July 9, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



329 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Conducted by 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 

 Professor C. S. Sargbnt. 



ENTERED AS SECOND CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1890. 

 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles: — The Scenery of New Hampshire. — The Powers of Park 



Boards. — Forest-Management 329 



A Japanese Pot Plant. (Illustrated.) 330 



Water in Landscape-Gardening Daniel D. Slnde. 330 



The Cedars in Europe H. Christ. 331 



Notes on North American Trees. Description of the Wood of Certain 



Species. — XVIII Professor C. S. Sargent. 331 



New or Little Known Plants : — Ptelea aptera. (With figure.) C. S. S. 332 



Plant Notes : — Some Recent Portraits 332 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 333 



Cultural Department: — Notes on American Plants F. H. Horsford. 334 



Greenhouse Climbers IV. II. Taplin. 335 



Notes on Shrubs J. G. J. 336 



The Rock Garden F. D. H. 336 



Notes and Queries on Hardy Plants E. O. Orpet. 337 



Oilcake for Wire-worms George F. Wilson. 337 



The Forest: — Notes on the Ligneous Vegetation of the Sierra Madre of Nuevo 



Leon. — I C. G. Pringle. 337 



Periodical Literature 338 



Correspondence: — Hardiness of Indian Azaleas E. Williams. 339 



Forestry and Irrigation L. W. 339 



Notes 340 



Illustrations : — Ptelea aptera, Fig. 45 333 



A Japanese Pot Plant 335 



The Scenery of New Hampshire. 



THE mountain scenery of New Hampshire is one of the 

 most valuable pecuniary possessions of her people. 

 It will yield them increasing profits through all coming 

 time if it is rightly cared for and protected from injury and 

 destruction. The timber can all be utilized without de- 

 stroying forest-conditions on the mountains, and the great 

 manufacturing interests of the state require the preserva- 

 tion of the forests in the regions where the rivers have 

 their sources. There is no important interest of the state 

 which would not receive advantage from the permanent 

 maintenance and intelligent management of her mountain 

 forests. Is it not strange that our people everywhere are 

 so slow to understand the truth that the forests would yield 

 a great deal more timber if they were rightly handled than 

 they do by the haphazard and murderous methods of lum- 

 bering hitherto in use? When we speak of forest-preserva- 

 tion multitudes of men still infer that if the forests are to 

 be preserved, no timber .can be cut or used. They seem 

 to think that the only way to have timber for the boundless 

 and increasing needs of the country is by destroying the 

 forests, root and branch, and by the methods of lumbering 

 still largely used the timber-producing capacity of extensive 

 areas of land is every year permanently destroyed. 



Timber in New Hampshire, and everywhere else, should 

 be cut and used when it is ripe, when it is at its best. 

 That is what it is for. But it should be cut in intelligent 

 and civilized fashion, so that it will be reproduced again 

 and again in a permanent succession of crops. There is no 

 reason, or good sense, or profit in cutting off all the timber 

 at once, large and small. All forest-lands should be care- 

 fully protected from fire, so that the forest-floor, and the 

 soil out. of which the trees grow, may not be destroyed. 

 Every forest-fire is followed by the growth of inferior kinds 

 of timber. A fire destroys in a few hours the elements of 

 fertility in the soil which have been slowly accumulated by 

 vegetable action through a thousand centuries of time. 



The chief reason for preserving the forests of New 

 Hampshire is the fact that they constitute the principal 

 and essential charm of the remarkably beautiful and at- 

 tractive mountain scenery of the state. If this scenery is 



rightly cared for and preserved it will in a few years be- 

 more valuable than the agriculture of the state. While the 

 mountain forest-lands arc in private hands they arc rapidly 

 disfigured and rendered unsightly by thoughtless and reck- 

 less methods of lumbering. Why should not the state at 

 once take steps for the acquisition of all the forest-lands 

 which are essential to the attractiveness of the scenery and 

 to the maintenance of the flow of the rivers of the state? 

 The people of New Hampshire ought to have faith in the 

 future of their state. If they will protect their forests, let 

 the trees grow, and improve their roads they will in a few 

 years have summer visitors and summer residents enough 

 to utilize all the beauty of their wonderful mountain land- 

 scapes. Travelers and towns-people from all parts of the 

 country, and of the world, will gladly pay liberal tribute 

 for the privilege of a summer sojourn among the hills. 

 The revenues of the inhabitants will be largely increased, 

 and their lives rendered easier, broader and more interest- 

 ing. The use of the natural scenery of New Hampshire is 

 to be the great future interest and industry of her people. 

 It will admit of great development and expansion. We do 

 not need to fret about the abandoned farms. Let them 

 grow up to pine timber again. They will then be more 

 valuable than they are now. Many of them ought never' 

 to have been cultivated, and if forest-conditions had been 

 maintained on them they would now sell for much more 

 money than they will bring in their present condition. But 

 the forest will reassert its ancient dominion. One of the 

 best things about the country up there is the way the 

 Pine-trees come in wherever the plow stops for a little 

 while. No need to talk about planting trees in that region. 

 We presume the intelligent and thoughtful men of the 

 state would be glad to see the mountain forest-lands made 

 a public possession, so that lumbering could be carried on 

 in an orderly way, so that forest-conditions might be per- 

 manently maintained, the beautiful scenery preserved, and 

 an ever-increasing multitude of summer visitors attracted 

 to the great mountain houses and to the hill farms. But 

 the population of the mountain regions of the state is 

 scarce and scattered. The owners of the forest-lands live 

 in the cities or out of the state. They do not often see 

 each other, and it is very difficult to bring about any con- 

 ference, general consultation or common action among 

 them. This is indeed the greatest obstacle in the way of 

 needed action for the preservation of the forest and the 

 scenery. The state should have an officer to attend to 

 these interests and to bring about the general co-operation 

 of the people, in view of the increasing demand for timber, 

 and of the approaching expansion of the summer business, 

 not only at the mountain hotels, but on the hill farms. 



The article by the Earl of Meath, an abstract of which is 

 given on page 338 of this issue, is interesting to Americans 

 because it shows how our city parks appear to the eyes of 

 an Englishman who has had much experience in the man- 

 agement of public pleasure-grounds. Some of our Ameri- 

 can ways are specially commended by the writer, and one 

 of these is the general practice of entrusting the adminis- 

 tration of city parks to small boards of commissioners, 

 with ample and almost unrestricted powers. There can be 

 no doubt but that definiteness of policy, with promptness 

 and vigor of action, is made possible by such a govern- 

 ment, and perhaps it never occurred to our friendly critic, 

 who has a civilized respect for professional counsel, that a 

 commissioner would undertake the proper work of a land- 

 scape-gardener any more than the director of a railroad 

 would attempt to design a drawbridge or build a locomo- 

 tive. But just here lies the danger of such an administra- 

 tion. If it is urged that only a densely ignorant man 

 would esteem an appointment by a mayor an adequate 

 preparation for the work of designing a park, the answer 

 is that men of fair business ability who have been made 

 park commissioners have on more than one occasion 

 proved that they considered their own crude notions supe- 

 rior to the carefully studied opinions of recognized experts. 



