July 19, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



301 



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, JULY 19, 1893. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— Algonquin Park 301 



Questions to be Answered by Candidates for Gardeners' Certificates. 302 



Gardening: at the World's Fair Mrs. J. H. Robbins. 302 



Notes on New Species of Mexican Trees C. G. Pringle. 303 



New or Little-known Plants :— Single-flowered Herbaceous Paeonies. (With 



figure.) • 3°4 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter i W. Watson. 304 



Cultural Department : — Spring Bulbs. — II W. E. Endicott. 306 



Hardy Primulas J- Woodward Manning. 307 



Carnations i n Summer T. D. H. ^a-j 



Strawberries in 1803 E. P. Po^vell. 307 



Peas, Strawberries T. D. H. 308 



Correspondence : — The Orange in Northern California Timothy Holmes. 308 



Japanese Irises at Short Hills, New Jersey G. 308 



The Columbian Exposition : — Citrous Fruits Professor L. H. Bailey. 309 



Notes 3'° 



Illustration :— Paeonia albiflora. Fig. 46 305 



Algonquin Park. 



THE great forests of Canada have for years been suf- 

 fering as much from fires and from reckless cutting 

 as have the wooded regions of our own country, and this 

 fact the thoughtful people of the Dominion have, fortu- 

 nately, begun to realize. The public desire to interpose 

 some check to the pitiless attack upon the woods, and to 

 save a portion of what remains in its primeval condition, 

 took form a few years ago in a project for establishing 

 in the Province of Ontario a forest-reservation and national 

 park, and commissioners to make inquiry concerning the 

 matter were appointed in the spring of 1892. This com- 

 mission, of which Mr. Alexander Kirkwood was the chair- 

 man, made a report last March, and the bill prepared at 

 their suggestion has since then been enacted as a law un- 

 der the title of "An Act to Establish the Algonquin National 

 Park of Ontario." Under this act a tract of land Ih the 

 northern part of the province, some forty miles long and 

 thirty-six miles wide, has been set apart " as a public park, 

 forest-reservation, fish and game preserve, health-resort 

 and pleasure-ground for the benefit, advantage and enjoy- 

 ment of the Province of Ontario," and the Lieutenant-Gov- 

 ernor in council is empowered to add to the park any 

 adjoining townships or parts of townships in which no 

 lands have been heretofore granted. Our experience in the 

 case of the Adirondack forest and elsewhere shows the dif- 

 ficulty in setting apart any considerable part of the public 

 domain when it includes scattered areas which have be- 

 come the property of private individuals. Fortunately, 

 although some of the timber included in Ontario's new park 

 had been disposed of, the Crown continued to hold the title 

 to the land itself, so that no vested interests stood in the 

 way of securing complete possession. It is fortunate, too, 

 that under the laws of Ontario the park could be placed 

 directly under the control of the Department of Crown 

 Lands, and that the Governor in council was authorized to 

 make all needed regulations for the maintenance and man- 



agement of the park, so that it was not necessary in the be- 

 ginning to formulate any elaborate code of administration. 

 The commission, too, seems to have been singularly fortu- 

 nate in that they were able to secure so large a tract and one 

 which is shown by the report to be in so many ways suit- 

 able for the purpose it was to serve. 



The site itself is an elevated area, containing but little 

 soil fit for cultivation, with few high hills, but many suc- 

 cessive ridges of Laurentian rock alternating with valleys 

 and marshes. It lies on the summit which divides the 

 waters flowing toward the Georgian Bay from those which 

 flow into the Ottawa River, and rising to a height of 1,300 

 or 1,400 feet above the sea-level. There is probably not 

 elsewhere in the Province a tract which, within the same 

 small space, gives rise to so many important streams, and 

 the commissioners do well, therefore, to note that one of 

 the most important functions of the reservation will be that 

 of maintaining and regulating the water-supply of these 

 streams. The park itself contains large volumes of water 

 in lakes, rivers, brooks and ponds, the entire water-surface 

 covering about 166 square miles, while the area of theland 

 is 1,300 square miles. Fortunately, the forest-cover of this 

 region is practically unimpaired, so that it will not be diffi- 

 cult to preserve in their original condition these elevated 

 lakes and the streams which run under overarching woods. 



The park is a place of singular beauty. The clearing of 

 land for agricultural use, the cutting awa}^ of the timber for 

 lumber, with the added ravages of fire, have almost effaced 

 throughout the older settled parts of Ontario, as well as of 

 the United States, the memory of the beautiful woodland 

 scenery which once prevailed all over the land; and while 

 the preservation of forests in their original state is 

 advisable for economic reasons, it certainly is also worth 

 while to preserve somewhere a remnant of country 

 in its original condition, so that the native and untamed 

 beauty offorest, lake and river may be enjoyed forever. Some 

 kinds of trees, once common in Ontario, are becoming 

 scarce ; wild flowers and undershrubs, which diversified the 

 primeval forests, are now almost forgotten where they once 

 abounded, and the perpetuation, therefore, of a large district 

 in its original sylvan conditions will afford a keen pleasure 

 to the visitor as well as a field of study to the student, 

 while for all it will preserve pleasing memories of the past. 



Game, fur-bearing animals and some kinds of birds, 

 once abundant throughout Ontario, are becoming scarce. 

 Not many years ago the moose, the monarch of the Ca- 

 nadian woods, browsed in the proposed reservation, herds 

 of red deer grazed in every meadow, the beaver built his 

 dam on every stream, and the bear, mink, otter and martin 

 were common. The great game has been pursued with 

 the same ferocity which has practically exterminated the 

 buffalo on our own plains. In the spring of 1887 there 

 were found in the district now set apart as a park for the 

 Province the carcasses of no less than sixty moose, which 

 had been killed for their skins alone. Surely it is wise to 

 fence in one spot in Ontario where these innocent tenants of 

 forest and stream can be saved from the cruelty and greed 

 which pursues them to the point of extermination, and 

 where they can rear their young in safety. 



Here, too, as the commission well points out, is a fair 

 field for experiments in systematic forestry on a limited 

 scale. Forest fires and the operations of lumbermen have 

 diminished the quantity of pine still standing, but exten- 

 sive areas within the park limits are still well stocked with 

 this valuable wood, and hardwood trees grow in great 

 abundance in groves or mixed with Pine. Besides White 

 and Red Pines, Hemlock, Tamarack, Balsam and Cedar, 

 there is an abundance of Black Birch, with Maple, Beech, 

 Iron-wood, Ash and Bass-wood. This variety of trees 

 will furnish opportunities for experiments in every de- 

 partment of forest-culture. 



Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that so large a reserva- 

 tion will have a growing importance as a sanitarium. Its 

 height above the sea-level, its succession of hill and 

 valley, lake and river, its groves of Balsam and Cedar 



