/ 



December 13, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



511 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducled by 



Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1893. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — The National Government and the National Forests 511 



Distribution of Seed by the Department of Agriculture 512 



Fences. — III 512 



Botanical Notes from Texas.— XIV E. N. Plank. 513 



New or Little-known Plants: — Chrysanthemum, Pitcher & Manda. (With 



figure.) .' 514 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter IV. IVatson. 514 



Cultural Department : — Sub-Irrigation Professor IV. R. Lazenby. 516 



A Neglected Vegetable T. Greiner. 516 



Late-Howering Chrysanthemums Sarah A. Hill, T. D. Hatfield. 517 



Protecting Plants in Winter F. H. Horsford. 518 



Correspondence : — Halesia vs. Mohria vel Mohrodendron, 



John H. Redfldd, Professor N. L. Britton. 518 



Farms and Forests on the Carolina Foot-hills Professor W. F. Massey. 518 



Orchids tor Market-flowers 5. 519 



Notes 520 



Illustration : — Chrysanthemum, Pitcher & Manda, Fig. 75 '.,... 515 



The National Government and the National Forests. 



IN his annual message the President of the United States 

 commends to the attention of Congress the statements 

 relating to forestry which are contained in the report of the 

 Secretary of the Interior, and he adds that "the time has 

 come when efficient measures should be taken for the 

 preservation of our forests from indiscriminate and remedi- 

 less destruction." The President might have said that this 

 time actually arrived many years ago ; and we should have 

 been pleased if he had considered the subject of sufficient 

 importance to warrant more than a perfunctory notice. 

 Turning to the report of Secretary Smith, we find that he 

 recommends legislation which may "lay the foundation 

 for a wnse and comprehensive forestr}^ system to be applied 

 to the timber on the public land and to the forest-reserva- 

 tions," and he ventures the opinion that "the creation of a 

 forestry commission, in connection with the Land Oltice, 

 looking toward the education and use in this work of men 

 thoroughly suited for it, is aheady needed." We agree with 

 the Secretary as to the urgent necessity of a commission of 

 forest-experts, although we are hardly sure that we fully 

 comprehend precisely what functions it is to fulfill in Mr. 

 Smith's scheme of forest-administration. 



Five years ago Garden and Forest proposed, in outline, a 

 policy which was: (i) To withhold from sale and entry 

 forest-lands on the national domain until a thorough ex- 

 amination had been made to show what timber tracts 

 could be put upon the market without injury to the coun- 

 try's highest interests. Meantime, in order to protect the 

 forest, it was advised (2) that the guardianship and defense 

 of the nation's forests should be entrusted to the army of 

 the nation until a sufficient number of adequately trained 

 and equipped foresters could be provided for the adminis- 

 tration of a permanent forest-policy. In connection with 

 this we urged (3) the appointment by the President of a 

 commission to examine into the condition of the forests in 

 all their relations to agriculture, public health and water- 



supply, so that an intelligent determination could be 

 reached as to what portions of the forest on the public 

 domain should be preserved forever, and in what manner 

 the remainder should be disposed of. We still believe that 

 a scheme like this was practicable and desirable. It re- 

 ceived the approval of the American Forestry Association, 

 at its meeting in Philadelphia, as a wise preparation for 

 systematic and permanent forest-management. I3ut Con- 

 gress never made any pretense of considering it, much less 

 of taking action on it, and never during all these years has 

 made one honest effort to protect and perpetuate the 

 forest- supplies and forest-influences which are so es- 

 sential to the common weal. Meanwhile, mile after mile 

 of timber-lands have passed into the control of lumber- 

 men, whose sole interest is to remove the timber as 

 rapidly and cheaply as possible. Timber-thieves have 

 been cutting on the public domain, and no determined 

 effort has been made to restrain them. Fires have dev- 

 astated hundreds of thousands of acres and private herds 

 have grazed on public lands and destroyed the under- 

 growth of hundreds of thousands more. And yet noth- 

 ing in the way of law, and very little in the way of an 

 increased enlightenment of public sentiment, exist.s to-day 

 to prevent these ravages from continuing indefinitely. To 

 say that there has been no advance in public knowledge 

 on this subject would hardly be true, for, as the forest-area 

 narrows, the apprehensions of a coming timber-famine 

 grow, and men become thoughtful. Something, too, has 

 been done in the way of setting apart forest-reservations in 

 accordance with a paragraph which was adroitly or luckily 

 slipped in at the end of a bill where it did not properly be- 

 long. Certain it is, that neither the President nor his Secre- 

 tary need have any apprehension of being considered 

 alarmists when they assert that legislation is needed, and 

 needed at once. 



In another part of his report, Secretary Smith, in writing 

 of the national parks and reservations, invites attention to 

 a state of affairs which will surprise those persons who 

 have been flattering themselves that these reservations 

 were under the protection of the army. It seems that dur- 

 ing the summer many complaints were made to the De- 

 partment that stockmen had been driving sheep into the 

 reserves, destroying the herbage and setting fire to the 

 trees. The Commissioner of the General Land Oiifice also 

 invited the attention of the Department to the necessity of 

 protecting these reserves, and urged that portions of the army 

 be detailed to look after them until Congress could make 

 suitable provision. Accordingly, the attention of the Sec- 

 retary of War was directed to the facts, and he was re- 

 quested to send a sufficient number of troops to protect the 

 reservations. This request, however, was declined, be- 

 cause the Judge Advocate General of the Army had decided 

 that the employment of troops in such cases and under the 

 circumstances described would be unlawful. The reser- 

 vations, therefore, remain, with the same protection 

 which is extended to other unreserved public lands, and no 

 more. When the attention of the Judge Advocate General 

 was invited to the fact that officers had been already de- 

 tailed to protect certain national parks and forest-reserva- 

 tions, he replied that such detail was clearly an oversight 

 on the part of the War Department at that time, and he 

 added that " there is no express authorization by the con- 

 stitution or by act of Congress for the troops to be used for 

 the purpose of executing the laws relating to these reser- 

 vations, and it is therefore unlawful to do so." It will be 

 seen, therefore, that even the imperfect policing which it 

 had been supposed a handful of cavalry could give to an 

 area as large as some of our states, is no longer to be hoped 

 for. 



Here certainly is need of immediate action. Congress 

 should not delay an hour the passage of an act to author- 

 ize and direct the Secretary of War to make necessary 

 details of troops to protect the national parks and reserva- 

 tions which have been established under an act of Con- 

 gress, or which may hereafter be set apart as public forest- 



k 



