August 23, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



351 



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, AUGUST 23, 1893. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article: — The Care of the National Forest-reservations 351 



The American Ginseng 352 



Economy in Decoration. (With figure.) 352 



Horticulture in Belgium Kew Bulletin. zSZ 



Cultural Department : — Flowering Shrubs in Mid-August J. G. Jack. 354 



Summer Treatment of Carnations C. IV. Ward. 356 



Notes on Begonias J. N. Gerard. 356 



Rudbeckia purpurea John Saul. 357 



The Flower-garden y. N. G. 357 



Single Paeonies . . T.D.H. 357 



Correspondence : — The White Grub in Lawns E. B. A. 357 



Dutch Bulbs in America W. E. Endicott. 357 



Pbriodical Literature 358 



Thb Columbian Exposition: — The Fruit Curtains Professor L. H. Bailey. 358 



Meetings of Societies : — Convention of the Society of American Florists 359 



The Horticultural Congress at Chicago 359 



Notes 360 



Illustration : — A bunch of Meadow Flowers, Fig. 55 355 



The Care of the National Forest-reservations. 



CONGRESS has an important duty to perform in pro- 

 viding proper machinery for the administration and 

 protection of the great forest-reservations which the Pres- 

 ident of the United States has established in different west- 

 ern states and territories. These reservations aggregate 

 several milHons of acres ; they are covered with forests 

 which protect mountain-slopes and insure the continuous 

 flow of several important streams. They are valuable, too, 

 in a greater or less degree, as sources of timber-supply, and 

 it is clear the Government should protect them from the 

 injuries and possible destruction which threaten all our 

 western forests. 



These great reservations are now reservations only in 

 name. Proclamations from the President of the United 

 States prohibit the sale of the land to settlers, but leave 

 them without adequate protection. The shepherds of Cal- 

 ifornia still pasture their sheep within the boundaries of 

 national reservations ; fires are practically unchecked, and 

 men grow rich by selling timber cut from land dedicated 

 to public use. Under existing conditions this is inevitable. 

 Athousand square miles of broken forest-country, crossed by 

 numerous mountain-ranges, are difficult to guard, especially 

 when the guards are selected from the very population most 

 directly interested in the destruction of the forest. In those 

 rare instances, when the malefactors are brought to justice 

 they are sure to escape judgment at the hands of jurors 

 selected from among their friends and neighbors. In all 

 the western country the value of forest-property is not great 

 in popular estimation, and the conviction of trespass upon 

 such property is difficult to obtain. The problem of pro- 

 tection presents many serious obstacles, but, unless they 

 can be overcome, it would be better for the Government to 

 restore these lands to sale and entry than to continue to 

 hold them as reservations, which, by encouraging theft and 

 trespass, debauch public morality without effecting the 

 only purpose for which such reservations are useful. They 

 must be protected, as far as it is possible to do so, from fire, 

 the most active agent in forest-destruction ; they must be. 



guarded from browsing animals, which, for years, have 

 been sapping the life of some of the noblest forests of the 

 continent ; and they must be made to furnish the actual 

 inhabitants of the regions in which they are situated with 

 regular and abundant supplies of timber and fencing ma- 

 terial cut under proper restrictions and paid for at fair 

 prices. 



These results can be obtained, difficult as they now ap- 

 pear, if the reservations can be entirely removed from 

 politics ; this can probably only be done by transferring 

 their care from the control of the Secretary of the In- 

 terior to that of the Secretary of War. At the present time 

 there is no body or organization of men in the United States 

 but the army capable of dealing with problems of this mag- 

 nitude and difficulty ; and as it is the army which must 

 be called on to furnish protection whenever the danger 

 becomes imminent, it is only right that the Secretary 

 of War should determine in what manner and to what 

 extent this protection should be afforded. The agents 

 of the Department of the Interior have neither the ability nor 

 training nor the organization needed for the task ; they are 

 usually selected from among the inhabitants of regions 

 adjacent to the property entrusted to their care ; their local 

 sympathies are with the trespassers, and, even with a sin- 

 cere desire to perform their duties, their lack of organiza- 

 tion makes them powerless. Once in the hands of the 

 Secretary of War, a system of protection would not be 

 difficult to organize. Well-educated army officers we have 

 already in abundance, and their commands might be re- 

 cruited for this special service from among men who are 

 accustomed to a forest-life, and who, if they were brought 

 from other parts of the country, would not be influenced 

 by local sympathies. The effectiveness of such a corps of 

 forest-rangers would be, of course, greatly increased if 

 some primary instruction in forestry could be added to the 

 curriculum of the Academy at West Point. Fixed ideas upon 

 the value of forests and upon forest-protection would in- 

 crease the value of the service. A technical forest-educa- 

 tion, in the German or French sense, would not be required ; 

 the time for that has not come yet in the United States. 

 The existing timber-supply of the country is still so great 

 that it will not pay now to expend the labor in rearing 

 forests which in many other lands returns handsome profits 

 upon the outlay. But the officer who is to protect one of 

 our national reservations should be able to teach his subor- 

 dinates why browsing animals injure the forest, why cer- 

 tain trees should be cut and why others should be left 

 standing ; he should know something of the qualities of 

 the different species of trees in order to be able to protect 

 advantageously the most valuable at the expense of the 

 least desirable varieties. Such a knowledge, too, is impor- 

 tant because it brings with it enthusiasm and real interest 

 in the work of forest-protection which might otherwise be 

 looked upon as a meaningless and dreary task. 



The value of the army in protecting our forests has 

 already been demonstrated. For a number of years a 

 small squad of cavalry has preserved order and protected 

 property in the Yellowstone National Park ; in California 

 the army has performed similar service in different reserva- 

 tions, although the smallness of the available force and 

 some conflict of authority between the departments has 

 curtailed its usefulness there. A handful of soldiers 

 is worth a hundred civilians for such work, for the pres- 

 ence of the uniform inspires a respect which is felt far 

 beyond the limits of the region actually patrolled. A com- 

 pany of picked men, well officered and well mounted, would 

 be sufficient to guard the largest of our reservations from 

 the inroads of shepherds and unauthorized timber-cutters, 

 and would be able to diminish the number and ravages of 

 forest-fires. 



The transfer of the reservations from one department of 

 the Government to another, the addition of some simple 

 instruction in forestry to the West Point curriculum, and 

 the enlistment of a special corps of forest-guardians to be 

 commanded by officers of the army, seem to afford a cheap. 



