these 

 mountains a forest of second-growth Chestnut, Poplar and 

 Oak worth many times the value of the land at the time the 

 iron furnaces closed — a convincing example that our for- 

 ests will reproduce themselves. This we are told is all 

 well enough for the moist mountain districts of the Alle- 

 ghanies, but will not hold in the deforested areas of Michi- 

 gan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. There is no ground for 

 this argument, for when the forests were removed no 

 rational system of reforestation was attempted. Even the 

 protection of the area from fire has usually been neglected, 

 and this alone will suffice to explain why the land stripped 

 of its forest-cover still remains bare. Natural reproductive 

 powers have not been allowed an opportunity to assert 

 themselves. Trees cannot grow so long as fires are allowed 

 to run periodically over the exploited tracts ; what might 

 take place, were they suppressed and prevented, is another 

 question upon which some light is thrown in the following 

 remarks by Mr. H. B. Ayers, of Carlton, Minnesota, on 

 Forest Fires* : 



Even men of intelligence and prominence in the lumber 

 business have said, " Why prevent fire ? Pine will never come 

 in again after the marketable timber is once cut." This asser- 

 tion needs the strongest possible denial ; the men who make 

 such an assertion deserve ridicule. They were looking for 

 saw-logs, and could not have looked for much else, for loggers 

 in cutting often leave on an acre a hundred thrifty and vigor- 

 ous young Pines from four to ten inches in diameter and from 

 twenty to a hundred feet high after the log-timber is cut, and 

 on pine-stump land that has escaped fire three years thousands 

 of little Pine seedlings may be seen springing up. In order to 

 be able to refute such misstatements utterly I have here the 

 minutes of the exact location where young Pines in excellent 

 condition for timber-growing may be seen, and right by may 

 be seen burnt land cut the same year that could not be put 

 into a condition as promising for timber for less than twenty 

 dollars an acre. In fact, so favorable a soil, mulch and shade 

 can hardly be made at once on that burnt land at any price. 

 Several such acres on (sections) 16, 56, 22 were staked off and 

 the trees counted ; on one from which 32,000 feet had been 

 cut three years before were thirty-two thrifty sapling White 

 Pines, eight to eleven inches in diameter and thirty to eighty 



feet high ; ten Poplar, eight to fourteen inches in diameter and 

 sixty feet high ; 1,600 Poplar sprouts, one-half to one inch in 

 diameter and five to twelve feet high ; a light underbrush of 

 Hazel and Vine Maple; and under all this were 1,267 little 

 White Pine seedlings two years old and four to six inches high. 

 Another acre on the same section had 200 trees of White and 

 Norway Pine averaging eight inches in diameter and forty-five 

 feet high. Are not these worth saving ? 



This is a specific example of what may be expected from 

 one of the families of trees which it is most difficult to per- 

 petuate. Pines, as a rule, grow only from seeds ; they can- 

 not be managed under the coppice system, yet this single 

 observation, carefully carried out and recorded, is suffi- 

 cient to set the most skeptical to thinking. 



In the deciduous forests which occupy the outlying 

 ranges of the eastern mountain systems the problem is less 

 difficult, as most of the desirable species readily reproduce 

 themselves from the stump. The accompanying illus- 

 tration (see page 235) shows what maybe accomplished if 

 only a little care is given, the forest represented being 

 of Chestnuts about forty years of age. I have other 

 photographs to represent the reproductive powers of 

 the Ash, Magnolia and other species. 

 1 The history of this region clearly shows the influence of 

 the rise and decline of the iron industry on the forest, the 

 benefit of the substitution of coke for charcoal and the 

 beneficial results in the way of reforestation when such 

 lands are simply left to themselves and partially protected 

 from fires. _ _ _ , 



Agric'l Experiment Station, West Virginia. -^. C-. L,OrOCIt. 



* Minnesota State Horticultural Society Report for iSg^, pages 443-9. 



Plant Notes. 



Toxylon pomiferum. — Since the recent rains the large 

 leaves of the Osage Orange-trees in Central Park have ex- 

 panded to nearly their full size and have begun to take on 

 the gloss which is characteristic of them, and few trees of 

 their size have a more pleasant expression at this season. 

 Downing says of this tree that it is rather too loose in the 

 disposition of its branches to be called beautiful, but it 

 often grows in a compact spreading shape, and owing to 

 the size and the abundance of its leaves it casts a dense 

 shade. Although it grows in parts of the Indian Territory 

 and Texas where the temperature is comparatively high, it 

 will flourish as far north as New England, and, in spite of 

 the fact that it has been developed in the region of abun- 

 dant rain, it also flourishes on the dry prairies of the west. 

 Besides its hardiness, the tree grows rapidly and is subject 

 to few diseases and insect enemies, so that it is, altogether, 

 desirable for ornamenting parks and gardens. The pistil- 

 late trees have large orange-like fruits, which add to their 

 beauty in the autumn, and it has a certain half-tropical or 

 foreign air that arrests the attention. It is easily grown 

 from seeds and cuttings, and is much used for hedges. In 

 this latitude some of the trees reach a height of forty feet, 

 and with almost as great a spread of branches, but in the 

 valley of the Red River they grow sixty feet high, with a 

 trunk two or three feet in diameter. 



Viburnum macrocephalum. — This plant bears larger snow- 

 balls than either of the other species or garden forms which 

 bear cymes of pure white sterile flowers. In an early 

 volume of Garden and Forest Mr. Hemsley wrote that 

 wild specimens of Viburnum macrocephalum were sent to 

 him by different collectors in China, in which but few of 

 the outer flowers were neuter, but the plant is only known 

 here in its sterile form, and it has been grown in England 

 ever since Fortune discovered it in the gardens of Shanghai. 

 The flower-clusters are as large as those of Hydrangea 

 hortensis. It differs somewhat in habit from the other 

 Snowballs, being rather low, of rigid and widespread 

 branches. It is hardy enough to survive the winters in 

 New England, but it does not flourish there as it does in 

 Philadelphia and southward, where the flower-clusters often 

 reach six inches in diameter, making it one of the most con- 

 spicuous of flowering shrubs. The old-fashioned Snowball, 

 or the sterile form of V. opulus, is rather the most graceful 



