302 



Garden and Forest. 



[June 18, 1890. 



citrosmum added to die display, with fine specimens of Cypri- 

 pedium grande, C. caudalum, C. barbatum and its variety, C. 

 Warrenti, C. Haynaldianum, C. VcitcJiii and other excellent 

 plants. A, Dimmock. 



The American Association of Nurserymen. 



Fifteenth Annual Meeting — II. 



ABSTRACTS of a few more of the papers read at the 

 Convention of Nurserymen in this city are given 

 below. It is a matter of regret that our limits as to space 

 will not permit us to quote them more fully. 



THE RELATION OF NURSERYMEN TO THE FORESTRY PROBLEM. 



The general ideas involved in the forestry problem are well 

 known. There arc two phases of it — the one which is con- 

 cerned with bringing about a more rational management of 

 our existing natural forests; the other, which contemplates the 

 need of creating artificial forests. 



With the first part of the problem — the application of forestry 

 or forest-management to the virgin woodlands— the nursery- 

 man has a connection only in so far as he, like every other 

 citizen, should take an interest in a rational development of 

 the resources of our country. Of this interest it needs only to 

 be stated that the forest-property, which we hold in common, 

 the so-called Government timber-lands, are annually decimated 

 by fire and theft at the rate of from $10,000,000 to $20,000,000 

 worth, for lack of proper administration ; that under present 

 methods of lumbering not only are forest-supplies squandered 

 in an unintelligent manner, but the natural reforestation which 

 would, under rational methods, take place, is, on large areas, 

 made precarious or impossible; that the White Pine of the 

 north is fast disappearing without reforesting itself to any ex- 

 tent ; that several specially valuable timbers, like the Walnut 

 and the Ash, are growing scarcer every year ; that, by the 

 denudation of slopes, by removing the forest and burning off 

 the forest-floor, in many sections the soil is washed away, the 

 water-flow is made uncertain, giving rise to excessive local 

 floods and low water. In short, the lack of a rational forest- 

 policy is apparent on every hand, and, as citizens, nurserymen 

 ought to take an interest in changing the state of affairs. 



In one way the nurseryman can exert by his knowledge and 

 through his connection with arboriculture a special influence. 

 One of the means employed by the forestry reformers to pave 

 the way for a better forest-policy is the establishment of Arbor 

 Days in all the states ; now thirty-six states have such Arbor 

 Days ; we are ripe for a National Arbor Day. The idea of 

 Arbor Day is not so much to increase the tree-growth of the 

 country as to create, especially among the younger genera- 

 tion, a spirit of conservatism in opposition to the destructive 

 spirit of the wood-chopper, a love for trees and a knowledge 

 of their value. The nurseryman, with his knowledge of tree- 

 growth, can aid and advance this reform work considerably 

 by his advice. He can do more. He can assist by being 

 present at the Arbor Day celebrations and show the ignorant 

 how to handle a tree. He can do still more, if he is gen- 

 erously inclined, like Mr. George C. Roeding, of Fresno 

 County, California, who furnishes this year on Arbor Day to 

 every school district in his county, free of charge, two Maples, 

 one Texas Umbrella-tree, two Fig-trees, one Pear-tree, one 

 Locust-tree, two Olive-trees, one Fan Palm and two Rose- 

 bushes. This is well directed generosity, and it is only neces- 

 sary to promulgate the idea to have it generally appreciated 

 by other generous nurserymen. 



A more intimate relation of the nurseryman exists to the 

 second part of the forestry question, the creation of new for- 

 ests. Here his business interest comes into play more directly, 

 and he becomes a more important factor in the forestry 

 problem. In the old countries forestry began with the man- 

 agement of the natural woods, and when it became necessary 

 to recuperate these by artificial planting or to create new for- 

 ests, the forester grew his own material and planted it himself 

 according to his knowledge of forest-conditions. It is ques- 

 tionable whether of the four to five million dollars which Ger- 

 many spends annually for artificial planting an appreciable 

 amount goes to nurserymen for plant-material, most of which 

 is grown by the foresters themselves. Lately, however, some 

 few large nurseries make quite a trade in supplying forest-tree 

 seedlings and seeds. 



In the United States this is quite different. Forests under 

 management do not exist ; forestry as a profession and for- 

 esters do not exist as yet, and the nurseryman not only fur- 

 nishes the plant-material, but gives advice or even does the 

 planting himself under contract. Upon him rests largely the 



responsibility whether this phase of the forestry problem shall 

 be successfully solved, or whether its forest-planting become 

 soon a well established practice, wherever needed, or whether 

 its solution shall be kept back and failures be more frequent 

 than successes. 



There is no need of discussing the question, whether, so far, 

 nurserymen have discharged this responsibility successfully ; 

 whether, considering the novelty of conditions, absence of 

 experience and the many other difficulties attending this, to 

 them, new departure in arboriculture, they have done the 

 best they could ; nor is this the occasion to inquire to what 

 extent forest-planting is practiced or to criticise defective 

 measures or even to propose new methods. Every one who 

 is familiar with the subject knows that, greatly as the practice 

 of planting to forest has increased of late, a much greater in- 

 crease is necessary to make a visible impression upon the tree- 

 less plains of the west, and still more so to recuperate the 

 waste lands in the east, and to fill the gap made by the lum- 

 bermen in the north. Such enterprising men as Robert 

 Douglas, Thomas Meehan and your first Vice-President, Mr. 

 C. J. Carpenter, deserve public gratitude for what they have 

 already done, and, no doubt, others are prepared to do as 

 much; and yet it may be worth while to outline a few points 

 for every nurseryman to consider when he contemplates any 

 efforts in the line of forestry. 



In the first place, he should recognize that forest-planting 

 has a different object in view from the planting for which nur- 

 serymen have been and are most of them now accustomed to 

 supply trees. 



In the latter case it is beautiful form, shady or brilliant 

 foliage, and, above all, it is the single tree he has to deal 

 with. In forest-planting the ultimate object is timber and 

 continued protection against climatic ills. Here he deals 

 with masses, not with individuals. With the change of object, 

 a change of method necessarily follows. What is right and 

 proper in the selection of material and its disposition by the 

 lanclscape-gardner, is not proper for the forest-planter. 



The nurseryman, then, who undertakes to advise on forestry 

 matters, cannot do so purely from his knowledge of the be- 

 havior of trees in open grounds and along road-sides, but he 

 must have studied their behavior in the forest; he must have 

 studied, at least, the principles of forestry; he must know by 

 what means forestry, as a science, utilizes the behavior of dif- 

 ferent trees in combination, so as to produce desirable forest- 

 growths and forest-effects in the cheapest manner and in the 

 shortest time, imitating nature and yet improving upon her 

 from the economical point of view. One of the principles 

 which is well developed and established by the experience of 

 European foresters is little understood among our forest- 

 planters. This is the superiority not only of dense planting, 

 but of mixed planting and grouping over the method of plant- 

 ing one species by itself. Yet it is not so much variety and 

 promiscuity that is desired as some seem to think ; there are 

 much more rational objects to be served by such mixing and 

 grouping. There must be a reason for the choice of a com- 

 bination and a system in the arrangement, which is conscious 

 of its object. Favorable forest-conditions are to be estab- 

 lished as the first aim of the forest-planter, and these, as we 

 find them in the best natural forest, consist in dense growth, 

 . mixed growth, undergrowth. By so much as any of these 

 conditions is deficient or lacking, by so much is the forest 

 short of the ideal. 



In the selection of the species to be grouped, besides the 

 capabilities of the same to thrive in this locality and soil-con- 

 ditions and to yield the most desirable wood material, three 

 points must guide the planter: (1) Their relative capacity for 

 preserving and increasing favorable soil-conditions; (2) Their 

 relative dependence for development on light and shade; (3) 

 Their relative rate of height-growth. Without tracing at length 

 the meaning of these points in particular, it may be stated as a 

 consequence of their consideration that there are five princi- 

 pal rules to be kept in view in making selections for grouping: 



I. The main growth, i. e., the one that occupies the larger 

 part of the ground, must be of a kind that improves soil-con- 

 ditions, namely, a densely foliaged, shade-enduring kind, 

 which does not lose its shading capacity with age. 



II. Shade-enduring (i. e., densely foliaged) kinds may be 

 grouped together, if the slower grower will endure the shade 

 of the rapid grower, or can be protected against its supremacy 

 by being planted in larger specimens or in advance of the 

 former, or in larger numbers; or if its gradual killing out after 

 it has served its function of soil cover is not objected to. 



III. Light-needing, i. e., thinly foliaged kinds, should never 

 be grouped together where soil-humidity is to be preserved, 

 unless no shady tree can be found to fit the locality. 



