March 12, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



121 



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, MARCH 12, 1890. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



Editorial Articles :— Legislation for the Adirondacks. — The Supply of Hard 



Pine. — The Bibliography of Landscape Gardening 121 



Some Old American Country-Seats. IV.— Clermont. (Illustrated), 



Charles Eliot. 122 



The California University Gardens Charles H. Shinn. 122 



New or Little Known Plants :— Viburnum pubescens. (With figure.).. C. S. S. 124 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 124 



Cultural Department :— The Cucumber Robert T. Harris, M.D. 126 



Wire-Netting in the Kitchen-Garden Professor W. F. Massey. 126 



Beaumontia grandiflora IV. i?6 



Maxillaria lepidata M. Barker. 127 



The Day Lily of the Desert C. R. Orcutt. 128 



Clivia (Imantophyllum) cyrtanthiflora B. 128 



Vieusseuxia Pavonia S. 128 



Doronicums. — Dianthus latifolius E. O. Orpet. 128 



Italian Onions. — The Striped Cucumber Beetle... Professor W. F. Massey. 128 



Correspondence: — Park Construction H. IV. S. Cleveland. 129 



A Northern Station for Quercus lyrata Robert Ridgway. 129 



American Oaks in Belgium Alfred IVestnael. 129 



The Waverly Oaks L.W. Russell. 130 



Prairie Forestry Professor Charles A. Keffer. 130 



Populus certinensis Professor J. L. Budd. 130 



Periodical Literature 130 



Bibliography :— A List of Works on the Art of Landscape Gardening, 



Henry Sargent Codvian. 131 



Notes 136 



Illustrations : — Viburnum pubescens, Fig. 26 125 



Clermont on the Hudson 127 



Legislation for the Adirondacks. 



THERE are several bills relating to the Adirondacks 

 now before the Legislature at Albany, which propose 

 radical changes in the character of the forest reserve and 

 its administration. The recommendation of the Governor 

 that a Commission of five men be empowered to fix the 

 bounderies of a "state park" consisting of from 2,500 to 

 5,000 square miles, seems to meet with little favor, and a bill 

 presented by the Speaker of the House, and embodying in 

 the main the Governor's plan, has been practically with- 

 drawn. Another bill, authorizing the establishment of 

 such a reservation under the direction of certain citizens 

 named in the bill, has been presented in the Assembly, but 

 it will probably fail. 



At this time it seems probable that Senator Sloan's report 

 on the Governor's plan, which has already passed the Sen- 

 ate, will be concurred in by the House. This resolution 

 empowers the present Adirondack Commission to con- 

 sider the project of a so-called park to include the lands 

 about the head-waters of the main streams which take their 

 rise in the wilderness, and report on its size, location 

 and probable cost. It is evident that there is no salvation 

 for the woods unless the state acquires absolute title to 

 them, and preparation for such purchase should be made 

 without delay, but it should be remembered that owner- 

 ship by the state in fee simple is not of itself a guarantee 

 that the wilderness will be safe. One of the proposed park 

 bills, for example, contemplates the leasing of its lands by 

 the state in lots of twenty-five acres, and this provision 

 would mean absolute ruin to the forest. 



No legislation will be satisfactory unless it is based on 

 the principle that the first and only sufficient reason why 

 the state should hold a great tract of land within its borders 

 is that it is essential that this particular region should re- 

 main forest-covered always so that the flow of the great 

 water-ways of the state need not be impaired. The ruin 

 of the Adirondack forests means the ruin of our rivers, and 

 it is impossible to secure the preservation of the forests 



for all time unless they are controlled by the state working 

 under a permanent policy. All other questions regarding 

 the North Woods are unimportant in comparison with that 

 relating to the water supply. It is very well to have a 

 sanitarium, and it is proper that people should be able to 

 enjoy the refreshing contact with wild nature ; but, after 

 all, these are secondary considerations. 



Again, if the forest is to remain and reproduce itself for 

 all time, the fewer people who live within its borders, be- 

 sides its custodians, the better. If the state acquires a 

 large area it will be necessary, of course, to establish, at 

 convenient points, public houses for the protection and 

 entertainment of visitors. But this is a different thing 

 from leasing the state land to individuals. If one man is 

 entitled to a good site on a lake-shore for a fancy camp 

 or a summer villa, the privilege cannot be denied to his 

 neighbor without injustice. No matter how wild and 

 picturesque these people intend their summer homes to 

 be. Each one clears a little and burns a little more, and 

 the forest, as a forest, is doomed. It is only necessary to 

 examine the neighborhood of Paul Smith's to learn what 

 settlement in the forest can accomplish in a very short 

 time. 



The two immediate dangers which threaten the North 

 Woods are (1) the extension of railroads into the wilder- 

 ness, for a railroad through a forest means its extermina- 

 tion ; and (2) the legalized use of the woods as the sum- 

 mer homes of wealthy men. Any enactment which does 

 not recognize and guard against these dangers will fail 

 to accomplish its highest purpose. 



The hard pine of the south, although the supply has 

 generally been regarded as practically inexhaustible, as 

 the supply of white pine was considered inexhaustible a 

 few years ago, seems to be in danger of exhaustion much 

 more rapidly than was supposed possible ten years 

 ago. The demand for lumber of this description is in- 

 creasing all over the world, and more and more of our 

 hard pine is sent every year to Europe, South America and 

 Australia, while the home consumption is doubling every 

 few years. The saw-mills of the Southern Pine-belt are 

 now kept running to their utmost capacity, and new mills 

 are projected in all directions. The amount of this lumber 

 exported last year from the United States exceeded the 

 amount exported during the previous year by about forty 

 per cent, while Great Britain took an excess of more than fifty 

 per cent, over her importations of the previous year. It is 

 believed that the output of the hard pine mills will be this 

 year much greater than it was last, and that prices are to 

 be considerably higher. 



There is still a very large amount of this timber left 

 standing in the Pine forests which extend along the coast 

 from North Carolina to Texas ; and there are still regions 

 in which the sound of the axe is still practically un- 

 known. The southern pine forests, however, are en- 

 croached on more seriously every year by the manufac- 

 turers of turpentine, who destroy a vast amount of 

 timber with very little profit to themselves. But the 

 real danger in the situation is that these forests of 

 Pine are nowheres reproducing themselves. It is the 

 custom, dating from before the time of the coming of 

 Europeans to America, to burn over every spring the 

 whole territory covered by these forests for the purpose of 

 improving the scanty pasturage which is found among the 

 trees, and this burning, renewed year after year, has 

 destroyed all seedling trees, and so changed and deteri- 

 orated the character of the soil that it cannot produce again 

 timber of commercial value. The situation is briefly this: 

 The consumption of hard pine is increasing in a remarkable 

 and unexampled manner. Reproduction is at a standstill. 

 It can only be a matter of time, therefore, when the com- 

 mercial importance of the Pine-forests of the south, which 

 once contained, and perhaps still contain, the greatest body 

 of accessible building timber of the very highest class the 

 human race has ever seen, will be a thing of the past. No 



