April 5, iBg^.] 



Garden and Forest. 



tS9 



and Niagara groups are equally favorable to plant-growth. In 

 the common sense of the term, central and eastern Kentucky 

 and Tennessee may be said to be well wooded, but in a com- 

 mercial sense, that is, as having an abundance of trees at least 

 sixteen inclies indiameter and forty feet to the first limb, so as 

 to furnish logs for a good stationary saw-mill, the statement is 

 not correct. Tiie statement as to Obion County, in western 

 Tennessee, founded on data taken in 1877, is now no longer 

 applicable. Fifteen years ago that county was probably the 

 most luxuriantly wooded county of the state, but the great saw- 

 mills of Boyle, Stewart and Mengel have done their work, and 

 one of them has succeeded so thoroughly that the supply has 

 beentotally exhausted and the plant dismantled and transferred 

 to the Sunflower River country. The Patterson tract, as it is 

 called, containing 3,000 acres of fine forest, is the largest body 

 of timber-land yet untouched in western Tennessee, and its 

 value is indicated by the fact that $40,000 was refused for it 

 three years ago. 



Another consideration which should be taken into account 

 when estimating the value of timber is its variation by changes 

 of climate. A prominent barrel-maker of Louisville told me 

 that Kentucky White Ash was not nearly as good as Ohio 

 White Ash and Indiana Oak for spirit-barrels, being too 

 porous. It is a well-known scientific fact that the develop- 

 ment of lignin is hindered and that of cellulose favored by a 

 hot, moist climate. So, faking an extreme case, the Beech, 

 which reaches its best development in the Ohio valley, 

 although growing to a great size along the bayous of Louisi- 

 ana, is yet so worthless that it is left to rot when cut down to 

 make the roads in getting out Cypress. The White Pine along 

 the French Broad River, in North Carolina, is far inferior to 

 that on the flat plains of the Michigan peninsula, and the Calico 

 Ash of the Yazoo delta is less strong and much more given to 

 shrinking and warping than that grown farther north and on 

 higher ground. Instances might be multiplied indefinitely, 

 but these are sufficient. Mere mechanical tests for transverse 

 strain or torsion are by no means adequate. The whole 

 physiology of plant-growth is involved, and an investigation 

 on this line has scarcely yet been attempted. When it is com- 

 pleted the result will add another and yet stronger argument 

 to those already known, in favor of the preservation of our 



Chicago, 111. Henry L. Tolman. 



The Edelweiss. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — Will you inform me if the Edelweiss, of which your 

 Swiss correspondent speaks so slightingly, can be raised in this 

 latitude ? Even if it is true that a perfect imitation of the plant 

 can be* fashioned out of white flannel I should like to have a 

 genuine specimen if possible. 



Boston, Mass. ■^. G. 



[Edelweiss is not a difficult plant to grow here, and requires 

 no special care except with regard to water, since excessive 

 moisture will injure it, as it will all down-covered plants. 

 Most of the dealers who advertise hardy herbaceous plants 

 in Garden and Forest can furnish plants of Edelweiss, and 

 seed can be procured of all the leading seedsmen. It is 

 sometimes found in catalogues under the name of Gnapha- 

 lium, which was its botanical narne before the genus Leon- 

 topodium was established. — Ed.] 



A Country-seat in California. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — In riding down the peninsula, on the northern end of 

 which San Francisco is situated, the strong prevailing winds 

 are distinctly indicated by the uniformly southerly lean of all 

 the trees. In and around the city good specimens of trees are 

 not often seen. The Australian Blue Gum is the most com- 

 mon, and is stately when grown naturally, but these specimens, 

 dingy from fog and smoke and annually sheared, are far from 

 beautiful; the same must be said of the Monterey Cypresses, 

 Araucarias and other common trees. The indigenous trees 

 have neither the stature nor symmetry to command admira- 

 tion, and are, in fact, scrubby. Continuing down the peninsula 

 on the bay side trees become larger and finer, until, when 

 Menlo Park and Palo Alto, the site of the Stanford University, 

 are reached, there are many really beautiful native Oaks and 

 Laurels and very many fine cultivated trees. 



In this vicinity are the finest country-seats in northern Cali- 

 fornia, for within a few miles most of the wealthiest cifizens of 



San Francisco have their country homes. On this stretch, lying 

 between the bay and the ocean, frosts are light and not fre- 

 quent, and the summer heat is not excessive. With good soil 

 and beautiful natural surroundings it has not required much 

 art to create beautiful home scenes. Among these, Sherwood 

 Hall, the home of Mr. Timothy Hopkins, is, perhaps, the most 

 beautiful, and certainly the best known. Its great fields of 

 Sweet Peas and beds of Violets under the Live Oaks liave made 

 its name familiar throughout the country. Sherwood Hall was 

 the country-seat of Moses Hopkins, one of the four builders of 

 the Central Pacific Railway, and in a grove of about fifty acres 

 of native trees he built a beautiful house. Good judgment was 

 shown in sparing the native trees and in planting others that 

 now seem a part of the original woodlands. The native Oaks 

 are the White Oak (Q. lobata) and the Live Black Oak (Q. acri- 

 folia), a low, dense, round-headed evergreen, very charming 

 and well grown. The Laurel and Buckeye were also native 

 and I saw as fine young specimens of Pinus insignis, Douglas 

 Spruce and other conifers as I have ever seen. These have 

 been planted since the place was started. An Araucaria Bid- 

 welli in front of the mansion, a perfect specimen, fully thirty 

 feet high, is famous as the best tree of its kind in California. 



Several of the California Fan Palms on the lawn are admira- 

 ble, though not as large as the old trees of southern California, 

 their native home. The largest are about thirty feet high, the 

 upper half draped by the pendulous old leaves, which are'per- 

 sistent, as in Pritchardia filifera. There are very large speci- 

 mens of Chamserops excelsa and superb specimens of Dracsna 

 australis and Erythraeas. These, with other Palms which are 

 hardy here, give quite a tropical look to the lawn and grounds. 



The middle of February is not the best time for a visit to 

 Sherwood Hall, especially in this cold year. But here under 

 the Live Oaks, looking exactly like the familiar pictures, the 

 great beds of Violets were full of flowers, and filled theairwith 

 fragrance. A half-dozen men were busy picking them. These 

 field-flowers are sent to the San Francisco market, as are 

 great quantities of Roses and other flowers from the large 

 greenhouses. Sweet Peas and Chrysanthemums are grown in 

 large quantities. In bequeathing this place to his nephew, 

 Moses Hopkins failed to include a sum for its maintenance] 

 and the younger Mr. Hopkins went into the sale of cut flowers] 

 in which he made a signal success. The Sherwood Hall Nur- 

 sery Company last year succeeded to the business. In addition 

 to cut flowers, this company has more than fifty acres planted 

 in flowers for seed. 

 Ukiah, Calif. Carl Purdy. 



Recent Publications. 



Fertilizer Farming. By Herbert W. Collingwood. Rural 

 Publishing Company. 



This is a pamphlet of some thirty pages, which is written to 

 demonstrate that under certain condifions thin and poor lands 

 can be brought up into proper condition by the use of chemi- 

 cal ferfilizers, without any addition of barn-yard manure. The 

 examples are striking and are drawn chiefly from market- 

 farms on Long Island. In some cases it is shown that truck- 

 farms, which had been profitably cultivated for generations, 

 while they were annually enriched with the waste from Brook- 

 lyn and New York, together with tons of fish, have in later 

 years produced, with commercial fertilizers alone, even larger 

 crops than they yielded before, and at a great deal less ex- 

 pense. It might, in these instances, be argued that the car- 

 bonaceous matter left in the soil from the previous manuring 

 had some influence in the case. Other examples are given, 

 however, in which the land was a desert, with no soil what- 

 ever, and even these sand-barrens were made productive and 

 profitable by the abundant use of commercial fertilizers. Of 

 course, it is true that experience and skill on the part of the 

 grower and perfect system in every detail are needed to win 

 good crops from any soil, even with the aid of the costliest 

 and most effective fertilizers. It is true, also, that these re- 

 ported results canncft be repeated on lands not thoroughly 

 drained, or on lands which, although of greater natural fer- 

 tility, are so rugged that it is not possible to use the most im- 

 proved machinery in tillage and cultivation. There is little 

 need, however, to suggest caution in accepfing the rosv views 

 of what is possible to one who uses standard fertilizers" with a 

 liberal hand. Intense farming will hardly be undertaken by 

 men who grow standard field-crops like hay and wheat and sell 

 them for wholesale prices. It is the truck-farmer and the 

 market-gardener to whom these examples appeal most 

 strongly, and there is more danger that such persons will use 

 too little fertilizer than that they will use too much. In horti- 

 culture and in concentrated agriculture, as men come to know 



