266 



Garden and Forest. 



[May 28, 1890. 



and being surrounded by cultivated fields so much larger, no 

 fire can spread far. When fire does any considerable damage 

 it is the result of carelessness on the part of wood-cutters, who 

 leave the brush strewn over the ground. If the brush is prop- 

 erly piled, and every few rods a space is cleared of dead logs 

 and branches, a few men can prevent any fire from spreading. 

 I lately visited a piece of woods a few acres in extent that I 

 saw burned over early in the summer. It was in one of the 

 few blocks of forest in this region from which cattle have been 

 excluded for a number of years. The young Hickories, which 

 have deep tap-roots, are sprouting up again vigorously, but the 

 fire seems to have killed all the little Maples. 



With the destruction of so large a proportion of our forests 

 have come great changes in our streams. Formerly the 

 water of the snow and rainfall of winter and spring was held 

 back by the shade, and by the accumulation of porous mulch 

 and swamp deposits in the forest, and it flowed more steadily 

 into the streams during the whole summer. Now the water 

 from heavy rains dashes rapidly from the land into the streams, 

 carrying away immense quantities of soil from the plowed 

 fields, filling the rivers with mud, and causing disastrous floods 

 in the Ohio and its tributaries. The undergrowth of the forests 

 being destroyed by cattle, the wind sweeps freely under the 

 trees, the leaves containing the fertility of the forest-soil are 

 blown into the water-courses and lost in the floods. Thus the 

 soil of the whole region, in field and forest, is growing poorer 

 from this cause as well as others. The primitive store of 

 forest-carbon which made our virgin soils so black and mel- 

 low, which by its slow oxidation has produced the acid sol- 

 vents to digest rocky silicates and liberate their imprisoned 

 plant-food, and which by the same slow combustion ,has 

 caused the formation of those compounds of nitrogen which 

 are the vitality of soils — this store of forest-carbon is fading 

 out, leaving the soils hard and poor. On the other hand, the 

 streams fall so low in summer that it seems probable that some 

 of them would go dry entirely during the hot months if all our 

 forests were destroyed. It seems, too, that the destruction of 

 our forests tends to produce extremes of climate, colder in 

 winter, and drier and hotter in summer, with less rainfall 

 when it is most needed. The water held back by forests in 

 summer tends to cool the air and promote rainfall. 



The past history and present condition of our forests are 

 full of admonitions. If population continues to increase, and 

 the present treatment of our forests is continued, some of the 

 children now born may live to see the people burning brush, 

 weeds and corn-stalks for fuel, as is done in some older 

 countries. Our improvident methods tend to destroy all our 

 natural resources and reduce the coming generations of our 

 country to a condition of poverty and want like that of Italy. 

 Our stores of coal are being wasted even more rapidly than 

 our timber. In the Hocking Valley, I am told, only about 

 one-third of the coal in some mines is brought to the surface; 

 the other two-thirds, being of a poorer quality, is hopelessly 

 wasted in the mire of the worked-out mine. When we visit 

 our lumber-yards and pay a good deal of money for a little 

 Michigan lumber for necessary repairs, memory goes back to 

 the time when we had abundance of White-wood and Cucum- 

 ber, even for barn construction, and the imagination goes for- 

 ward to the future, and we wonder where the luxury of a little 

 lumber for any purpose will come from when the Michigan 

 Pines are gone, as lumbermen from that state tell us they 

 will be in a few decades at the present rate of consumption; 

 for the hope of future Pines is blotted out by the great fires 

 that follow the axe in that region. How much better for the 

 generations that are to follow us if a few White-woods could 

 be growing here now for their use. How much better for 

 them to import more of some lighter product of the soil from 

 other states, and pay less freight on the lumber which must 

 then come from distant lands. The present tariff on lumber 

 does not seem to promote the production of trees, but rather 

 their destruction. 



What can be done to initiate a more rational treatment of 

 our forests ? First of all, the people must be enlightened in 

 forestry matters. The majority of land-owners see nothing 

 wrong in present methods. Many do not even comprehend 

 the reproduction of forests in accordance with the laws of 

 vegetable growth, but suppose that young trees spring up 

 without seeds, by "spontaneous generation" or some magical 

 process. Few owners feel that they have any personal inter- 

 est in the future of their forests. Most of them regard such 

 considerations as impractical and visionary. This state of 

 mind must be corrected by an enlightened public sentiment. 

 I well remember when the market value of land in this region 

 was not diminished by cutting off the valuable timber on it. 

 It was a common remark — "I can sell off the timber for more 



than the land will bring, and can then sell the land for as 

 much as though I had left the timber standing." This abnor- 

 mal state of the land-market was the result of deplorable 

 ignorance on the part of the general public and of those who 

 purchased land. To-day the man who pastures his forest-lot 

 and cuts off the hope of a forest for future needs, can sell his 

 farm for just as much, other things being equal, as can the 

 more civilized and provident man whose forest-lot is covered 

 with a young growth of valuable trees. Enlighten the public 

 regarding forestry subjects and the market will recognize the 

 value of the growing crop of young timber, as it now does 

 that of the crop which is full grown and ready for use. Under 

 the influence of an intelligent public sentiment a man will 

 care for the future of his forest, and its consequent increase 

 in market value, as thoughtfully as he now does for the mar- 

 ket value of his horse. Other corrective influences might be 

 considered, but one must serve as the concluding word. We 

 need most of all an enlightened public conscience which shall 

 recognize a moral and ethical side to business matters, a sen- 

 timent which shall give honor to those who are willing to be- 

 stow some thought and work for the benefit of posterity, for 

 the happiness of their children's children, as well as to those 

 more selfish, whose greatest care is to get money now. 



Mahoning, O. J. W, Pike. 



Recent Publications. 



History of Botany (1 530-1 860). By Julius von Sachs. Au- 

 thorized translation by Henry E. F. Garnsey, revised by Isaac 

 Baylev Balfour. (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1890; 8vo, pp. xii., 

 568.) ' 



The present translation of Professor Sachs' work, which 

 appeared in Germany in 1875, is intended to supply the want, 

 long felt by English-speaking students, of a history of botany 

 in English, for, strange to say, there is no English work on 

 the subject in existence. Unlike the older histories of Kurt 

 Sprengel (1818) and Ernst Meyer (1857), which abounded in 

 technical facts, so that, in reality, they were encyclopasdias 

 quite as much as histories, the present work attempts to give 

 a bird's-eye view of the science from its origin until the date 

 of the appearance of Darwin's " Origin of Species," which 

 marked the beginning of a new era in botany. The book is 

 divided into three parts, treating respectively of the History of 

 Morphology and Classification, the History of Vegetable Ana- 

 tomy and the History of Vegetable Physiology. The first and 

 third parts cover the ground since 1530; but vegetable ana- 

 tomy,^ study which requires the use of good microscopes, is 

 of more recent origin, and, according to Sachs, does not go 

 back farther than 1671. 



Botany, as a science, did not exist among the ancients, and 

 what passes for botany in the writings of Aristotle, Theo- 

 phrastus and Pliny is merely a crude description of plants 

 almost buried in a mass of philosophical speculation, and, 

 until comparatively recent times, the history of botany is 

 mainly an account of the struggles of learned men to free 

 themselves from Aristotelian preconceptions and to substitute 

 a knowledge founded on exact observation for vague hy- 

 potheses. The first object in science is to obtain a large 

 number of facts ; but the ultimate aim, as is strongly and re- 

 peatedly urged by Sachs, should be to discover the general 

 laws to be obtained by a comparative study of facts. Through- 

 out the whole of the present work we find brought into strong 

 contrast the observers and accumulators of facts, on the one 

 hand, and the more philosophical reasoners, on the other. In 

 his admiration of the latter class it may, perhaps, be ques- 

 tioned whether Sachs has not, unintentionally, somewhat un- 

 derrated the former. He apparently regards it a defect in 

 Mohl that, although an observer of the first class, he was dis- 

 inclined to draw general conclusions from his observations. 

 But a comparison of Mohl with Schleiden, who had no hesi- 

 tation in laying down general laws from imperfectly under- 

 stood facts, leaves no doubt as to the superiority of Mohl, a 

 superiority due, as one may think, in some measure, to his 

 disinclination to theorize. 



Of the three parts of Sachs' History, that relating to mor- 

 phology and classification is the least satisfactory, and the one 

 least interesting to the general reader. Contrary to the gen- 

 eral impression, Sachs believes that the conception of genera 

 preceded that of species in the writings of earlier botanists, 

 and what he says on-this subject certainly has a great deal of 

 force. The place of Linnaeus in botany has been much dis- 

 cussed. Just now it is the fashion to say he was much over- 

 rated. He was not an experimenter as was Camerarius, who 

 was the first to prove the sexuality of plants, but Linnaeus did 

 not claim to have discovered sexuality. But, as Sachs admits, 



