3^4 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 446. 



more than Spruce to-day. Of the two for ordinary build- 

 ing purposes the Spruce lumber is far more valuable. 



Under this increasing demand the va'ue of Spruce timber 

 land is steadily advancing-, and the owner of a good forest 

 ot these trees near a river or railroad could not find a better 

 investment where his money would surely pay a high rate 

 of interest. Within a few years Spruce lumber has ad- 

 vanced from ten and twelve dollars per thousand feet to 

 fifteen and eighteen dollars. But even at this latter price, 

 the highest yet reached, it is only on a par with White 

 Pine and lower than the Southern Pme. If the mills con- 

 tinue to denude the Spruce forests at the present rate the 

 value of good timber will nearly double itself in the next 

 twenty years. 



It is a matter of considerable concern to small owners of 

 Spruce lands to know that the manufacturers of wood pulp 

 and the owners of large mills are making provisions for 

 the future by thinning out the forests instead of cutting 

 them clean. The young saplings are allowed to remain, 

 and in twenty years they will be mature trees, ready to 

 yield another crop. On the other hand, there is a notice- 

 able lack of intelligent cutting among many of the small 

 New England owners, who either sell all of the Spruce 

 trees on their land, or cut down, indiscriminately, the small 

 and large trees. If only the large, mature trees, measuring 

 twelve inches in diameter at the base, are cut down, the 

 young trees grow rapidly and quickly make up the loss. 



In Germany Spruce forests are cultivated so that the 

 supply of wood pulp is even greater than in this country. 

 No trees under one foot in diameter at the base are cut 

 down for the mills, and the forests, although yielding an 

 enormous supply, are only thinned out each year. It has 

 been the cheapness and comparative abundance of Spruce 

 trees in this country that has caused the willful waste, and 

 there is danger that another area of neglect will follow the 

 opening up of the Spruce regions in the Dominion of 

 Canada. The Spruce forests in the Province of Quebec 

 are said to be more extensive than all those combined in 

 the United States, and the cost to lumbermen is about one- 

 half what they have to pay for it in this country. Many 

 of the mills, therefore, have been moved into Canada, and 

 the lumbermen are denuding the primitive forests as fast 

 as steam will permit. 



The Canadian Government has been making efforts to 

 protect the forests under its jurisdiction, and if something 

 could be done to stop the greed of the paper mills it would 

 redound to the benefit of both countries. Our pulp mills 

 have been rushing into Canada so rapidly that a good part 

 of our supply of wood pulp in the next year or two will 

 come from that country. This temporarily relieves the 

 strain upon our own forests, but as the supply in Canada 

 cannot continue forever the subject of restricting the de- 

 struction of the Spruce trees in this country might meet 

 with less opposition from lumbermen than formerly. 

 Canada realizes but little from the exports of its forest prod- 

 ucts, for the raw material is sold at very low prices, and 

 the country suffers more than she receives as a result. 



Some of the largest capitalists have been greatly disap- 

 pointed in the supply of Spruce trees in New England in 

 the last year or two. The railroads that have been pushed 

 into the heart of the woods have failed to tap forests as 

 rich in lumber as was generally expected. The supplies 

 along the Androscoggin, Penobscot and Kennebec have 

 also materially diminished, and the floods and freshets 

 have helped to make the supply for the mills uncertain. 

 The safest way of getting the raw material is by the aid of 

 railroads, and these are now being constructed in endless 

 numbers all through the woods. Where such expensive 

 methods of transportation are constructed the forests are 

 likely to be better protected than on the lines of the rivers. 

 Some of the large wood pulp mills and railroads represent 

 a capital invested of over half a million dollars, and it is 

 only reasonable to suppose that they are intended to be 

 permanent. They can be made permanent, however, only 

 by having the forests properly handled. 



A trip through the Spruce forests will readily convince 

 one that forest management is being practiced to a certain 

 extent along the railroad lines connecting with expensive 

 mills, but that it'is entirely neglected along the rivers where 

 smaller mills have been built merely to rub the woods of 

 lumber they can find growing. In this respect the large 

 capitalist is a better protector of the forests than the small 

 lumbermen ; not because he loves the forests, but because 

 they bring larger returns and make his property more val- 

 uable for the future. _ r . 



New York. Cr. is. W. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



Eucalyptus calophylla. — Among the many representa- 

 tives of this genus grown in the conservatories of this 

 country Eucalyptus calophylla is one of the most orna- 

 mental. It forms a sturdy, leafy, pyramidal tree, and 

 flowers when from twelve to twenty feet high, the flowers 

 being borne in crowded clusters on the young branches, 

 and each flower a green cup-like calyx bearing a brush- 

 like head of white stamens two inches across. The leaves 

 are ovate-lanceolate, about five inches long, bright green, 

 with a whitish margin, the midrib, petiole and bark of the 

 young branches being bright red. There is a healthy ex- 

 ample of it now flowering freely in the temperate-house at 

 Kevv, where it is planted in a peat-bed in the sunny end of 

 the house along with Grevilleas, Acacias and other Austra- 

 lian plants. An excellent figure of this species was pub- 

 lished under the name of E. splachnicarpon in The Botanical 

 Magazine in 1843, prepared from a plant flowered at Kew 

 in that year. It had been introduced by Allan Cunning- 

 ham, who discovered it in King George's Sound, where it 

 forms an immense tree. It is one of the most beautiful of 

 the trees grown in the streets and gardens in Soulh Africa. 

 The flowers are among the largest of the genus, and it 

 equals any of the species in rapidity of growth. 



Trias disciflora. — The genus Trias is closely allied to 

 Bulbophyllum, which it resembles in habit and foliage. 

 Only some half a dozen species are known, and they are 

 all Indian. T. disciflora was introduced about two years 

 ago from Siarn, and flowered in the nursery of L'Horticul- 

 ture Internationale, Brussels. It was at first thought to be 

 a Bulbophyllum. A plant of it is now in flower at Kew. 

 It is by far the largest-flowered and most striking of the 

 species. The pseudo-bulbs are clustered, each nearly an 

 inch long, broadly ovoid, one-leaved, the leaf four inches 

 long, thick, fleshy and lanceolate. The scapes spring from 

 the base of the matured pseudo-bulbs, and are about an 

 inch long, one-flowered, the flower being nearly two inches 

 across. The sepals are triangular, an inch long, half an 

 inch wide at the base, colored yellowish green, with 

 numerous spots of dark red ; petals small and ear-like ; lip 

 nearly as long as the sepals, tongue-shaped, fleshy, with a 

 central groove and a pair of auricles at the base ; the sur- 

 face is covered with minute, dull red, wart-like dots. 

 Column green, with a pointed, beak-like anther. The 

 plant deserves a place in large collections of tropical 

 Orchids. 



Tea Roses. — We are only now learning how to appre- 

 ciate and make the most of these plants in summer gar- 

 dening. Twenty years ago many cultivators looked upon 

 the Tea Rose as a delicate plant that required pot culture 

 and the protection of a frame or house in winter. We now 

 know that they are not only perfectly safe in the open bed, 

 but that they make afar more beautiful display from June till 

 September than any other section of the great Rose family. 

 I lately saw in the garden of Mr. W. Robinson, at Gravetye 

 Manor, Sussex, a flower garden formed entirely of Tea 

 Roses, and a more beautiful picture it is impossible to 

 imagine. Mr. Robinson has long been an admirer and 

 collector of Tea Roses, and he now possesses a large col- 

 lection of all the best that are known. They are, he says, 

 mostly grafted on the Brier, but at Kew we find it an 



