January ii, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



21 



are doubly appreciated because they last long after the hardiest 

 outdoor tlowers are gone. 



The roots are less hardy than the leaves of this plant. North of 

 the Ohio it must have a sheltered location out-of-doors, and the 

 protection of a heavy mulch if it survives the winter, and in 

 the northern tier of states, as an open-air plant, it can prob- 

 ably only be grown as an annual. Even there the case is not 

 hopeless. The vine increases so rapidly from untlerground 

 rimners, that plenty of young rooted plants can be taken up 

 for tlie house each season, and those, if given good-sized pots, 

 will succeed admirably in the window, festooning it with their 

 rich drapery of foliage, and ready with the coming of spring to 

 be turned into the open borders, where they will grow luxu- 

 riantly. As a flowering plant this Passion Vine has proved 

 almost worthless with me. I have tried it in sun and shade, 

 in clay and loam, in soil made rich with fertilizers, and in the 

 virgin mold. The flowers are beautiful, but very rarely pro- 

 duced. And yet we can forgive this in a climber that drapes 

 our piazzas with summer greenness until the snows of winter 

 have set in. 

 Pineviile, Mo. Lora S, La Mance. 



The Forest. 



Hard-wood Timber in the South. 



UNDER the title, "Our Remaining Hard-wood Re- 

 sources," our correspondent, Dr. Charles Mohr, of 

 Mobile, has an interesting article in a late number of The 

 Engineering Magazine. After showing that north of the Ohio 

 River Black Walnut and White Ash are for commercial pur- 

 poses practically extinct, while the better qualities of White 

 Oak are growing scarce, he explains how rapidly our forests 

 are being depleted of other kinds of lumber. In the south- 

 ern states all the hard woods of the north grow, besides 

 several other kinds of economic importance peculiar to 

 the southern flora. We quote Dr. Mohr's interesting notes 

 on the amount and quality of this timber still standing 

 in tlie south. 



Among the States south of the Ohio River, West Virginia 

 takes the first rank in the wealth of its hard- wood forests. 

 Only twenty-five per cent, of its area has been cleared of 

 them. Nowhere is Black Walnut now more frequently found ; 

 nowhere is Wild Cherry, Ash, White Oak, Chestnut Oak or 

 Tanbark Oak more abundant. It is only in the narrow strip 

 along the larger water-courses that these supplies in this state 

 have been largely removed, and only in the more accessible 

 parts that they have been more or less culled. Large bodies 

 remain untouched in the southern valleys and the lower slopes 

 of the mountains enclosing them. By the tenth census it was 

 estimated that 2,500,000,000 feet (board measure) of Yellow 

 Poplar timber were then standing in the valley of Cheat River 

 and its tributaries, and 300,000,000 feet on Shaversfork, besides 

 large quantities of the valuable timber named above, which can- 

 not be driven in the shallow streams, and can only be made 

 available by the construction of railroads. On the upper part 

 of the Little Kanawha River and its tributaries there are large 

 supplies of White Oak yet untouched ; in fact, all the country 

 back of the counties fronting on the Ohio River is one vast vir- 

 gin forest of Oak, Tulip, Wild Cherry, Black Walnut and Sugar 

 Maple, only touched upon along the largest channels of drain- 

 age, being yet for the greater part inaccessible. The develop- 

 ment of these resources has made comparatively slow pro- 

 gress, but with the increasing facilities for transportation by 

 rail it is certain to make rapid strides within the next few years. 



In the report of the chief of the forestry division of the 

 Department of Agriculture, for 1887, the area of Kentucky 

 covered by forest is stated at thirty or thirty-five per cent. The 

 White Oak is the timber most prevalent and most character- 

 istic of the state. Large Tulip-trees and most of the valuable 

 hard woods are found in greater or lesser abundance in the 

 forests of various sections of the state, and in eastern Ken- 

 tucky ; and the region of the Cumberland Mountains is yet 

 almost untouched. The area of 10,000 square miles between 

 the Louisville and Nashville railroad line and the Ohio River 

 has been pronounced by Professor N. S. Shaler to be one of the 

 richest and at the same time most easily accessible hard-wood 

 timber regions in the Ohio valley. In a report by R. C. B. 

 Thruston, made to the president of the Louisville and Nash- 

 ville railroad in 1887, it was stated that the hard-wood forests 

 of the valleys and the table-lands of the Cumberland Moun- 

 tains extend over an area of 4,000 square miles, with a stand 

 of timber running from 6,ooo to 14,000 feet, board measure, to 

 the acre. The 2,319 establishments of the state, based upon 



these resources in 1885, were using material valued at $14,- 

 576,014. with products valued at $29,446,339. The lumber pro- 

 duced from Oak and Tulip trees by 805 saw-mills in that year 

 was estimated at $4,889,196. Louisville is looked upon as the 

 best and cheapest hard-wood lumber market in this country, 

 if not in the world. 



Tennessee, with sixty per cent, of its area still covered by 

 woodlands, possesses a larger proportion of forests of decidu- 

 ous-leaved trees than any other state. The Commissioner of 

 Agriculture of that state stated in 1884 that 16,000,000 acres of 

 forests in Tennessee remained in almost their original condi- 

 tion. The nature of their timber-growth differs i:>ut little from 

 that of Kentucky. The Tulip-free is found in the valleys in 

 greatest perfection, and nowhere in the United States in greater 

 abundance. Portions of the state are unsurpassed in the 

 quality and the vast quantities of White Oak and Tulip-timber 

 which they possess. In Obion County alone there were in 1887 

 fifty-five saw-mills with a daily output of 1,000,000 feet of the 

 latter. Tulip-trees from six to seven feet in diameter are not 

 rare ; no state has yet a greater quantity of Black Walnut ; ex- 

 cellent Hickory abounds ; Blue and White Ash, scarce along 

 the high-roads of communication, are yet found in considera- 

 ble quantities in the remoter districts. In the lowlands along 

 the Mississippi River Red Gum, Tupelo Gum, Cottonwood and 

 Cypress prevail. Nashville is the rival of Louisville as a hard- 

 wood timber market. The black walnut, cherry, ash, tulip, 

 elm and maple received in this market amounted to 30,000,000 

 feet, board measure, and the amount shipped in 1887 was 

 valued at $80,000,000. 



In the mountainous part of western North Carolina are 

 found virgin forests of the most valuable hard-wood timbers, 

 which have become accessible only during the last few years. 

 The table-lands between the Blue Ridge and the Smoky moun- 

 tains, and the basin of the Tennessee River, bear a heavy and 

 diversified hard-wood timber growth so far but little drawn 

 upon. In the Atlantic states further south and in the Gulf re- 

 gion the hard-wood growth is confined chiefly to the higher 

 levels section ; with the swamp White Oak, Red or Sweet 

 Gum, Mockernut Hickory, Tulip, Cucumber-trees, some 

 White Ash, Red Ash, Spanish Oak and Shell-bark Hick- 

 ory in the lower valleys ; and Mountain or Tan-bark Oak, 

 Chestnut and Post Oak on the ridges and table-lands of great- 

 est elevation. Black Walnut is found scattered in the dis- 

 tricts least difficult of access. In Alabama the hard-wood 

 timber trees are most frequent in the eastern half of the Ten- 

 nessee valley, in the wide rivers and the intricate valleys 

 which separate the detached outliers of the Cumberland 

 Mountains, where Tulip-trees of fine growth form the larger 

 proportion, with White Oak, Elm, Willow Oak and Shell-bark 

 Hickory. The timber has been largely cut along the railroad 

 lines intersecting these parts of the state, and of late years a 

 number of smaller establishments, manufacturing wagon- 

 stock and cooperage-stuff in the rough, have been erected in 

 northern Alabama. 



The largest body of hard-wood timber in the Mississipjii 

 valley, if not the largest in this country, is found in the per- 

 petually damp lowlands between the Yazoo and Mississippi 

 rivers, the unbroken forest covering over 6,000 square miles, 

 unsurpassed in the density of its growth and the great devel- 

 opment of the trees which are of economic importance. Here 

 the swamp White Oak, the Spanish Oak, Red Oak, Sweet or 

 Red Gum, Honey Locust, Cottonwood and Sassafras are found 

 in the greatest perfection. In the water-covered depressions, 

 forming shallow lakes, the mighty Cypress rises in the fullness 

 of its development above all other monarchs of the forest. 

 The forests of Arkansas, on the Mississippi and in the valley 

 of the St. Francis and White rivers, with a timber-wealth sim- 

 ilar in kind and development to that found on the opposite 

 side of the Mississippi, extend over more than 2,000,000 acres. 

 In the valleys of a higher level in the same state vast quanti- 

 ties of the ridge or upland White Oak and considerable quan- 

 tities of Black Walnut yet remain almost intact. In similar 

 situations in northern Louisiana and in the uplands of that state 

 and of eastern Texas the forests, together with their growth 

 of conifers, harbor bodies of fine White Oak, IMagnolias 

 and White Bay, with some of the other hard-wood timber 

 spoken of. 



Immense as the supplies of haiti wood in tiie southern 

 states must appear, there can be little doubt that their deple- 

 tion will be effected in a period of time scarcely exccetling in 

 length that which witnessed the disappearance of the similar 

 resources once to be found in the north. The timber-laiuls in 

 the states south of the Ohio River comprise 211,375,000 acres, 

 or forty-one per cent, of the forest-area of the United States. 

 The number of saw-mills in that territory has increased a 



