March 8, 1893. J 



Garden and Forest. 



109 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by • • • • . Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 1893. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles: — Report of the New Hampshire Forestry Commission. .. . log 



A Bill Relative to a Forestry Commission in Pennsylvania no 



The Treatment of Waste Lands in the Low Countries. — I no 



Notes on the Forest Flora of Japan. — VIL (With figure.) C. S. S. in 



Foreign Correspondence ;— London Letter IV. Watson. 112 



Cultural Department: — Lily Culture in Pots y. Dotiglas. 114 



Garden Notes J.N.G. 115 



Window and Greenhouse Plants Joseph Meehan, M. Barker. 115 



Correspondence: — The Protection of Road-sides.. Ar?-.s-. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. 115 



Vaccinium ovatum as a Hedge-plant T. H. Douglas. 116 



The Common Names of Plants C. J. S. wd 



Annuals for Cut Flowers . F. M.G. 116 



New Cypripediams Joseph Manda, Jr. 117 



Flowers in Winter A. M. Loit. nj 



Recent Publications 117 



Notes 118 



Illustration : — Tilia Miqueliana, Fig. 19 , 113 



Report of the New Hampshire Forestry Commission. 



THE second report of the New Hampshire Forestry 

 Commission analyzes the condition of the White 

 Mountain region in relation to its timber-supply, the flow 

 of water-power rivers which rise in it, and the commercial 

 value of the scenery. The coinmissioners declare that the 

 necessity of destroying the forests which cover the White 

 Mountains does not exist, and has never existed; they 

 show that the timber can be cut when it is of the greatest 

 value in such a way that the growth of another crop of 

 trees need not be endangered, and that the integrity of the 

 forest over the whole territory can, with the application of 

 scientihc forest-methods, be perpetuated forever. 



The adoption of such methods a quarter of a century ago 

 would have preserved the beauty of the scenery for which 

 this region is famed; the lumbermen would have made, 

 in the long run, more money than they ever have made, 

 and the full-fed rivers would have rolled to the ocean ever- 

 lastingly with undiminished flow. Rational and practical 

 methods, however, have not been followed in New Hamp- 

 shire any more than they have in other parts of the coun- 

 try. Unwise methods of cutting the timber and the 

 degradation of the soil of the forest-floor after the trees 

 have been cut have reduced the capacity of the region, as 

 a whole, to produce timber. In some portions of the White 

 Mountain territory the forest-conditions are said to have 

 been permanently ruined by the destruction and removal 

 of the forest-floor itself. The soil has been burnt out and 

 swept away down to the inner rocks, leaving bare slopes 

 upon which trees can never grow again for lumber or for 

 any other use. Over some areas the beauty, attractiveness 

 and value of the unequaled White Mountain scenery, every 

 acre of which is needed for the summer playground of the 

 urban population of the United States, has been entirely 

 blotted out, and this extinction of sylvan beauty and of its 

 commercial value is permanent. 



The destruction of the forests, too, has reduced the 

 capacity of the White Mountain region as a natural storage 

 reservoir for the retention and distribution of water. How 

 great the damage to the water-storage capacity of the re- 

 gion really is can only be surmised, as the flow of all the 

 rivers was not measured before the removal of the covering 

 of the mountain-slopes was begun ; and numerous dams 

 and artificial reservoirs constructed on the upper portions of 

 the New Hampshire rivers would naturally prevent the first 

 effects of the destruction of forest-conditions on the moun- 

 tains from being recognized. Artificial reservoirs would 

 hold back the water in times of flood, and would thus 

 equalize the flow of streams in periods of drought. But 

 artificial reservoirs cannot be used safely on a large scale 

 as substitutes for Nature's great storage reservoir— the 

 mountain forest. When the mountain forest is destroyed 

 artificial reservoirs on the streams below are gradually 

 filled up by soil, sand and gravel washed down from the 

 hills. 



Men and women, unless they have devoted special 

 thought to the subject, do not recognize these dangers, be- 

 cause the evil results growing out of the mismanagement 

 of the forest are developed slowly and gradually. The 

 people who make the mistakes do not usually live to see 

 their full consequences unfolded. They live and die, think- 

 ing they have done no mischief and wrought no change ; 

 then when another generation begins to feel the ruinous 

 effects of the policy of their ancestors, it is too late for 

 action of any kind. History abounds with such lessons, 

 but the people who need them usually give little heed to 

 such warnings. 



The report wisely calls attention to an abuse of the 

 mountain streams of the state, already revealed in its effects 

 in a striking degree. The choking and befouling of the 

 rivers with sawdust and saw-mill refuse is ruining some of 

 the most attractive features of the mountain scenery and 

 destroying the fishermen's interest in the region. This 

 abuse of the streams menaces also, and in a serious 

 manner, the health of the people Hving on their banks. 

 The commissioners insist that if this policy is continued it 

 will, in time, result in filling up and destroying the reser- 

 voirs which have been constructed along the upper por- 

 tions of the mountain rivers. 



The commission recommends the establishment of a 

 permanent forestry commission, to consist of the Governor, 

 ex-officio, and four other persons specially fitted for the work, 

 to be selected in equal numbers from the leading political 

 parties of the state, who shall be appointed by the Gov- 

 ernor, with the advice of the council, and so commissioned 

 that the office of one shall become vacant each year ; and 

 that the selectmen of the several towns in the state be con- 

 stituted fire-wardens by their several towns, whose duty it 

 shall be to watch the woods, and whenever a fire is ob- 

 served therein to summon such assistance as they may 

 deem necessary, go at once to the scene, and, if possible, 

 extinguish it before it has made such progress as to be 

 irresistible. In regions where no town organizations exist 

 the county commissioners are to be empowered to appoint 

 the fire-wardens and to pay for their services for the time 

 actually employed in their duties, the money to be repaid 

 by the towns in which such fires occur, and, in the absence 

 of town organizations, by the county. 



At this Meriting it is doubtful if the legislature of New 

 Hampshire adopts the recommendations of the commis- 

 sion. _ The forest-property of the northern part of the state 

 is chiefly in the hands of powerful corporations, who have 

 purchased it for the purpose of converting the trees into 

 money in the most rapid manner possible. They appear 

 indifferent to the future of this region, and the appeals of 

 those persons who realize that the future wealth and pros- 

 perity of the state is to be largely dependent upon its at- 

 tractiveness to summer visitors, do not make much real 

 headway in the community, owing, no doubt, to the fact that 

 this report, like many publications of its class, -while it 

 points out and explains in a clear and forcible manner the 



