August 5, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



3" 



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. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 1896. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article :— The Teak Forests of Burma 31 " 



A Wild Garden. (With figure.) 3» 2 



Suburban Homes Sylvester Baxter. 312 



Foreign Correspondence :— London Letter W. Watson. 313 



Cultural Department:— The Herbaceous Border N. J. R. 314 



Vitis pterophora Mex. MacElwee. 315 



The Davallias i William Scott. 316 



Midsummer in the Flower Garden D. D. 316 



The Oak-leaved Hydrangea, The Cornelian Cherry S. 316 



Correspondence :— An Old Novelty Robert Cameron. 316 



Notes from Germantovvn Joseph Meehan. 317 



California Fruits at Home Wm. M. lisdale. 317 



The Arrangement of Flowers Dorothy Root. 318 



The Forest: — The Burma Teak Forests.— I Sir Dietrich Brandis. 318 



Kecent Publications 3 '9 



Notes 3=° 



Illustration :— Larkspurs in a Wild Garden, Fig. 42 315 



The Teak Forests of Burma. 



WE have more than once invited attention to the 

 administration of the forests of India by the Eng- 

 lish Government as the best example of a forest policy 

 carried out consistently and persistently over a large area. 

 And while India differs widely from America in climate as 

 well as in social and political conditions, the success 

 achieved here in checking the reckless destruction of tim- 

 ber and restoring wasted forests to their normal vigor and 

 productiveness, offers lessons of encouragement which 

 Americans can study with profit. Indeed, the analogy 

 between the condition of our own forests to-day and those 

 of India forty years ago is so clear, and the forest abuses of 

 the two countries so similar, that Mr. Ribentrop, the In- 

 spector-General of Indian Forests, wrote out. for us some 

 of the salient features of the Indian forest policy for the 

 instruction of Americans, and his statements we have 

 already presented to the readers of this journal. The one 

 capital result of the system of management inaugurated 

 and carried out in India by Sir Dietrich Brandis is that 

 these eastern forests are yielding an increasing revenue 

 year by year — that is, they are not only paying expenses, 

 but they are becoming more and more productive. It is 

 almost discouraging to feel the need of repeating over and 

 over again that this improvement of the forests is a funda- 

 mental purpose of all good forestry. Every one admits 

 that it is bad husbandry to crop farm-lands with no regard 

 to their productiveness in the years to come. But it is 

 quite as wasteful and unscientific to treat a forest in this 

 way as it is to exhaust agricultural lands. 



It is because of the direct value as an object-lesson to us 

 of the work of Sir Dietrich Brandis that we have asked 

 him to give, with some detail, the history of his manage- 

 ment of the Teak forests of Burma, and the introductory 

 article of this series appears in this number. Any one who 

 carefully follows this series and notes in how brief a time 

 Sir Dietrich collected sufficient data to make a preliminary 

 working plan, must be convinced that if our forests were 

 put in charge of some one with a good knowledge of the 

 principles of forest management and a good supply of 

 executive force, there would be little difficulty in beginning 

 at once to lay the foundations for a permanently success- 



ful policy. Again : Persons who are well informed on this 

 subject invariably assert that private enterprise cannot be 

 trusted to conduct operations that ought to extend over an 

 indefinite period of time. It is natural that a lumberman 

 should conduct his work so as to get the maximum profit 

 — that is, the greatest profit for himself — and not for the 

 coming generation. The history of the forest operations 

 in Burma establishes this conclusively. The story of the 

 temporary abandonment of its original policy by the Gov- 

 ernment, of the destruction and loss which this change 

 entailed, and of the return to a sound system, is a most 

 instructive chapter in this history, and one which ought to 

 furnish a conclusive reply to all those who believe that the 

 management of forests can be entrusted to any power with 

 a shorter life than that of a nation. 



Another point for our instruction is the fact that officers 

 of the army were found at the outset eminently fitted to 

 help in building up a forest administration until the time 

 when professionally trained foresters were available. This 

 does not mean that military force was employed against 

 timber thieves and herdsmen, but it means that we need 

 not wait for a complete corps of specially skilled foresters 

 before we lay the foundation of a thoroughly scientific 

 forest administration. These young and active officers, in 

 good health, trained to orderly habits and inured to work 

 in the open air and exposure, can be trusted under good 

 professional guidance to carry out the foundation work, 

 and, perhaps, do as much as Colonel Pearson and Colonel 

 Bailey did under Sir Dietrich Brandis, before skilled men 

 like Schlich and Ribentrop were to be had. The experi- 

 ence in India also proves that in a dry hot climate forests 

 can be protected from fire if we are willing to pay for such 

 protection at first. If we do this the people themselves 

 will soon learn that it is to their interest to be cautious with 

 fire in the neighborhood of forests and they will be eager 

 to help extinguish fires when accidentally kindled. Dis- 

 patches from the north-west during the past week have 

 told that leagues upon leagues of magnificent timber have 

 been burned. Of course, no increased yield in the future, 

 and, in fact, no certain yield can ever be expected so long 

 as such destruction is possible. Unless we have some far- 

 sighted policy like that adopted for Burma with regard to 

 forest fires we must abandon all hope of anything like 

 practical forest management. 



But it is not our intention to anticipate the lessons so 

 clearly set forth in the valuable forest history which Sir 

 Dietrich Brandis has furnished. There never was a time 

 more appropriate for careful thought on questions of 

 this kind than the present, when the Commission ap- 

 pointed by our National Academy of Science is studying 

 the forests on the public domain for the purpose of recom- 

 mending what part of the national forests shall pass into 

 private control, how they can be adminstered so as to 

 furnish the supplies needed for regions lying adjacent to 

 them without decreasing their permanent value, and how 

 a continuous, intelligent and honest management of these 

 forests can best be secured. The points of practice which 

 have been considered most essential in India are, accord- 

 to Sir Dietrich : (i) An immediate collection of data as to 

 the most useful kinds of timber, their rate of growth, and 

 their requirements for the best development. (2) The spar- 

 ing use of the timber, with the cutting carefully regulated, 

 either by area or by volume. (3) Such a selection of trees 

 to be cut as will best maintain the most valuable species. 

 (4) Constant effort to increase the proportion of the more 

 valuable kinds. (5) A forward-looking plan which secures 

 a sustained and, if possible, a steadily increasing yield, ' 

 even if this calls for the sacrifice of a boom at the outset. 

 (6) The reservation of as large areas as possible for state 

 forests, since it will be easier to give up land hereafter 

 needed for cultivation or other purposes than it will be to 

 acquire new forest-lands. It ought not to be impracticable 

 to frame a system of forest management for this country 

 which would contain all the e mini features of the plan 

 which has proved such a conspicuous success in India. 



