i 9 4 



Garden and Forest. 



[April 16, 1890. 



repetitions it involves to be regretted. The more important 

 facts are insisted upon, and the more often they are re-told 

 with varying words, the more likely they are to impress the 

 mind of any but a serious student. 



And there are innumerable facts and conclusions and coun- 

 sels in this book with which it would greatly profit the general 

 reader in America to become thoroughly familiar. Nowhere 

 have we read a fuller, clearer or better emphasized account of 

 the damage which has already been done to our forests, which 

 is still being done, and which threatens to continue until there 

 is nothing more to damage; and nowhere a more judicious 

 statement of the certain consequences of its persistence or of 

 the methods which should be adopted to stay it. To a Ger- 

 man trained in forest-conservation, the scenes now presented 

 by our woodlands, and the scenes they suggest to an imagina- 

 tion which looks even fifty years ahead, may well have seemed 

 as incomprehensible as horrifying. It is in truth a tragic 

 panorama, and Dr. Mayr paints it in words which, while care- 

 fully based on actual facts and never falling into hyperbole or 

 mere declamation, are of tragic intensity. As we read the 

 chapter with the seemingly peaceful heading, " General Con- 

 dition of the North American Forests," we seem to be assist- 

 ing at a reckless, senseless conflict at once murderous and 

 suicidal. We see a people, now the richest in the world, 

 which, for the sake of a little more immediate wealth — or often 

 for the sake of nothing but mere destruction — is sweeping 

 away the most magnificent of Nature's gifts, and one that can 

 never be replaced, is hopelessly ruining the aspect of vast 

 areas of beautiful country, and at the same time is working 

 with frightful celerity for its own ultimate impoverishment. 

 Most of the facts and figures and descriptions which Dr. Mayr 

 gives in drawing this general picture have long been painfully 

 apparent to a few Americans, and have often been reiterated 

 by them to the deaf ears of their countrymen at large. But as 

 here massed together, as they appeared to a fresh and saga- 

 cious eye, they gain a new significance and stand out in even 

 darker colors. It seems as though, could this chapter be 

 translated and spread abroad in a million copies or so, the 

 whole people would rise in a horrified awakening and make 

 an appeal for self-preservation which even the dullest legis- 

 lative body could not resist. To quote anything- he says 

 would be useless here ; our readers, we trust, already stand at 

 Dr. Mayr's point of view ; and, we repeat, it is the massing of 

 his facts which gives them their singular vividness. It would 

 be painful to think of the spectacle we must present, as thus 

 reported, in the eyes of German readers, were not the practi- 

 cal bearing of the matter on our own future so vital that room 

 is not left for any minor sting. 



It should not be supposed, however, that Dr. Mayr writes in 

 an unfriendly or even unsympathetic spirit. As he never 

 speaks without facts, so he never exaggerates in drawing 

 conclusions. He is quick to note all possible excuses which 

 may be made or fancied for our madness, even to the fact 

 that we are so largely the offspring of that English race which 

 lives in a little level world where forests do not exist and the 

 need of them is not felt; and he is diligent in recording all 

 the little public efforts that have been made in the way of re- 

 form, and all the private enterprises which indicate that there 

 are individuals among us who know the truth and are anxious 

 that it should be impressed upon the people at large. He 

 praises the Arnold Arboretum heartily; and his appreciation 

 of the Jesup Collection of Woods in the Museum of Natural 

 History in this city will go far to prove to its donator and the 

 officials of the institution that their work has been well done. 

 He describes the scope and arrangement of the collection, 

 notes the giant dimensions of some of the specimens, and 

 says, " Certainly nothing has been spared in securing them ; 

 such colossal specimens can be shown by no other museum 

 in the world." And, of course, he appreciates the fact that 

 this collection, the dendrological herbarium at Brookline and 

 the neighboring Arnold Arboretum each gains in value by 

 the complementary usefulness of the others. 



Yet, after making all possible deductions from the picture 

 of blind ravage which he draws, we can fancy Dr. Mayr lay- 

 ing down his pen with a sigh of despair — so few and small are 

 the bright spots, so alarming is the blackness of the picture as 

 a whole. Some day, of course, as he says and we all know, 

 there will come enlightenment and reform. But how much 

 unavailing remorse will mingle with them, even though they 

 come very soon ; and is it not possible that they will come 

 when practically too late ? It is impossible to calculate, says 

 our unwilling critic, whether complete forest-destruction, such 

 as we see in the Holy Land and in certain parts of southern 

 Europe, will be reached in fifty years, should our present 

 methods continue, or will need a couple of decades more. 



When he adds, it is unfortunately improbable that within the 

 next few decades our country will be so far advanced as to 

 take "systematic care of its magnificent forest- treasures," the 

 suggested prospect may well excite alarm. No passages in 

 his book, by the way, are more interesting and instructive 

 than those which show why, when the primeval forest is 

 destroyed, it can never be replaced by man or renew itself in 

 man's vicinity ; but these we reserve for full translation at an- 

 other time. We must once more explain, however, Dr. Mayr's 

 exact attitude. He is not an enthusiast, who, in his love for 

 the forest, forgets the needs or the right desires of man. He 

 does not ask that everywhere the forest shall be preserved, 

 nor make the beauty of the landscape the prime reason for its 

 protection. On all arable low lands, he explicitly says, the for- 

 ests should and must be cut away ; and their preservation in 

 the mountains he shows of course to be as truly in the inter- 

 ests of man as in those of the trees themselves. 



Correspondence. 



Why Not Legislate Against the Black Knot? 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir. — There are some good reasons for legislating against the 

 Black Knot {Plowrightia morbosa) of the Plum and Cherry 

 trees. In the first place the fungus is beyond question ex- 

 tremely destructive; whole orchards of large size in many 

 parts of the country have been abandoned because of this 

 parasitic plague. Secondly, it is a conspicuous disease and 

 during the half of the year when the trees are defoliated the 

 knots can be found without the least difficulty. Any attempts 

 to shield the trouble, on the part of the owner, would be fruit- 

 less even if he should care to preserve the curse. In the third 

 place, the remedy is the very heroic one of the knife, and 

 easily, safely and with certainty applied. There may be some 

 compounds put upon the diseased parts that will kill the fun- 

 gus, but it is so deeply seated that when a twig is thoroughly 

 infested there is little left for the fruit grower to do but cut 

 away and burn the black excrescences. If a tree is badly at- 

 tacked the wisest method is to cut down bodily and destroy it 

 by fire. Finally when once the old knots are cleared out it 

 will be an easy matter to keep the fungus from gaining a fresh 

 foothold. 



There are many trees which are literally covered with knots 

 and have been for years; trees which bear no fruit, and never 

 will, and they are worse than mere monuments of careless- 

 ness, for they propagate and perpetuate a disease that renders 

 Plum-raising almost an impossibility in their neighborhood. 

 Sometimes these old distorted trees are upon the roadside 

 where any passing lad can pull off and carry to his own home 

 one of these malformations to become a new center of infec- 

 tion. But these knots do not need to be transported to pro- 

 duce infection, for the millions of spores developed in the 

 spring, while too small to be seen, pass long distances with 

 the winds and thus spread the disease. 



There are several fungus diseases against which the state 

 legislatures or the national congress might pass enactments 

 fully as wholesome and beneficial as those for the control of 

 the diseases of animals, but few of them offer so many favor- 

 able points for successful legislation as the Black Knot— the 

 scourge of Plum and Cherry growers in many localities. The 

 law should include, to be effective, all Wild Plum and Cherry 

 trees that are breeding places of the pest. 



Rutgers College. Byron D. Hals ted. 



Public Forest Associations. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Apropos of the plans for saving the Waverly Oaks, I 

 should like to urge again a general proposition for the accom- 

 plishment of public purposes of this kind, which was broached 

 some months ago in another place, and which seems to me 

 entirely practicable. It is that there shall be organized and 

 chartered in the State of Massachusetts a public forest asso- 

 ciation, whose principal object — no doubt it would be well to 

 make it its only object — would be the acquisition of the title to 

 tracts or lots of land which, from their natural beauty or pic- 

 turesque significance, or from the fact that they include trees 

 or plants which are of historical or botanical importance, it is 

 desirable to preserve for the public benefit. 



Such an association, if established in the proper way, could 

 hardly lack members; and the means necessary for purchases, 

 provided the power to condemn land was notgiven to it, could 

 be obtained through subscriptions from time to time, or 



