November ii, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



453 



Among- the larger birds now abundant are the robin and 

 the bluebird, both of which remain all winter. The cries 

 of the blue jay and crow are familiar sounds, and the 

 clatter of the handsome goldenwing is heard all around, 

 with the tapping of many other woodpeckers. During 

 these mild October days, especially in the evening, we 

 hear the harsh cry of the tattlers in the damp pines, and 

 the soft whistle of the plovers returning from ihe far north. 

 Many of them halt along our coast until severe weather 

 sends them farther south. The killdeer plover, unlike the 

 others, remains with us all summer, and we still hear its 

 cry, together with other unfamiliar notes and sounds that 

 set us to wondering what their source may be, and re- 

 mind us how much we have yet to learn. 



Vineland, N. J. 



Mary Treat. 



Conifers on the Grounds of the Kansas Agricultural 

 College. — I. 



SCOTCH AND AUSTRIAN PINES. 



THE plantings of conifers on the grounds of the Kansas 

 Agricultural College have been made from 1872 up 

 to the present date, and have embraced most of the more 

 important genera and species, but of all those planted the 

 ones set in the greatest numbers and the ones which, on 

 the whole, have proved most satisfactory are the Scotch 

 and Austrian Pines. Of these two sorts it is difficult to say 

 which is the superior for this climate, but either should 

 prove quite satisfactory. The oldest specimens of these on 

 the College premises are in two bells on what is known as 

 the Old College Farm. They were set in 1872 and 1873, 

 and were then two and three years of age. One belt con- 

 sists of mixed Scotch and Austrian Pines, the other entirely 

 of Austrian. The land is the average high upland prairie, 

 with a gentle slope to the north and east, and the soil is a 

 clay-loam about twelve inches in depth, with a rather stiff 

 clay subsoil. In the mixed belt the Scotch Pines do not 

 seem to have withstood the hardships to which they have 

 been subjected nearly as well as the Austrian, for while 

 there are three or four of the smaller Austrian Pines which 

 are dead, there are a dozen or more of the Scotch, some of 

 them large trees, which evidently do not owe their death 

 to crowding,. as seems quite likely to be the case with the 

 Austrians. In this belt sixty-five Austrian Pines average 

 27 T /3 feet in height, 8 inches in diameter at the ground, 

 dy\ inches at 2 feet, and 5% inches at 6 feet. The ten trees 

 having the largest diameters give the following averages : 

 Height, 33 feet ; diameter at the ground, ioj£ inches ; at 2 

 feet, 8.9 inches, and at 6 feet, 7.85 inches. From measure- 

 ments taken in this same belt by Professor Mason in 1888 

 I obtain the following figures for the ten largest : Diameter 

 at the ground, 9 inches, and at 6 feet, 6^4 inches. Only 

 ■nine Scotch Pines are now living, and these average as fol- 

 lows : Height, 32^ feet ; diameter at the ground, 9 inches ; 

 at 2 feet, 7}4 inches, and at 6 feet, 6}i inches. The largest 

 ten in 1888 averaged 7 inches in diameter at the ground, 

 and 5 inches at 6 feet. 



The belt of Austrian Pines contains 128 trees, which give 

 the following average measurements : Height, 27 feet ; 

 diameter at the ground, 10 inches ; at 2 feet, 8 inches, and 

 at 6 feet, 6}4 inches. The ten trees having the largest 

 diameter average as follows: Height, 29.8 feet; diameter 

 at the ground, 13^4 inches; at 2 feet, 11 }( inches, and at 

 6 feet, 9^ inches. In 1888 they averaged 10 inches at the 

 ground, and 7 inches at 6 feet. The tallest single specimen 

 in this belt is 36^ feet in height, with a diameter of 1354! 

 inches at the ground, n)4 inches at 2 feet, and 9^ inches 

 at 6 feet. 



It is an interesting point that in twenty-four years forest 

 conditions have been so far established in these belts that 

 young seedlings of man}' forest trees are found there, 

 Quercus acuminata being especially abundant, though 

 the nearest acorn-bearing trees are over half a mile away. 

 And what is still more interesting, Pine seedlings are quite 



abundant under many of the trees in both belts. Whether 

 this has ever occurred before, and the little seedlings have 

 succumbed later on, is not known, but the fact that Pro- 

 fessor Mason has repeatedly tried to find seeds with sound 

 embryos, and never succeeded, and that this year quite a 

 number have been germinated in flats in the propagating- 

 house might indicate that for some reason the seed ma- 

 tured by the Pine-trees last year has more vitality than in 

 former years. 



On the lower college farm is another plantation of Scotch 

 and Austrian Pines, set in the spring of 1S91 at two years of 

 age. They are on the flat at the foot of a hill, and the soil 

 is a fine deep clay loam. They have been given clean cul- 

 tivation since setting, and though several seasons have 

 been very dry, they have probably had, on the whole, 

 exceptionally favorable conditions. There are 319 Scotch 

 Pines, and they give the following average measurements: 

 Height, 7^2 feet ; diameter at 1 fo.ot, 2 T 4 ' inches. The highest 

 tree is 11 feet and the largest diameter, 33s inches. The 

 Austrian Pines join the Scotch on the west, and the soil and 

 other conditions are practically identical. There are 334 

 trees, which average as follows : Height, 5.37 feet ; diameter 

 at 1 foot, 1.89 inches. The highest tree is 7^ feet, as 

 against eleven feet in the case of the Scotch Pines, and the 

 largest diameter, 3^ inches, as against 3^ inches. This, 

 it will be seen, gives the Scotch Pine in this plantation a 

 much better showing than the Austrian. It will also be 

 seen that this gives an average increase in height of a trifle 

 over one foot a year for the Scotch Pines, and about three- 

 fourths of a foot for the Austrian. It is interesting to note 

 in comparison with these figures that twenty-five Scotch 

 Pines, selected at random from among the 319, averaged at 

 the beginning of the season of 1S96, 7.3 feet in height, an 

 average increase of 1.04 feet for each year of the tree's age. 

 On August 14th they showed an average increase in height 

 of 26 inches for the season, the greatest growth being 

 37 inches. Twenty-five Austrian Pines selected in the 

 same way averaged at the beginning of the season 5.42 

 feet in height, a yearly increase of .774 foot. On August 

 14th they gave an average increase in height for the season 

 of 21 inches, and the greatest growth was 29 inches, as 

 against 37 inches for the best Scotch Pine 



As shelter, either for orchards or for stock, these two 

 species seem admirably adapted to this country, while as 

 timber trees they w-ould seem to be the equals, if not the 

 superiors, of most deciduous trees. „ „ „ 



Agricultural College, Manhattan, Kansas. •*'■ *- • oears. 



[The Scotch and Austrian Pines grow rapidly in the 

 northern and middle western states, and are extremely 

 promising for twenty or thirty years. As a rule, however, 

 they suffer from various diseases, and are short-lived here, 

 so that it is wise to use them cautiously. No other ever- 

 green trees, it is true, have produced wind-breaks more 

 rapidly on the western prairies, while no other trees which 

 have been planted on a large scale in the United States 

 have, in the long run, proved so disappointing. Our native 

 White Pine is more difficult to raise from seed, and, there- 

 fore, more expensive, and for the first ten or twelve years 

 it grows less rapidly than these European species, but it 

 lasts much longer on the prairies, where we have seen 

 these trees tried together, and it is no doubt much more 

 satisfactory in all the northern states for general planting. 

 —Ed.] 



Plant Notes. 

 Have we Two Native Species of Trumpet-flower? 



THE blooming, simultaneously, of two native Trumpet 

 Vines on my place has explained to me what has 

 hitherto been a puzzle tome, namely, the statement in sev- 

 eral horticultural journals, Garden and Forest among the 

 number,* that the flowers of the Chinese species, Tecoma 



* See vol. iii., p. 392, Fig. 50. 



