July 16, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



34i 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 1890. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— Can the Nation Protect its Own Property? — The Silk 



Cotton-Tree. (Illustrated.) 341 



The Economic Uses of Leaves 342 



Cooking Quamash James M. Maconn. 343 



A n Experience with Rosebugs John B. Smith. 343 



Notes on North American Trees. — XIX. Description of the Wood of 

 Certain Species Professor C. S. Sargent. 344 



New or Little Known Plants : — Ilex longipes. (With figure.) 



Professor W. Trelease. 344 

 New Orchids .' R. A. Rolfe. 344 



Cultural Department : — Notes on Shrubs J. G. J. 346 



The Strawberry Season. . E. Williams, Professor E. S. Goff, George J. Kellogg. 346 



Notes on American Plants F. H. Horsford. 348 



Rose Notes W. H. Taplin. 348 



Border Pinks and Carnations J. N. Gerard. 348 



Heleniums E. O. Orpet. 348 



Polemonium paucirlorum G. 349 



Correspondence : — Communal Forests B. E. Fernow. 349 



The Evils of Grafting //. Robinson, S. B. Parsons. 350 



Low Spear Grass R.J. 350 



Recent Publications: — Campbell's "Botany." Professor William Trelease. 351 



Catalogue of the Plants Found in New Jersey 351 



Notes 351 



Illustrations :— Ilex longipes, Fig. 46 345 



The Silk Cotton-Tree 347 



Can the Nation Protect Its Own Property ? 



A FORTNIGHT ago the Senate of the United States, in 

 Committee of the Whole, was considering a bill which 

 provides that "any person who shall maliciously or negli- 

 gently and carelessly set on fire any woods, underbrush 

 or prairie on any of the public lands of the United States, or 

 who shall suffer any fire, which he may have lighted on other 

 lands, to pass therefrom to the public lands of the United 

 States, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon 

 conviction thereof in any District Court of the United 

 States having jurisdiction of the same, shall be fined in a 

 sum not more than three times the value of the trees or 

 other growth so destroyed or injured, or imprisoned for a 

 term not more than three years, or both." 



The occasion for framing this measure, as reported by 

 the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, was found in a 

 message of the President transmitting a letter from the 

 Secretary of the Interior. In this letter it was stated 

 among other things that a fire was started by the Sheriff 

 of Boise County, Idaho, and certain well known citizens 

 with him, which destroyed a large amount of timber be- 

 longing to the Government. In accordance with a special 

 agent's report setting forth these facts, it was recommended 

 by the Secretary of the Interior that the United States Dis- 

 trict Attorney should institute criminal proceedings against 

 the men who kindled the fire. The United States District 

 Attorney returned the papers in the case with an opinion that 

 there was no way of reaching the perpetrators of this act 

 under the United States statute. It was in view of this that 

 the bill was drawn up by the Commissioner of Public Lands 

 and endorsed by the Secretary of the Interior, for without 

 such legislation it would seem that fires may be kindled de- 

 liberately to the destruction of any quantity of Government 

 timber, not to speak of the destruction of human life 

 which often happens in such cases, while the Government 

 is powerless to punish any one for this crime, and 

 that, too, in spite of the fact that in response to an appeal 

 from the Governor of this very territory of Idaho, the 

 United States Government had expended a large amount 

 of money in fighting these forest-fires, in order to protect 

 its citizens from personal loss. 



And now when this bill, which seems so fair and just, 

 was before the Senate, Mr. Teller, of Colorado, objected to 

 it (and the bill was laid over in accordance with this ob- 

 jection) on the ground that the Government of the United 

 States cannot create any offense in the state of Colorado or 

 in any other state except on those lands where they have 

 exclusive jurisdiction. That is, the United States Govern- 

 ment has no authority to say what shall be larceny or 

 what shall be a misdemeanor on the public lands in the state 

 of Colorado. It has no right to make it a criminal offense 

 to burn timber in the state of Colorado, for the relation of 

 the Government to its timber in that state and to its land is 

 the same as that of any other proprietor. Now if Senator 

 Teller's position is correct— that is, if the United States Gov- 

 ernment has no power to legislate against offenses com- 

 mitted in the states against its property — it is pretty clear 

 that some comprehensive forest-policy should be inaugu- 

 rated so that the Government property can be guarded by , 

 a sufficient number of watchmen. If the United States has 

 no power to punish incendiaries who burn over its timber- 

 land, it would seem to be folly to wait longer before some 

 thoroughly organized administration of the forest-lands, 

 with state co-operation if necessary, is attempted. It does 

 seem, however, that the United States ought to be able to 

 devise methods for protecting its own property even among 

 the God-fearing and law-abiding freemen who inhabit our 

 western states. 



The Silk Cotton-Tree. 



THE traveler from the north, landing at Nassau, the 

 principal town in the Bahama group of islands, will, 

 if it happens to be his first introduction to the tropics, be 

 most delighted certainly with the beauty of the Cocoanut 

 Palms, with their tall, straight stems crowned with the 

 great tufts of graceful leaves which sway backward and 

 forward with the slightest play of the wind. But next to 

 the Palms, the great tree, of which a portrait is published 

 on page 347, will, if he has any interest at all in the 

 products of Nature, excite his astonishment and curiosity 

 more than anything else on these islands. It is a fine 

 specimen of the Silk Cotton-tree of the West Indies, which 

 botanists call Eriodendron anfractuosum. The generic 

 name is formed from two Greek words meaning wool and 

 tree, and was given to it on account of the brown woolly 

 substance which surrounds the seeds, while the specific 

 name, which means the bending in and out of a road or 

 path, was bestowed upon the tree on account of its great 

 size, which made it easier to divert a road round the trunk 

 than to cut down the tree. 



The specimen whose portrait we publish stands just in 

 front of the town-house of Nassau, where it was planted 

 probably in the early days of the settlement of the island, 

 as the branches have attained a spread of 150 feet, while a 

 man walking round the buttresses which support the 

 trunk, and which are well shown in our illustration, must 

 make fifty paces. 



The Silk Cotton-tree is the largest inhabitant of the 

 Caribbean forests. Few trees have a loftier and more im- 

 posing appearance, as it overtops its companions in the 

 forest, or appears in solitary grandeur on some open 

 plain or by some cultivated field, with its stout trunk 

 strengthened in old age with numerous buttresses, and 

 dividing sometimes near the ground into enormous spread- 

 ing branches, and sometimes shooting up into a great 

 column sixty or eighty feet high. The branches and the 

 trunk of young plants are armed with straight acuminate 

 spines. The ample glabrous leaves are palmately divided 

 into six or seven oblong-lanceolate leaflets. The flowers, 

 with their persistent calyx and five reflexed pale rose- 

 colored petals, joined with each other, and with the three- 

 branched column formed by the united filaments, arc 

 produced in the greatest profusion, and possess the deli- 

 cate fragrance of primroses. The fruit is a large, woody, 

 round, obtuse capsule, consisting of five cells, and split- 

 ting open by five valves, each cell containing a number of 



