June i8, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



303 



IV. In grouping light-needing with shade-enduring kinds, 

 the former must be the more rapid growers or must otherwise 

 be given an advantage. 



V. The mixing in of the light-foliaged trees is preferable, 

 done in single individuals and not in groups, unless special 

 soil-conditions necessitate the latter method. 



The last, and perhaps the most vital relation of the nursery- 

 man to the forestry problem after his generous tendencies and 

 communal interest have been touched, is one that touches his 

 money interest. 



The nurseryman furnishes the plant-material to the would- 

 be forest-planter. What grave consequences does this have 

 upon the success of the plantation ! If honest service is of 

 utmost importance to the producer of an annual crop, how 

 much more must it be with a crop which matures only after 

 many years ! All the arguments for pure seed, fresh seed and 

 seed true to name apply, of course, to the furnisher of forest- 

 tree seeds and of plants as well, and more. The man who sells 

 seedlings pulled from the forest for nursery-stock stands on 

 the same plane with the man who sells oleomargarine for but- 

 ter, or with any other fraud. 



Buyers of ornamental stock spend their surplus for their 

 pleasure ; whether they pay a little more or a little less is in 

 the end of not much consequence to them; they can readily 

 allow an extra profit, since they themselves thereby suffer but 

 little. The man who buys stock for forest-planting does so 

 because of necessity, if he be on the naked prairie, or for 

 profit. He cannot afford to pay more than the reasonable 

 profit for what he buys. 



Forestry, especially, which yields returns only after many 

 years of investment, cannot afford to carry high initial expen- 

 ditures on which to pay interest. The profitableness of for- 

 estry, any how, is a matter over which enthusiasts are apt to 

 rave, judging from the results of some isolated and favorably 

 conditioned cases, but which, when taken at large, cannot be 

 so readily proved. Like any other legitimate business of a 

 general nature, which is not capable of monopoly, it requires 

 close calculation to make it a financial success. In a contract 

 of a Nebraska nurseryman, who makes a practice of planting 

 timber claims, the amount paid outfor plant-material is forty per 

 cent, of total cost of planting. (In Germany the plant-material 

 costs thirty-four to forty-six per cent, of total cost.) It be- 

 comes, then, of considerable consequence whether good 

 plant-material can be had at reasonable prices. 



It is not easy to determine at what advance over the cost of 

 production an article maybe sold to make profitable business; 

 so much depends upon the size of the business. A druggist 

 must take from 100 to 500 per cent., while a steel mill may 

 make money with a four percent, margin. Nor is it easy to de- 

 termine how far abundant and cheap supply will stimulate 

 demand. Limited demand entails high prices, and an over- 

 supply may have to be thrown away, because not salable, and 

 the loss must be charged upon the part that is sold. 



Mr. Fernow went on to give the cost of production of the 

 seedlings in the Government Forest Nurseries in Germany, 

 tabulating the elements which enter into the cost, and com- 

 paring them, so far as possible, with the conditions in this 

 country. These tables were most instructive, but we have not 

 space to reproduce them here. The conclusion of the whole 

 matter was that the main service that the nurseryman 

 can do for forestry is to provide reliable plant-material as- 

 cheaply as it can be done consistently with his own prosperity. 



SCIENCE AND PRACTICE. 



Mr. Thomas Meehan said that it had been fifty years since 

 he wrote his first article for a horticultural paper, and it 

 seemed to him, although horticulture had made rapid advan- 

 ces in all of those years, that it. had not progressed as far on 

 the scientific side as it ought to have done. As a practical 

 example of some scientific truths, upon which good practice 

 is based, he instanced the fact that fibrous roots live only a 

 year. They do their work and then die. Where there are a 

 hundred small roots now about a young tree there will be in 

 a few years only a few large ones radiating from it, like rail- 

 roads on a map. These big roots alone have the strength to 

 send out fibres, and the root is of no value to the tree until 

 new white fibres are growing. Therefore, it may be that a 

 mass of fibrous roots in a tree for transplanting is injurious. 

 They are weak, they have no vital power to put out rootlets, 

 and they may keep the soil from contact witli the big roots, 

 which, therefore, do not find the proper medium in which 

 to throw out feeding roots. 



Another fact which observation teaches is that roots die in 

 exact proportion to the amount of tops that are cut off. If a 

 tree is pollarded nine-tenths of the roots may die and then invite 



a fungus which spreads to (he living roots. It is said that the 

 branches which sprout from these pollards grow strongly 

 because the roots are stronger below them, but in fact they 

 grow from the food stored up in the trunk, just as shoots 

 three or four feet long often grow out of logs which lie by the 

 wayside. Generally pollarded trees die after this operation has 

 been frequently performed. Look, for example, at an Osage 

 Orange hedge. If one of the trees at the end is allowed to 

 grow it will make a trunk as big as a man's body in twenty 

 years, while the hedge plants of the same age, their vital power 

 being weakened by constant cutting, are no larger than a man's 

 wrist. Of course all pruning is not ito be condemned, although 

 it does weaken the vital power of the plant. We prune for 

 other purposes than to make long-lived trees. 



AUTUMN DELIVERIES OF NURSERY STOCK. 



Mr. G. E. Meissner, of Missouri, in speaking of the ship- 

 ment of nursery stock in autumn, said that in recent years the 

 practice of contracting to deliver this stock very early in the 

 fall has become so prevalent that the young trees are often 

 dug for fall planting before the wood has fully ripened. They 

 are torn from the ground while the young rootlets are still at 

 work, and the leaves are stripped from them while they are 

 still busy digesting the sap, and, of course, they are in no con- 

 dition to endure the winter. Yet nurserymen often advertise 

 deliveries as early as the 20th of September, because they say 

 people demand it. It is for this reason, perhaps, that fall plant- 

 ing is coming into disrepute. Of course, planting which may be 

 seasonable in Ohio is not so in Tennessee, and there is a great 

 difference in the quality of trees in this respect. For example, 

 a Currant-bush or Cherry-tree can be dug and shipped when a 

 Wild Goose Plum would be ruined. 



After some discussion, the Convention passed a resolution 

 in which they disapproved and protested against the lifting of 

 trees before the leaves had ripened and the wood had attained 

 a proper degree of maturity, and requested all members to dis- 

 countenance and discourage this practice. 



T 1 



Massachusetts Horticultural Society. 



'HE Rhododendrons made a brilliant display at the Horti- 

 cultural Hall, Boston, on the 7th instant. The chief 

 exhibitors were Messrs. Nathaniel T. Kidder, of Milton; Francis 

 B. Hayes, of Lexington; John L. Gardner, of Brookline.and H. 

 H. Hunnewell.of Wellesley. The following selection gives the 

 largest and best-formed trusses, with a good range of variety: 

 James Mcintosh, Michael Waterer, Princess Mary of Cam- 

 bridge, Lady Grey Edgerton, Henry W. Sargent, Sherwoodii, 

 Purpureum grandiflorum.Delicatissimum, SirWilliam Sebright, 

 Charles Dickens, Sappho, The Queen, Sir Joseph Whitworth 

 and Helen Waterer. The show of hardy Azaleas was rather 

 weak and the varieties insufficiently distinct. It seemed a 

 pity, however, to send so much of the plants with these 

 flowers when less would have served the purpose as well. 



The large white inflorescences of the old-fashioned Snow- 

 ball, and the smaller, though more numerous, ones of the 

 Japanese species, were very attractive. A single flowering 

 branch of Laburnum was sufficient to show the highly deco- 

 rative character of this elegant tree, and sprays of large- 

 flowering varieties (not named) of Clematis suggested the 

 utility of these climbing plants. Conspicuous among the ex- 

 hibits of herbaceous plants were Oriental Poppies, Irises, 

 Columbines and Day Lilies. The miscellaneous exhibits 

 included a plant in bloom of the interesting and beautiful 

 Utricularia nelumbifoliaj (lowering branches of that magnifi- 

 cent greenhouse climber, Bougainvillea glabra, and (lowers of 

 Tacsonia Van Volxemi, which is a splendid climbing green- 

 house plant, with large crimson (lowers. 



Notes. 



Green Corn is coming into market from theCarolinas, Rasp- 

 berries from Norfolk, Watermelons from Georgia and Peaches 

 from Florida. 



The great Palm which stood in the Gardens of the British 

 Embassy at Rome blew down during a late gale. This was 

 not only the tallest Palm in Rome, but it was memorable be- 

 cause pierced by a cannon-ball during (he attack on the city 

 in September, 1870. It was strapped with iron where it had 

 been struck. 



The Central Park has never looked so well as i( does this 

 year, and much of the improvement comes from (he removal 

 of the decaying conifers, chiefly Norway Spruces, which last 

 season disfigured its beauty. No one misses the thousands 



