402 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 450. 



ture, is preferable to abundant rains and neglect by the 

 cultivator. The soil will respond in a large measure ac- 

 cording to the treatment it receives. Neglect it, and it 

 will fail to bring forth liberal increase, but cultivate intelli- 

 gently and thoroughly, and it responds quickly." The 

 bulletin to which we allude is entitled "The Moisture of 

 the Soil and its Conservation," and the whole subject is 

 treated in a concise, but satisfactory, way. It is stated, 

 to begin with, that the average rainfall during the year in 

 New York is sufficient for the growth of crops, but, owing 

 to its unequal distribution through the year, nearly one- 

 half of it is lost by surface drainage, and crops usually 

 suffer from drought. How to use the plow and the har- 

 row, the cultivator and the roller so as to prepare the soil 

 to receive and enable it to retain the moisture needed for 

 the feeding and upbuilding of crops is made clear, and 

 farmers are instructed how to sample the soil and deter- 

 mine the amount of moisture at different depths, and in 

 this way to ascertain for themselves, by comparison 

 between cultivated and uncultivated land, how much 

 they can add to the producing power of their farms. 

 We can think of no more interesting and instructive tests 

 than these, not only for the individual farmer, but for 

 granges and horticultural societies. Hardly a year passes in 

 which some crop, early or late, is not diminished by drought 

 to one-half, one-quarter, or a still smaller fraction of what 

 it should have been. No matter how rich the soil, how 

 pure the seed, or how careful the initial preparations have 

 been made, a deficiency of moisture means failure and loss. 

 How the farmer and gardener can have a reasonable assur- 

 ance against a great deal of this loss has rarely been set 

 forth more succinctly and clearly than in this bulletin, No. 

 120, and we commend it to the study of every progressive 

 cultivator. 



Roadsides in Autumn. 



THE singular beauty of the wild growth that takes 

 possession of undisturbed waysides makes one of 

 the great pleasures of driving in the hill towns and more 

 out-of-the-way portions of this and every country region. 

 These roadsides are in many cases steep banks of consid- 

 erable height ; in others they are rough, rocky or wet ; but 

 Nature, by her inexhaustible magic, drapes and garnishes 

 them with a lavish and ever-changeful grace and splendor. 

 When the road-makers, in a spasm of zeal for " cleaning up," 

 cut and slash along the highway, reducing this tangle of 

 loveliness to heaps of slowly withering "brush" and a 

 scarred and stony bed, it is enough to bring tears to the eyes 

 of the discerning. In the spring or early summer this is not 

 an infrequent catastrophe along the course of some favorite 

 drives. But in the autumn, even those borders where 

 devastation was wrought in spring have become beauti- 

 ful again. Already they are softly clad in a wide mantle 

 rich with Golden-rod, Asters and innumerable clumps of 

 green or blanching Ferns. 



But it is the fortunate by-roads that remained unmo- 

 lested which now ripen their free harvests of intense color. 

 Festooned from tree to tree, or hanging in massive luxuri- 

 ance upon natural arbors of woody thickets, the wild Grape 

 has ripened its abundant clusters ; here they hang, dark in 

 the shade and lucent in the sun, red and purple-black and 

 greenish, opaline white. The Stag-horn Sumach, always 

 picturesque and vigorous in form and expression, is now 

 at its culmination of color, a splendid object. Not its 

 crimson velvet horns alone, but the whole shrub brightens 

 the wayside copse like a blaze, for there is no early autumn 

 color in the whole breadth of the woodlands more vivid 

 than these flame-like leaflets, in which the color has all the 

 subtle play of that which lights the hearth in the autumnal 

 twilight. If we are tempted by the greed of possession, 

 it is easy to gather an armful of the long, decorative 

 compound leaves, in which every one is a study and each 

 unlike all the rest. But they soon curl and lose their 

 beauty in the house ; they belong to the brilliant, bracing 



air of the wayside. Other spoils there are, less perishable, 

 which lend to indoor walls a certain sumptuous, yet sober, 

 adornment, worthy of the season. Such is the Bitter-sweet, 

 its bright scarlet fruits now beginning to gleam within the 

 parted orange calyx. The woody vine in its complicated 

 involutions often becomes a marvel of web-like, yet solid, 

 structure, and makes a noble piece of decoration, mounted 

 with all its clusters in its native order. The feathery seed- 

 puffs of the white Clematis combine with it harmoniously, 

 and these two are among the best home adornments to be 

 ravished from the wayside copses. Another bright berry 

 that makes gay the moist places just now is the Black 

 Alder, or Winterberry, our best northern substitute for the 

 Holly. Its bright red berries are quite permanent when 

 dried in the house, and sure to justify one of its local 

 names — the Christmas-berry. The common Barberry, too, 

 is now a jeweled bush in favored localities in the Connec- 

 ticut valley, where it is as much at home as any native 

 shrub. Its thickly hung, drooping racemes of bright fruit 

 hold tenaciously to the stem, and make a charming orna- 

 ment, even when somewhat wrinkled and spent. 



Nor is it the grand masses alone, or even chiefly, with 

 which Nature feels our joy in her, but the ever-changing 

 mystery and surprise other wonderful and exquisite variety. 

 All the splendor of autumn rests upon some modest bit of 

 perfection that meets the eye with an unexpected charm ; 

 it may be only 



The creamy elder mellowed into wine, 

 The russet hip that was the pink-white rose. 



Even the lowly carpet of her most secluded haunts is 

 enameled with the Partridge-berry and the fruit of the Win- 

 tergreen, the richest scarlet against the deepest green. 

 Everywhere a splendor set in harmony with that inimitable 

 grace and fitness which is at once the highest teaching and 

 the despair of our puny gardening. No artist-planned 

 and labor-cultured plantations and shrubberies can rival 

 the splendid simplicity of Nature on her own domain. 



Along the by-roads the quaint, ruffled husks of the hazel- 

 nuts are now parted to show the ripe, brown nut within. 

 The bushes abound along these Hampshire County hill- 

 sides, and the harvest they bear is heavy enough to be 

 hardly less precious to the squirrel than are the chestnuts, 

 which now begin to drop from their burrs. The Hazel 

 takes on a rich, tawny olive at this season, one of those 

 fine ground colors upon which the thousand brighter dyes 

 are so effectively displayed. A few weeks more and the 

 bright golden flowers of that distant cousin, the Witch-hazel, 

 will be left to shine alone, almost the sole witness to Nature's 

 splendor, amid the brown and leafless thickets. 



Amherst, Mass. D. H. R. Goodah. 



Product of White Pine per Acre. 



TN criticising certain statements of mine, Mr. B. E. Fernow 

 * says (see Garden and Forest, page 202 of the cur- 

 rent volume): "One of the elements that needs to be known 

 in order to discuss the profitableness of forestry is the amount 

 of useful wood which can be produced per acre. On this 

 point the most erroneous and extravagant notions exist, and 

 many calculations are made on paper which can never be 

 realized. The rate of growth of a tree at a given age is sup- 

 posed to continue indefinitely, and this rate is applied to an 

 acreof trees, . . . and thus we can compute astonishing yields 

 for the future." 



To this statement I fully agree, and. as a practical manufac- 

 turer of lumber, I have little patience with persons without 

 any practical knowledge of manufacturing lumber, who 

 measure a few trees, or employ agents to do so, figure out on 

 paper the results of their measurements, and then rush into 

 print with their figures to controvert the statements of men 

 who have cut many measured acres of trees, who have had 

 the logs measured, sawed into boards, the boards surveyed, and 

 then make an accurate report of their experience. 



For many years I was engaged in buying large quantities of 

 Pine-trees, and, as was the custom at that time,' I bought them 

 on the stump, in many cases by the acre. It was my prac- 

 tice to hire the logs drawn to the mill by the cord of 128 cubic 



