2 5 8 



Garden and Forest. 



[May 28, 1890. 



three states, from Which must be deducted the cut of last 

 winter, rather more than 8,000,000,000, leaving a little 

 over two years' supply of standing pine in the whole of 

 the north-west. 



Correct estimates of standing timber are exceedingly dif- 

 ficult to make and to verify, but by a system of averages 

 extending over very large areas comparatively accurate 

 results can be obtained, and it is not probable that the 

 figures given above vary very far from the truth. They are 

 not needed, however, to prove that the time is at hand when 

 the north-western states will cease to be great lumber pro- 

 ducers. This is abundantly shown by the fact that the most 

 intelligent lumbermen of that region have for several years 

 been engaged in securing great bodies of Pine-timber in 

 the southern states, and of Spruce and Redwood on the 

 Pacific coast. The increased number of destructive fires 

 in saw-mills all through the north-western states, which 

 have been noticed during the last two or three years, is 

 another infallible sign that their business is approaching 

 the end. 



There is no hope that these great forests, which have 

 been wasted as forests have never been wasted before, will 

 ever be reproduced. Their end finishes the prosperity of 

 a large section of the country and marks a period of folly 

 and extravagance which seems, as we look back on it, sim- 

 ply incredible. And yet these forests, if they had not been 

 called upon to yield annually more than their natural yearly 

 increase, and if they had not been wasted by needless fires, 

 might have been productive forever, and insured permanent 

 wealth and prosperity where ruin now stares the commu- 

 nity in the face. National calamities like the extermination 

 of our Pine-forests are slow in making themselves felt, and 

 the closing of a saw-mill and the ruin and abandonment of 

 a town have, at first perhaps, only local significance. In 

 the end, however, the country wakes up to the fact that 

 a few men have made themselves enormously rich, and 

 that nothing is left but blackened stumps and barren soil 

 to show where once forests existed ; and that one of the 

 principal sources of national wealth has gone forever. The 

 exhaustion of the copper and iron ores of Michigan would 

 be a far less serious blow to the prosperity of that state and 

 of the country at large than the destruction of her forests 

 of Pine, and yet for ten years the American people, fairly 

 warned of what was coming, have sat quietly by and 

 looked with barely a word of protest against the extermi- 

 nation of the forests in every part of the country. 



The Major Oak. 



THE "Major Oak" (see p. 263) is in the best state of 

 preservation of any of the very old Oaks for which 

 Sherwood Forest, in England, is famous ; and it is one of 

 the noblest, most vigorous and best preserved of the old 

 historical trees of Europe. It is believed to be one of the 

 oldest trees in England. Beneath its spreading branches 

 King John may well have reposed six hundred years ago, 

 after the fatigues of the chase. Robin Hood and his merry 

 men must have known it well. Since this tree grew to 

 goodly size, great things have happened in the world — the 

 Crusades, the War of the Roses, the discovery of the New 

 World ; it has seen the monarchy of England go down 

 before Cromwell and the Covenanters, its restoration and 

 the final fall of the Stuarts, the advent of Protestantism, 

 the birth of science, and all the growth and development 

 of the last two hundred years which have made the greater 

 Britain of the nineteenth century. Here it has stood, 

 stretching out its sturdy arms while the centuries rolled 

 by. Think what England was when the acorn from which 

 this tree has grown dropped to the ground, and then con- 

 sider what it is to-day! Think what this tree has seen 

 and survived, and it will not be found easy to contem- 

 plate it except with awe and veneration. In all England 

 there is not one other thing which has changed so little 

 in the past five hundred years ; unless, indeed, it be some 

 other Oak-tree or some of those ancient Yews which, in 



England, are more venerable and more unchanging even 

 than the Oaks themselves. 



Our portrait is interesting, too, for it shows the habit 

 and appearance of a very old and well preserved European 

 Oak, which our readers will be able to compare with the 

 old Oaks which are found occasionally in this country, 

 although we can hardly hope to match the "Major Oak" 

 with an Oak of equal size in the northern states. There are, 

 however, Live Oaks in the south and in California which 

 exceed it considerably in girth of trunk and spread of 

 branches. The " Major Oak " has always had, fortunately, 

 room enough to grow in, and it is in a soil which is 

 capable of producing large and long-lived trees. The 

 trunk measures thirty-two feet in circumference just above 

 the roots ; five feet above the ground it girths thirty feet ; 

 the branches have a spread two hundred and forty feet 

 across ; numerous roots spread out, partly above the sur- 

 face of the ground, for a distance of thirty feet from the 

 trunk. The foliage is healthy and abundant, and shows 

 that the tree is still in excellent condition, although the 

 trunk has been hollow from time immemorial. The cav- 

 ity is now seven feet in diameter and ten feet high. 



The ' ' Major Oak " stands in that part of Sherwood Forest 

 which is known as " Birkland," on account of the presence 

 of large numbers of Birch-trees growing among the Oaks. 

 It is not very far from the village of Edwinstowe, out- 

 side of Thorsby Park, and on the property of the Duke of 

 Portland. 



Forestry and Economics. 



A S a subject for economical discussion, forestry was hardly 

 -^~*- thought of in this country twenty years ago, but now one 

 can hardly read a book or an article which treats in a broad 

 way any question of economic science without finding the 

 present state and future prospects of our forests used to illus- 

 trate or enforce the argument. Professor H. C. Adams, of 

 Michigan and Cornell Universities, in his masterly financial 

 treatise, " Public Debts," has this to say : 



" It is an historical rule of wide application, that as coun- 

 tries become more populous and the social and industrial re- 

 lations more complex, the functions of government must 

 necessarily extend to continually new objects. This rule holds 

 good now and in this country, and, in consequence, the ques- 

 tion of the residence of new powers becomes more important 

 year by year. Consider, as a simple illustration, the increas- 

 ing necessity for care of the forests. The frequent recurrence 

 of floods; the more rapid and marked alternation of drought 

 and wet; the progress of farming toward the exhaustion of 

 lands; all point. clearly to the fact that the people of this coun- 

 try must soon turn their attention to the culture of trees. But 

 this is a line of enterprise that individuals will not enter upon, 

 because the returns in dividends are too remote from the first 

 investment. It is a legitimate sphere for the employment of 

 public credit, and the only remaining question is: Shall the 

 enterprise be undertaken by the central government or by the 

 local governments ? " ' 



In an article on the fall of the rate of interest, especially on 

 securities of the best class, in a recent number of the Popular 

 Science Monthly, George lies says : " Does not cheap and 

 abundant capital make it possible to conserve the Adirondacks 

 as a state park, and as the source of the principal rivers of 

 New York, and to establish a national system of afforesta- 

 tion ? " The drift of Mr. lies' argument is that while the rate 

 of interest remained high there was no inducement to invest 

 capital in an enterprise from which the return was so remote 

 and so moderate. But the present rate of interest and its 

 probable reduction to still lower figures make it necessary 

 for capitalists to seek investments which would hardly have 

 been considered a few years ago. The careful management 

 of forest-property will yield an assured income and the time is 

 at hand when it will offer fair attractions as compared with 

 other fields of enterprise. 



" A park is Nature made more beautiful, a garden is an en- 

 largement of the house. Here should be convenience, decora- 

 tion, nice care, and as much elegance as the owner's means 

 will allow. The turf should seem a soft carpet bedecked with 

 flowers ; here should be found the rarest and most beautiful 

 foreign plants, strange animals, birds of bright plumage, gay 

 garden seats, refreshing fountains, cool shadows in thick- 

 planted walks." — Piickler-Muskau, 1834. 



