462 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 298. 



be dear to them, it is this little Pennsylvania farm-house, 

 which was the home of the author of the tirst American 

 book ever written about our trees ; and no trees planted in 

 America are so worthy of veneration and care as these 

 which were planted by his hands. Marshallton is the 

 Mecca which will attract the steps of every student and 

 lover of our trees, and Humphrey Marshall's house and 

 arboretum should be preserved for all time in memory of a 

 pioneer of American science. 



In his native state a movement has been successfully 

 inaugurated which looks to the better care and manage- 

 ment of its forests ; in no other state of the Union is there 

 such an energetic and well-directed forestry association, and 

 no other organization of the kind in this country is doing 

 such useful work. It might well add to its equipment for 

 the education of the people the Marshall Aboretum as the 

 best possible monument to the memory of a leader in the 

 work they are carrying forward. 



The undertaking is certainly not a serious one, and the 

 cost in proportion to the good that could be accomplished 

 in this way probably would not be large ; and outside of 

 Pennsylvania are many men and women who would be 

 glad to contribute something toward securing a spot of 

 unusual historical interest and educational significance. 

 All that is needed is some one to take the initiative, and no 

 individual or association of individuals is so well organ- 

 ized for this task as the Pennsylvania Forestry Association. 



Now that the Columbian Exposition has been formally 

 closed, it may be that the privilege of taking photographs 

 in Jackson Park is no longer confined to the single firm 

 which has held this monopoly. If this is true, it is to 

 be hoped that every one who can get into the Fair 

 Grounds with a camera will now take as many views as 

 possible of this wonderful creation. The frost ht^s, no 

 doubt, killed the tender vegetation, and the plantations 

 will all be past their prime. But it will be worth while to 

 secure pictures of what is left before the bright vision en- 

 tirely vanishes. It may be, however, that the owners of 

 this concession still control the matter, and will permit no 

 one to take a view, even of the ruins of the Fair, without 

 paying an exorbitant price for the opportunity The admin- 

 istration of the Fair was generally so admirable that one can 

 hardly imagine how such an evident mistake as the selling 

 of this photograph privilege was ever committed. In the 

 first place, the management could have realized a much 

 larger amount of money by charging directly a reasonable 

 sum for the admission of cameras. Photographers from 

 all parts of the country and from Europe would have taken 

 views by the ten thousand early in thehistory of the Fair, and 

 their distribution would have been the cheapest and best 

 advertisement which could have been devised to attract 

 visitors. But, most of all, it was due to the country and to 

 the world, that not a single feature of this dream of beauty 

 should be lost. The monopoly has devoted itself largely to 

 depicting architectural details, bits of cornices and statues, 

 which are all well enough in their place, but the horticul- 

 tural features and general views, which give the feeling of 

 the work in its comprehensiveness and unity, have been 

 sadly slighted. It is an irreparable loss that, by some short- 

 sighted policy the gates were shut against photography in 

 the one spot of all the world when it could have been 

 most useful in the year 1893. This exclusion did violence 

 to sound business sense, to patriotic pride, to ordinary 

 respect for high artistic achievement. A thousand lenses 

 should always have been ready to catch every changing 

 phase of the spectacle from every view-point in sunshine 

 and in shadow as the months passed on. Much of the 

 transient splendor of the scene would have been inevitably 

 lost, even with the most determined effort to arrest and hold 

 it for future study and delight; but the deliberate decree 

 to limit the possibilities of preserving the pageant in its 

 varied beauty was a misfortune which will be felt more 

 and more as the memories of it grow dim. 



The Work of American Experiment Stations. 



THE occasional expressions of dissatisfaction with the 

 work of our experiment stations, one of which ap- 

 pears editorially in Garden and Forest for September 15th, 

 deserve careful consideration in justice to the system. The 

 organization of the American stations is undoubtedly much 

 better calculated to bring about unity of action and parallel 

 work than is the case in the German stations, so many of 

 which depend for their existence upon the good-will of lo- 

 cal societies or communities, to the demands of which they 

 must defer. While this condition is one that may seem at 

 first thought an undesirable handicapping, I believe that 

 it has been largely instrumental in bringing about the 

 high usefulness and the esteem in which these stations are 

 held by the agricultural population. I think, in fact, that 

 not only is this regard for the local (state) agricultural 

 populations a legitimate function, but one of the chief con- 

 ditions and reasons of their existence in this country at this 

 time. The discussions had in Congress before the enact- 

 ment of the Hatch bill show clearly that the usefulness of 

 the stations to the population, and not merely the develop- 

 ment of agricultural science as such, was the argument that 

 carried the bill. It is quite natural, then, that failure to ful- 

 fill these expectations should lead to unfavorable criticism, 

 which may in the end involve serious danger to the sys- 

 tem. That, to a great extent, such expectations were, and 

 are, unreasonable, and incapable of fulfillment under the 

 circumstances, and within the time-limit of the existence of 

 the stations, is quite true ; but this furnishes reason for en- 

 listing the interest of the farmers most actively in behalf of 

 the station work. 



It has been persistently alleged that such a policy would 

 be unscientific and beneath the dignity of the stations. To 

 this I demur. We are very far, in this new country, from 

 being in possession of even any considerable portion of the 

 facts bearing upon the success or failure of agriculture in 

 the several portions of our immense domain. Over a very 

 large portion of this area, the questions that confront the 

 farmer, and, therefore, the problems that should be solved 

 for him by the experiment stations, are wholly dissimilar 

 from those that form the legitimate subject of investigation 

 in the Old World. The farmers' successes and failures are 

 largely due to causes entirely different from those to which 

 corresponding phenomena may reasonably be attributed in 

 the Old World, where centuries of experience have estab- 

 lished both general and local rules that have advantage- 

 ously stood in place of scientific guidance before there was 

 a science of agriculture. The station workers should, above 

 all things, make themselves acquainted with the difficulties 

 actually encountered by farmers, both by inviting their 

 correspondence, and by personal exploration so far as 

 means will permit. To do this will disarm criticism, espe- 

 cially if the problems presented are then taken hold of by 

 the stations in good faith, and with deference to the facts as 

 they find them. In my personal experience I have learned 

 to respect greatly the acumen and good sense with which 

 farmers, as a rule, observe the facts in their experience ; 

 and while they frequently interpret them wrongly as to 

 cause and effect, yet this need not confuse the (presumably) 

 trained observers at the stations. Nor is it true that the 

 gathering together of these facts and queries is a merely 

 perfunctory amassing of crude material. It will be found, 

 on the contrary, a most fruitful source of suggestions for 

 purely scientfic investigation heretofore neglected, and new 

 scientific lights are gradually evolved as facts arrange them- 

 selves in connected and logical order. In this respect, our 

 station-men enjoy a great privilege as compared with their 

 European colleagues, if they will only recognize it and 

 make use of it. There is so much new, fresh matter within 

 easy grasp, that there is little occasion or excuse for per- 

 functory trials of newly named varieties of vegetables, or 

 for emulating the more recondite theoretical researches 

 which the European stations have both the leisure and the 

 opportunities for conducting successfully. 



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