212 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 273. 



All this requires attention and study, but it is study- 

 well directed, and study which no one who aims to make 

 the most of his opportunities can afford to neglect. After 

 mid-August the stirring of the soil about many trees should 

 cease, for this may encourage a late sappy growth, which 

 will not be properly matured when winter sets in. Later 

 on, the mulch should be examined, and anything which is 

 liable to harbor field-mice should be removed or exchanged, 

 and all through the winter the trunks should be guarded 

 against the teeth of these marauders. As the tree grows, 

 especially if it is on the street, its trunk should be guarded 

 against the gnawing of horses and other injuries, and su- 

 pervision against such dangers should be unremitting 

 throughout its entire life. Trees which have been planted 

 in large excavations which were tilled with good soil, will 

 usually make a good growth, but an occasional top-dress- 

 ing in the autumn over the roots with loam mixed with 

 well-decomposed manure will never fail to show a good 

 effect, and in the case of fruit-trees a dressing of some form 

 of potash and phosphoric acid is indispensable. In forests 

 the leaves which contain much mineral matter remain on 

 the surface to decompose to the permanent enrichment of 

 the land, but where all these are removed some food must 

 be supplied to take their place if the greatest vigor and 

 beauty are expected. Any one who examines a tree which 

 stands in deep rich bottom-land, and then compares it with 

 another of the same kind which has struggled along on a 

 hungry ridge of gravel, will see a striking difference. What 

 the planter wants is not something which bears the name 

 of a tree, but the best of its kind, a specimen thrifty and 

 strong and displaying all the luxuriance and beauty of 

 which its kind is capable. 



Two or three weeks ago we reviewed a paper by Mr. 

 Henry Gannett, in which he claims that our forests are 

 producing timber much faster than we use it ; that the 

 woodland is steadily spreading over the farm-land, and 

 that a wise economy dictates the burning of more wood to 

 save our coal and the use of more timber in construction 

 to save our iron ore. Mr. Gannett reached his conclusion 

 by adding up some more or less untrustworthy estimates 

 of the wooded area of various parts of the country, which 

 brought the sum total to considerably more than 700,000,000 

 acres. He then assumed the annual wood product of an 

 average acre to be forty cubic feet, and arrived at his 

 statistics by a simple multiplication. 



Unfortunately there are no reliable data to oppose to 

 anybody's guesses, and so the best that can be done is to 

 show that Mr. Gannett's guesses are worthless. His paper 

 came into the hands of Mr. B. E. Fernow, Chief of 

 the Division of Forestry, just as ^e was leaving the 

 country, and he wrote from the steamer a brief letter to the 

 Secretary of Agriculture, which has now been published. 

 In this letter it is stated that Mr. Gannett's estimate of the 

 forest-area is probably more than two hundred million 

 acres too large, although in some former papers his es- 

 timate of the same area was thirty-three and one- 

 third per cent, higher than it now is. It is shown, also, 

 that forty cubic feet of wood, that is, such wood as goes 

 to make up the timber and fuel used in the United States, 

 is absurdly large for the annual product of an acre. The 

 fact is, that the conjectures of Mr. Gannett are utterly without 

 value, except in so far as they excite discussion, and in 

 this way bring out the truth from other sources. 



New England Parks. 



PUTNAM'S WOLF-DEN, POMFRET, CONNECTICUT. 



AMONG the beautiful and historic places of New England 

 the site of Old Put's Wolf-den holds a prominent place, 

 and it is gratifying to learn that $5,000 has recently been appro- 

 priated by the State Legislature of Connecticut for its purchase. 

 The spot itself is picturesque in a marked degree, and its res- 

 cue is timely. Already the fine woods in its neighborhood are 

 falling before the axe, and only this prompt action will pre- 



vent the ruin of one of the most interesting sites in the state ; 

 for, once cut down, the forests would be slow to start again 

 upon that craggy hill-side, and the charm of the spot would be 

 destroyed. 



Tlie old town of Pomfret is situated among the hills of 

 Windham County, in the north-east corner of Connecticut, 

 where the country is so rolling that the distant villages are 

 often visible. to one another, each j)erched with its white spire 

 upon its own high hill and commanding an extended prospect. 

 The fine air, the beautiful sites for country-seats on the eleva- 

 tions, the extended views, make of the village a summer re- 

 sort whose attractions have long been recognized by New 

 York and Boston and Providence people. 



Deep valleys lie between the uplands. One of them is the 

 valley of the Quinebaug River, which winds its rushing way, 

 turning the wheels of many a great manufactory, until it 

 changes its name and merges itself into the Thames at Norwich 

 and New London, and bears our navies on its broad bosom. 

 But from the hills of Pomfret only a morning mist reveals the 

 course of the swift flowing little river which turns the mill- 

 wheels of the thriving town of Putnam, a borough composed 

 of pieces from four contiguous towns, and made important 

 by the railroads which centre there and by the cotton industry 

 which thrives along the brisk river. 



Pomfret itself is without a water view, except for a merry 

 brook here and there, but there is great beauty in the spacious 

 landscape viewed from its elevations. It lies about a thousand 

 feet above the level of the sea, and there is a dry and vigorous 

 quality in its keen air. The far-off horizons, the undulations 

 of the surface, the masses of woods, the soft sweeps of 

 hills crowned with country houses surrounded by smooth 

 lawns and tasteful groups of trees, and fertile fields stretching 

 away between the rises, give a fine sense of space and freedom 

 to the landscape. Until the presence of summer residents estab- 

 lished a colony upon the hill near the old meeting-house and 

 great boarding-houses arose, with all the appliances necessary 

 for the comfort and amusement of hundreds of visitors, there 

 was no clustered village, but only a long street, turning two 

 sharp corners toward the centre of the town, which was bor- 

 dered by widely separated old-fashioned houses, with farms 

 around and behind them. Outside of this, long, hilly roads 

 led, as they still do, to other scattered and distant farms, occu- 

 pied by the inhabitants, to whom they have descended by 

 inheritance through many generations, one straggling village 

 melting into another, until it is hard to tell where one ends and 

 another begins. A solitary country store, in which the post- 

 office is usually kept, has been from time imrqemorial the sole 

 mercantile establishment of the community. 



Israel Putnam was born in Pomfret, but the house he died 

 in is nOw in the adjoining town of Brooklyn, both houses sit- 

 uated nine miles or so from Pomfret church. Over these hilly 

 roads the General came, riding, many a time to see his old 

 friend, Ebenezer Cxrosvenor, whose son married his daughter 

 Eunice, for ten miles was not much of a circumstance in those 

 vigorous days, and the remote ends of Pomfret were on more 

 intimate visiting terms with each other than they are at present. 

 These Grosvenor houses, much improved and enlarged by 

 succeeding generations of occupants, are still standing on ad- 

 joining lots near the store, the one in which Eunice Putnam 

 ended her days being still the property of her granddaughter. 



The wolf-den which was the scene of that exploit of young 

 Putnam so dear to schoolboy hearts, and which was the first 

 illustrious deed of the gallant youth who was ultimately to be 

 the senior Major-General of the United States Army, is situated 

 on the eastern slope of a high and rocky hill overgrown with 

 ancient Chestnuts which rises in the southern extremity of 

 Pomfret. The climb to it by one road is long and steep, but 

 there is a more level approach to it from another direc- 

 tion. Both approaches lead through sparsely settled regions, 

 and the entrance to the field is merely a break in the line of 

 tumbling down stone-fence, where some bars indicate a cart- 

 path. Leaving his carriage outside, for the ground within is 

 uncomfortably broken and rocky, the visitor strolls along a 

 rough wood road till the path narrows and grows steep and 

 slippery as it descends the sharp incline upon the eastern face 

 of the hill. Here on every hand are mighty boulders of 

 strange shapes, many of them pointed like the prows of ships, 

 with summits overhanging their base, others tumbled in wild 

 confusion over the surface of the ground. In autumn, 

 through the naked branches, you see the blue valley below 

 and catch a glimpse of the opposite hill beyond it. The sound 

 of the distant wood-cutter's axe rings through the still air, but 

 no other murmur of life is audible. The stones are gray and 

 mossy with age ; the trees are of primifive growth, not of great 

 girth, for the rocky surface from which they spring affords 



