July 22, 1S96.] 



Garden and Forest. 



291 



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, JULY 22, 1896. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — The Lesson of the Daisies 291 



Did the Woodpeckers Kill the Hemlocks? 291 



Plant Names of Indian Origin. — IV W. R. Gerard. 292 



The Oaks at Paxtang. (With figure.] ML Duck. 293 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter IV. Watson. 293 



Cultural Department: — Vegetable Notes T. D. Hatfield. 294 



A few Good Garden Plants N. J. R. 29; 



Campanula rotundifolia G. A. IVoolson. 296 



Seasonable Flower Notes T. D. Hatfield. 296 



Hardy Plant Notes Robert Cameron. 296 



The Best Dutch Bulbs 297 



Correspondence : — The Oak Pruner E. P. S. 297 



In the Mountain Trails Lora S. La Mance. 297 



Hardiness of Southern Pine Joseph Meehan. 29S 



Winter Protection for Bush Fruits - Professor Fred IV Card. 29S 



Kansas Wild Flowers Professor J. B. S. Norton. 298 



Notes from West Virginia Danske Dandridge. 299 



R ecent Publications 299 



Notes 300 



Illustration : — Oaks in the Churchyard at Paxtang, Pennsylvania, Fig. 40 295 



The Lesson of the Daisies. 



NO one who has chanced to make a somewhat extended 

 tour through the farm-lands of any jiart of the mid- 

 dle states during the last of June or the first of July can 

 have failed to notice how large a fraction of the area was 

 white for the harvest — a harvest not of grain, but of Ox- 

 eye Daisies. Fields of Buckwheat at the height of their 

 bloom were never whiter than many lowlands which once 

 were rich meadows, and many hillsides which once were 

 rich pastures. The daisies are so prevalent and luxurious 

 this year that a stranger might suspect that all the farmers 

 had gone into the business of floriculture, but a few ques- 

 tions will soon dispel this illusion, for the growers of the 

 Daisies very rarely appreciate their beauty. It-is a genuine 

 and destructive invasion, and yet the Daisies have not con- 

 quered the meadows ; they have merely stepped in to 

 occupy and possess the soil which the grass had aban- 

 doned. The worst of it is that the great majority of the 

 tillers of the soil do not apprehend the true condition of 

 things, and while they bewail the fate which forces them to 

 harvest daisies instead of grain or hay, they do not realize 

 the fact that they have invited the attack and encouraged 

 the invaders. 



Occasionally a farmer is heard to ask how these weeds 

 can be killed, but he does not realize that if by some rapid 

 process the}'' could all be dispatched new legions would fill 

 their places at once if the conditions which they enjoy 

 remain. What farmers need to comprehend is that without 

 some radical mistake in the management of their land the 

 Daisies never would have gained such a foothold. All 

 plants, including weeds, settle and thrive where the com- 

 petition for life is such that they can enter into it and pros- 

 per. A good stand of Grass leaves no room nor any hope 

 for weeds. It is not in well-tilled fields that Canada 

 Thistles flourish, but in neglected pastures and by the 

 roadsides. In the contest with the best agricultural prac- 

 tice they cannot prevail. It is in the unfilled plains of the 

 west or in the tilled regions where there is mile after mile 

 of plowed land producing only eight or nine bushels of 

 wheat to the acre year after year, without any rotation, 



where the Russian Thistle is a natural and inevitable 

 intruder. 



The remedy for weeds is to keep the land busy with a 

 good crop on it, and this means that the farmer must give 

 persistent and connected thought to his business. If the 

 Daisies crowd out the Grass, it is because the meadow has 

 been neglected and the grass has begun to fail, and 

 wherever there is a vacancy by the failure of the grass 

 every enterprising weed finds a rightful opportunity to 

 establish itself. If the farmer asks, therefore, what will 

 kill the Daisies, there is one answer : better farming. 

 Weeds find nourishment and a home wherever there is 

 waste ground, which means ground not' profitably occu- 

 pied. Widespread areas of Daisies, Buttercups, Wild Car- 

 rots, Mustards and the like are, therefore, the types and 

 measures of the prevailing ignorance of farmers respecting 

 the very fundamental principles of their calling. The one 

 good thing that weeds can accomplish is to prove by their 

 presence that there is a weak point in the established sys- 

 tem of agriculture ; the only way to turn their visits to ad- 

 vantage is to heed this instruction by revolutionizing farm 

 practice and organizing some profitable rotation which will 

 exclude them. 



If farmers cannot interpret the teachings of the weeds it 

 certainly would be advisable for the agricultural experi- 

 ment stations to help them in this particular. The exist- 

 ence of these invaders means that what the farmers of 

 these states primarily need is more instruction in funda- 

 mental matters concerning the handling of their land. We 

 are glad, therefore, to see that many of the stations are 

 turning to this subject, and that they are doing more than 

 merely furnishing botanical descriptions of the various 

 noxious plants. The Cornell Station, for example, in a bulletin 

 entitled Reflections Upon Weeds, gives some sound primary 

 instruction in agricultural science. It is to be hoped that 

 both this station and others will continue work of this sort 

 even if they forego to some extent experimentation in 

 higher fields. So long as the farmer needs elementary 

 teaching it ought to be furnished to him, even if takes the 

 time of officials who ought to be searching for scientific truth. 

 A late bulletin of the Geneva Experiment Station upon the 

 principles which underlie the application of commercial 

 fertilizers deals with the simplest matters, matters with 

 which every intelligent farmer ought to be familiar, and 

 yet there is ho doubt that every word of it is needed. The 

 time may come in America, as it has come in some older 

 countries, when the common schools instruct children in 

 the principles of agriculture — so that in fundamental points 

 of practice the ordinary farmer will know what to do, and 

 will be able to tell why he Joes it. Until that day arrives 

 every effort to increase his knowledge of principles deserves 

 encouragement. 



An interesting correspondence has been forwarded to us 

 by Volney Rogers, Esq , one of the Park Commissioners of 

 Youngstown, Ohio. An observing citizen who, Mr. Rogers 

 says, is usually correct in his judgment on such matters, 

 wrote him to call attention to the destruction of several 

 large Hemlocks in the beautiful park of that city, adding 

 that the injury was caused by the work of the yellow- 

 bellied sapsucker. He therefore suggested the employment 

 by the Park Board of an active young man with a small- 

 bore shot-gun to thin them out. Mr. Rogers replied that, 

 in his opinion, the Hemlocks have been dying partly 

 because of two dry seasons, and partly because they have 

 been thinned out for driveways, so that their trunks and 

 roots have been exposed to the sun. He added that some- 

 times roots of consideraJile size have been cut along the 

 paths and drives, and this mutilation may have weakened 

 the trees. Fires have also swept through the timber in 

 certain places. 



Of course, it is not safe to pronounce an opinion on a 

 question like this without closer investigation, but we 

 should advise Mr. Rogers to keep the "active young man 

 with the small-bore shot-gun " out of his Hemlock groves 



