no 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 263. 



dangers of the situation, does not present a good practical 

 plan for meeting them. People are slow to believe, 

 especially if their immediate interests point in another 

 direction, that the White Mountains, without their forest- 

 covering, will attract less visitors than they do at present, 

 or that the streams upon which some of the most important 

 manufacturing interests of New England are dependent 

 will suffer from the destruction of these forests. 



The bill relative to a forestry commission, now being 

 considered by the Pennsylvania legislature, has been en- 

 dorsed by the State Board of Agriculture, the Academy of 

 Natural Science of Philadelphia, the Engineers' Club of 

 Philadelphia, the Commercial Exchange of the same city, 

 and by many other prominent and influential organizations. 

 It provides that the Governor shall appoint a commission 

 of two persons, one of whom is to be a competent engi- 

 neer and the other a botanist practically acquainted with 

 the forest-trees of the commonwealth. It shall be the duty 

 of the commission to examine and report upon the con- 

 dition of the important water-sheds of the state for the pur- 

 pose of determining how far the presence or absence of 

 the forest-covering may affect the water-supply, to report 

 upon the amount of standing timber in the state of com- 

 mercial value, and to devise a measure for securing a 

 supply of timber in the future. Two years are allowed 

 the commission to complete their labors, and the members 

 are each to receive a salary of $2,500 a year, with neces- 

 sary expenses. 



Professor Rothrock, the secretary of the Pennsylvania 

 Forestry Association, in an argument for the passage of 

 this bill, points out the fact that the destruction of timber 

 in the state of Pennsylvania is now vastly in ex'cess of its 

 annual production. "Taking the country at large," he 

 says, " we cut each year twice as much timber as is repro- 

 duced. What would be the rate of forest-destruction 

 fifteen years hence .? Where is the future supply to come 

 from ? But few rafts now come down the waters of the 

 Delaware. The vast forests about the head-waters of the 

 Lehigh are practically gone. The splendid white and 

 rock oak, which for so many years has reached the market 

 of the Juniata region, is almost exhausted, and even in the 

 lumbering regions of the West Branch, vast areas are de- 

 nuded of their most important trees. Forest-iires destroy 

 about two millions' worth of timber each year ; timber 

 thieves plunder and often escape unpunished ; cattle kill 

 the young shoots of the growing timber, and we are 

 practically making no effort to protect and renew the 

 forest-growth." 



The Treatment of Waste Lands in the Low 

 Countries. — L 



IT is one of the most instructive lessons for a new country to 

 examine the methods by which an old one has been made, 

 or the processes by which it has been developed into its ma- 

 turity, and the subject of the encroachment of sand upon the 

 arable lands and forests in the neighborhood of the low coasts 

 of New Jersey and Cape Cod has drawn attention to the neces- 

 sities of dealing with just such a problem in our own case, as 

 the inhabitants of the Netherlands have been struggling with 

 successfully for the last 500 years. It may therefore prove in- 

 teresting to consider some of the methods of the Dutch for the 

 cultivation of their own wastes of sand for our own instruction. 

 It is a common idea that the lands of Holland and Belgium 

 are universally rich, but it is quite otherwise. Their great pro- 

 ductiveness under good cultivation has given rise to this im- 

 pression. In fact, over one-half the entire area of Holland is 

 light drifting sand, and yet another extensive portion is cov- 

 ered by turf and heather wholly sterile in its natural condition ; 

 and the great lesson Dutch husbandry teaches to us and to 

 other countries is, how to make very poor land profitable, or 

 at least productive. These sandy lands are to be found all 

 along the shores just inside the little, ridge of hills which form 

 the coast, and are themselves a deposit of sand. They also lie 

 to the south and west of theZuyder Zee, sometimes in districts 

 of 40,000 or 50,000 acres. Nothing seems more hopeless than 

 the attempt to bring them under cultivation. They are deep 



and utterly leaky, so that after a week of rain they will be dry as 

 a desert, and yet the indefatigable industry of the Dutch suc- 

 ceeds in making them fairly productive. 



To do this, the land, which lies in little humps and inequali- 

 ties of surface, here and there diversified with patches of moss, 

 but often bare, is first reduced to a level by means of the 

 shovel, the aim always being to bring the patch to be culti- 

 vated below the surface of the surrounding land. Sometimes 

 such patches, containing many acres, are seen sunk several 

 feet below the level of the contiguous ground. This prevents 

 the struggling crop from being entirely covered with the drift- 

 ing sand, which blows about like snow. When circumstances 

 do not favor oue of these cellar-like excavations, the end sought 

 is obtained as nearly as may be by small fences of reed or 

 straw matting, run across the land at intervals, to form eddies 

 to gather the sand and prevent its sifting over the whole field. 



No more unpromising process of getting a crop can be im- 

 agined, yet the cultivator next strews in his manure in rows, 

 and on it drops his potatoes, and when the time comes he finds 

 they are worth digging, unless he wholly loses the trail in his 

 row. It is a singular fact that on these bottomless sands liquid- 

 manure, applied principally to the growing crops, produces 

 the best results, in spite of the rainy climate. The quality of 

 roots grown on this arid surface is excellent, particularly ot the 

 potato. 



Another way of treating thes-e sandy lands, and one more 

 beneficial in the long run, is to cover them with small planta- 

 tions ot trees. These, by careful tending, get a foothold, and 

 though growing but slowly, begin at length to shed their 

 leaves, which, after numerous weary years, finally form a mold, 

 which in its turn affords nutriment to the tree itself. The noble 

 forest at The Hague, containing several hundred acres of trees, 

 some of which must be four hundred years old, has sprung 

 from just such small beginnings. 



But the worst of these sea-sands is not their barrenness. 

 There are districts in which they are so abundant that they 

 menace the good soils adjoining by sweeping over them. 

 Here Government comes to the aid of the proprietors, and 

 helps to keep the sands at bay by making appropriations for 

 fighting them in the ways already referred to, and by covering 

 them with turf or heath. In some of the provinces the flying 

 sands have been fought systematically for 500 years by the cul- 

 tivators, and they fight them still, as the inhabitants of the Cape 

 Cod and Jersey shores will have to do. But for hard work and 

 poor returns, the most sterile portions of the northern United 

 States or the British Provinces cannot vie with these shores of 

 Holland. 



The cultivation of sandy soils of a better quality than these 

 is a very interesting study. Some of the inland sands of Hol- 

 land have setded into plains, or have been at some period the 

 beds of fresh-water lakes and ponds. These are often found 

 very productive, and sometimes possess peculiar qualities, 

 leading to the inference that no man can tell, except by expe- 

 rience, what crops any given piece of land is best adapted to 

 grow, or of what it is capable, thus pointing out to the culti- 

 vator the wisdom of never tiring of experiment with a view to 

 determining wherein the greatest value of his land consists. 



There are two well-marked districts in Holland, each con- 

 taining but a very limited quantity of sandy land, to be meas- 

 ured almost by hundreds of acres, hardly running into thou- 

 sands, in one of which is grown grapes, and in the other flow- 

 ers, in the greatest perfection. In one of these are produced 

 the world-renowned Hyacinths and Tulips of Haarlem, which 

 grow to unrivaled perfection, and which have become articles 

 of vast commerce in Europe and the most distant parts of the 

 world. The environs of this town in the spring are a garden 

 of fragrance and beauty. Though the soil in which this result is 

 produced does not appear to be different from that of other 

 localities in the region, yet the confinement of this profitable 

 culture to so limited a tract would seem to indicate that it pos- 

 sesses some peculiar virtue, for the bulbs when transplanted 

 to other parts of Holland, it is said, are apt to deteriorate. 



The other instance is that of a little district called the West- 

 lands, near The Hague, in which a large purple grape of great 

 repute is grown in perfection. The land here is covered by 

 brick walls about eight feet high, facing the south, and vary- 

 ing from 150 to 500 feet in length. They are built in an endur- 

 ing but cheap form, only a sing-le brick in thickness, supported 

 by hollow abutments about fifteen feet apart, standing in the 

 rear; on these the Grapes are trained. The Grape-lands are but 

 slightly manured, and the soil on which the fine fruit is grown, 

 when dry and rubbed in the hand, seems to be nothing but 

 pure fine sand slightly discolored. Yet it doubfless possesses 

 some peculiar virtue for the Grape, as the Haarlem soil does 

 for flowers, and as certain soils along the Rhine produce vin- 



