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Garden and Forest. 



[March 5, 1890. 



to a cold-frame when established, and afterward treated as they 

 were the previous year. In this way old plants may be grown 

 on from year to year, and gradually increased in size ; but it 

 should not be forgotten that they rarely give as much satisfac- 

 tion as young plants raised from cuttings. As the Mowers soon 

 drop, they are almost valueless when cut ; and even upon the 

 plants they remain in perfection for only a comparatively short 

 period ; but they are speedily replaced by others, and so the 

 plants remain attractive. 



Cambridge, Mass. M. barker. 



Orchard Experiences. — II. 



THE distance at which our various fruit-trees should stand 

 in an orchard is a subject yet worth discussion, notwith- 

 standing the voluminous teachings of our books and journals. 

 For old-fashioned, slow orcharding, where standards in grass 

 are expected to come into profitable bearing in from twelve to 

 fifteen years, nothing is better for Apples than the old rule of 

 forty feet each way. I would apply the same limit to Pears, 

 notwithstanding the upright growth of so many varieties of 

 this fruit. The habit of growth is of small importance in the 

 premises. An upright habit gives more air and light between 

 the trees, but this does not justify closer planting, when we re- 

 member that an upright tree may be quite as productive as a 

 spreading one. If space is given to ensure sufficient feeding 

 ground, the upright-growing tree, equally productive, requires 

 as much root-room as those of a spreading growth. In these 

 wide-planted, grassy orchards, from which the hay is annually 

 removed, and to which only occasional top-dressings are 

 given, we can only hope for biennial crops. Tillage and ma- 

 nuring is required to make annual producers. Even these 

 will not ensure yearly crops with all varieties. 



Under a different system, early-bearing sorts being used, 

 quicker and better results may be obtained by much closer 

 planting, provided the fertilization and tillage are commen- 

 surate. With these early-bearers, planted twenty feet each 

 way, much more prompt and profitable results may be had. 

 The fruit on young trees, well cared for, is large and hand- 

 some, selling at high prices, and a large quantity may be ob- 

 tained in the ten or twelve years before it is necessary to thin 

 out the orchard. The close setting is a protection to both trees 

 and fruit ; but an orchardist adopting this method must be 

 prompt and resolute in thinning out his trees. When the crop 

 reaches about five or six bushels to the tree it is time to re- 

 move every alternate row ; and in about five years more we 

 must take out alternate trees in the remaining rows. We then 

 have left our twenty-five standard trees to the acre, and have 

 taken off, meantime, enough choice fruit to much more than 

 cover every expense. Those who adopt this method some- 

 times prefer to have the trees which, are to be removed some- 

 thing else than Apples — either Plums and Cherries, or dwarf 

 Pears. In my latitude I find the early-bearing, short-lived 

 Russian summer Apples, especially the Yellow Transparent, 

 best. They begin bearing quite freely within two or three 

 years, and have seen their best days by the time it is neces- 

 sary to remove them. Between the trees, one way, Currants, 

 Gooseberries and Black-caps thrive, with no apparent detri- 

 ment to the trees. This is a great deal better than the old way, 

 especially to those who have reached middle age before be- 

 ginning to plant, or to those who need an immediate income 

 from the land. For the first five or six years Dwarf Beans and 

 Peas, or Strawberries, may be successfully grown in the young 

 orchard. Liberal manuring and clean culture are essential. 



Newport, vt. T. H. Hoskins. 



Seed-growing is now the order of the day, and it is as fas- 

 cinating to some of us as it is important. Success or failure 

 often turns on very slight and apparently unimportant points, 

 and as hints are always in order, I wish to note that in case of 

 fine seeds, especially of Begonias, I find that success depends 

 much on sowing very thinly. The point of a small knife-blade 

 will hold enough seed for the sowing of a pan six inches square, 

 and more is worse than waste, for if the soil is covered with 

 visible patches of seed it seems to be fatal to their germination. 

 From such a quantity of seed, sown thinly, I have known 600 

 plants to be pricked off, while in over-seeded pans plants ap- 

 pear very sparsely. The culture of Begonias from seed offers 

 no difficulties. It is sometimes stated that young seedlings are 

 inclined to "go off," but this must be from badly aired house, 

 as under proper treatment there are few less " miffy " things. 



Doronicum Harper Crewe, besides being a good plant for the 

 cool house, as noted by Mr. Thorpe, is a first rate garden plant, 

 perfectly hardy, and probably the earliest-flowering hardy her- 

 baceous yellow Composite. It is a plant of distinct aspect, and 

 the best of the family, about two feet in height, with numerous 



flowers, as described. The foliage in the open is of the light, 

 tender green so grateful in the spring garden. In its habit of 

 growth it resembles the Oriental Poppy, the foliage dying 

 down after bloom is over, to start again in the fall, a valuable 

 trait in a spring-blooming plant, since by planting something 

 of later growth near it, one has practically two crops from the 

 same space, always a point of importance, and especially so in 

 a small garden. J. N. Gerard. 



Elizabeth, N. J. 



Correspondence. 



The Uses and Claims of Forestry Associations. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir. — There has been for some years past in America a 

 marked and constantly increasing interest in, and perception 

 of the needs of, forestry, or, to use a broader word, forest- 

 reform — i.e., the adoption of some adequate check on forest- 

 destruction and some rational system of forest-preservation. 

 The growth of the forest-reform idea is shown in the conver- 

 sation of the people one meets, in the columns of the news- 

 papers, in the existence of your own journal, devoted in part 

 to the subject, and also in the formation of a few forestry asso- 

 ciations, of whose work, indeed, it is itself partly a result. Yet 

 though thousands are aware of the evils we now suffer from 

 forest-destruction, and of their necessary continuance and 

 increase unless our treatment of forests be radically changed, 

 practically nothing is done. The tree-planting in the prairie 

 states has been chiefly for shade or wind-breaks, not for tim- 

 ber supply, or to protect the sources of streams, which usually 

 rise in the hills, where the axe is known, but not the spade. 

 In the east some enthusiast may have here and there reclaimed 

 a few waste acres by planting, and taught a good object lesson 

 thereby ; but of real forest-reform, the systematic retention of 

 forests where they are needed, especially on mountain slopes, 

 their cutting with a view to future growth, and their protection 

 from fire, there lias been practically nothing, east or west. In 

 New York, the appointment of three gentlemen to protect the 

 forestry interests of the state and the sources of the Hudson 

 and Mohawk, without pay, would be laughable were it not 

 too serious; yet this, and the slight check on fire thus brought 

 about, is more than almost any other state has done. Com- 

 mon sense bills have been presented, both in Congress and 

 state legislatures, but they have never come out of the com- 

 mittee rooms alive, and the prospect, except possibly in New 

 York, is not much more encouraging now than it was ten 

 years ago. 



In short, it must be confessed not only that, in the vast ma- 

 jority of cases, the interest really felt in forest-preservation has 

 not resulted in any actual work, but even that a great deal of 

 honest and conscientious effort has been wasted. The reason, 

 to my mind, is not that there are not enough people who be- 

 lieve in forest-reform, but that they are not sufficiently united, 

 or, to speak plainly, that only a very few of them belong to 

 forestry associations. That union is strength, and disunion 

 weakness, no American needs to be told. It cannot be claimed 

 that the forest-reformers have hitherto shown any of the fruits 

 of strength, and that they are not united the small member- 

 ship of the American Forestry Association and the few state 

 and county societies clearly proves. The Pennsylvania Associa- 

 tion, founded in 1886, heads the list with 650 members; but can 

 one imagine that there are but 650 people out of the 4,000,000 

 inhabitants of that state who care for forest-reform, and can 

 afford a dollar a year toward obtaining it ? The smaller num- 

 bers of the American Forestry Association may be due to its 

 origin as primarily a congress of delegates from state socie- 

 ties, not an association of individuals, but, owing to the lack 

 of delegating bodies, its strength is chiefly derived from its 

 own members. If the associations, the only visible bonds of 

 union between believers in forest-reform all over the country, 

 are few and small, is it not due to this that, in spite of the 

 warnings both of intelligent men, and of drought, and flood, 

 and land-slide, warnings whose truth is widely realized, forest 

 destruction continues unchecked in America ? 



Forestry associations, especially if able (as none of them yet 

 are, I believe) to employ paid officers or agents, can do a far 

 greater work than the aggregate of their members individu- 

 ally. They can collect and diffuse information, instruct, en- 

 courage, develop public opinion, secure and enforce legisla- 

 tion, and work in many ways for which individuals lack time, 

 money, opportunity or popular support. Owing to lack of 

 means their work hitherto has been small, but not wholly 

 profitless, and not a tenth of it would have been done without 

 them. Besides, they give individual effort a scope and stim- 

 ulus as nothing else does. A man deeply interested in forestry 



