4*8 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 451. 



ing in the stamina given by open-air exposure, far exceeds 

 such growth in grace and delicacy. Overwatering is disas- 

 trous, and it must always be borne in mind that in the cultiva- 

 tion of Ferns but little water is needed, except in the case 

 of Bog Ferns. 



Under glass, Asplenium ebeneum is counted among stand- 

 ard Ferns ; so secure is it of this position that it indulges in all 

 manner of freaks. A branching rachis is not uncommon, and 

 fronds appear with the pinnae of A. Trichomanes promiscu- 

 ously intermingled with its own. The collector must be 

 cautious if he would preserve his specimens unbroken, for 

 brittleness is a marked characteristic of A. ebeneum , espe- 

 cially of the fertile fronds. 



Pittsford Mills, Vt. G. A. WoOlSOn. 



Correspondence. 



Fertilizers for Orchards. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — Will you state in your journal what is the best fertilizer 

 for Apple-trees. I have no adequate supply of stable-manure, 

 and must buy chemicals. 



Bloomfield, N.J. A. k. b. 



[No categorical answer can be given to questions of this 

 sort unless one has definite information about this particu- 

 lar orchard upon such points as the character and condition 

 of the soil, whether the trees are young or old, vigorous or 

 feeble. Every fruit grower, and, indeed, every farmer who 

 uses commercial fertilizers, ought to know something of the 

 general principles which underlie the use of these sub- 

 stances. It should be understood that Apple and other 

 orchard fruit trees need certain mineral elements, and 

 since they grow slowly they can be treated with such 

 substances as leather waste, horn refuse, tobacco-stems 

 and other slowly decomposing manures ; but, of course, in 

 the application of such manure, and, indeed, of any manure, 

 some definite system must be followed. No better fer- 

 tilizer for fruit-trees can be used, as a rule, than one part of 

 muriate of potash and one and a half parts of ground bone. 

 Wood-ashes or cotton-hull ashes may be used in place of 

 the muriate to furnish potash if they can be cheaply ob- 

 tained. Manures which are highly soluble will be proba- 

 bly washed out of the soil before they are all utilized by 

 the tree, and, therefore, large applications of nitrate of soda 

 are not to be used. It should be remembered, however, 

 that the soil should be in good mechanical condition — that 

 is, not too open nor too compact, not too wet nortoo dry — 

 if any fertilizer is to have its best effect. Above all, never 

 apply any fertilizer whatever until you have looked at the 

 whole subject with sufficient care to enable you to devise 

 some intelligent system which can be persisted in. In 

 Farmers' Bulletin No. 44, issued not long since by the 

 Department of Agriculture, Professor Voorhees states clearly 

 and succinctly some of the foundation truths in regard to 

 fertilizers which every cultivator ought to know. One who 

 carefully follows the directions here laid down is not likely 

 to commit any serious error. — Ed.] 



Two Rare Ferns — Asplenium Bradleyi and 

 Trichomanes radicans. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir, — I went, early in July, to the place where Professors 

 Shaler, Procter and Hussey camped for three months while 

 making the survey of Edmonson County, Kentucky, in 1875. 

 I wanted to note any changes in the flora since Professor 

 Hussey 's report was made, and I found many. The forests, 

 when he wrote, were much older than the so-called " barrens" 

 of the neighboring counties, especially of Barren County, as 

 once they had escaped the forest-fires kindled elsewhere by the 

 Indians. In the deep gulches cut by Nohn and Bear Creeks, the 

 extremes of heat and cold are greatly modified, and protec- 

 tion is furnished to many species of plants not found else- 

 where. Most of the larger trees are now being rapidly cut for 

 cross-ties, and the ridges following Green River and its tribu- 

 tary streams have been denuded of their many large Chestnut 

 Oaks, Chestnuts, Tulip and White Walnut trees, and still the 

 work goes on. This, of course, has affected the undergrowth. 

 Along the wooded road on top the sandstone ridge I find only 



a few plants where I expected many, and under the cliffs the 

 change is noticeable. 



It is in this part of Edmonson County, on both sides of 

 Nolin River, that the new, or rather the European, Mullein, Ver- 

 bascum phlomoides (found, so far as known, nowhere else 

 in the United States) made its appearance two years ago. It 

 is being rapidly exterminated by the officers of the experiment 

 station. One noble rock — Dismal Rock — is over three hundred 

 feet high, a grand perpendicular wall with a seam orcrevice not 

 over three feet wide at the top and less than six inches at the 

 base, open as clean as if cut with a knife. Its base is covered 

 with the Umbrella Tree, Kalmia and a few large Hemlocks and 

 Jersey Pine. On the face of the rock were fine plants of 

 Asplenium montanum and a few A. pinnatifidum. 



The point ot interest to me was the place where Professor 

 Hussey for the first time in this state found Asplenium Brad- 

 leyi. I found it in Warren County in 1892. It was still grow- 

 ing there, under a high projecting rock at the head of one of 

 the small streams. I counted more than fitty plants, though 

 I could not bring myself to gather more than two or three roots, 

 and, perhaps, a hundred fronds. Many of the plants are dead, 

 and I think the days of the others are numbered. 



The forests near have been so cleared out, the land up to 

 the ravine on either side is now in cultivation, and it seems 

 only a question of time when many of the Ferns here will 

 disappear. This rare Fern is scattered over the face of the 

 high cliff, from base to summit. Its only companions were 

 Asplenium Trichomanes, in numbers, and A. pinnatifidum. 

 I gathered the last mentioned and A. Bradleyi from the same 

 crevice, their roots interlocked. 



I found a fine lot of Trichomanes radicans in Warren County 

 this summer, growing under a sandstone cliff in constant 

 moisture, and also found it in Edmonson County in three dif- 

 ferent places. There were but few plants growing at these 

 latter places, however, and I presume these, too, will soon dis- 

 appear. The loss of shade about its favorite haunts will, no 

 doubt, prove fatal. It is a beautiful object, growing under a 

 cliff, often in darkness, with the moisture trickling through the 

 rocks, each point of leaflet and bristle bearing a tiny drop of 

 water, like a miniature yellow diamond. The Ferns in com- 

 pany were Asplenium Trichomanes, a Moss (not yet deter- 

 mined), while above it grew Dryopleris marginalis and an 

 occasional Asplenium pinnatifidum. 



Bowling Green, Ky. Sadie F. Price. 



The Forest. 



The Burma Teak Forests. — XI. 



value of professionally trained officers. 



THE idea of using the flowering of the Bamboo in order to 

 *■ form Teak plantations I had lon^ entertained, but the credit 

 of having started this work upon a large scale belongs to Mr. 

 Berthold Ribbentrop, the present Inspector-General of forests 

 in India. In speaking of military officers I have purposely 

 dwelt upon the excellent work done under good guidance by 

 men who had not had the advantage of a special professional 

 training. This was in the early days of forest administration 

 in India, when the work was of a more simple nature and 

 when professional questions had not attained prominence. 

 After I had completed seven years' work in Burma and had 

 during three years more endeavored to promote the develop- 

 ment of the work in other provinces, I came to the conclusion 

 that further progress was not possible without the introduction 

 of men with a thorough professional training. I will not detain 

 the readers of Garden and Forest by an account of the man- 

 ner in which I succeeded in overcoming the objections which 

 at that time were raised nearly on all sides against this 

 measure. As stated in a late article in this paper, I obtained 

 permission to organize a system of professional training of a 

 number of young Englishmen to be sent out annually — some 

 to be trained in France, others in Germany — and I succeeded 

 in securing the services of two young forest officers from Ger- 

 many, Dr. Schlich, the author of the excellent Manual of For- 

 estry repeatedly noticed in the pages of Garden and Forest, 

 who succeeded me as Inspector-General of Forests in 1883, 

 and who is now at the head of the Coopers Hill Forest School, 

 and Mr. Ribbentrop, who had worked under Forest Director 

 Burckhardt at Hanover, one of the most eminent foresters of 

 the present century. Working in the spirit of his great .teacher, 

 Mr. Ribbentrop, succeeded in devising cultural operations 

 intended to increase the proportion of Teak in the forest in a 

 variety of ways, among others by dibbling in Teak-seed in 

 places where the Bamboo had flowered. These operations 

 have been steadily continued, and now form some of the 



