September 3, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



427 



and the " timber crop" sold in the open market, the miners 

 would soon discover that they could get along with much less 

 and the insane waste now going- on would be prevented. 



I have seen the bottom of canons in the mining region lit- 

 erally crowded for miles with the trunks of Pines from each 

 of which a few " flume blocks " had been sawed, and the rest 

 discarded, though sound to the centre. I have seen mining- 

 reservoirs made in canons, and many acres of stately Pines 

 and Spruces left to perish as the water rose behind the dam. 

 No one thought that it made any difference ; the supply was 

 called " inexhaustible." About twelve years ago, while a trav- 

 eling correspondent of the San Francisco Bulletin, 1 rode over 

 the mining districts of Nevada, Placer and El Dorado Coun- 

 ties, a region covering an area of more than 3,000 square 

 miles. Near one of the little mining camps I made the ac- 

 quaintance of a pioneer named Rayburn, who had a saw-mill, 

 and obtained most of his timber from Government land. One 

 night when I sat in his cabin he asked me if I "had ever seen 

 a Pitch-Pine-tree on fire ? " " Now, that is one on the point of 

 the ridge," he said, pointing to a stately specimen, " and I'll 

 send Jim up to touch it off for you." Like a recent writer on 

 forests and irrigation in one of the leading magazines, he had 

 no conception of the Chinese fire-cracker folly of the idea of 

 touching a match to a great Pine merely to see it blaze and 

 fall, and it took half an hour to persuade him out of the notion 

 of his pyrotechnic display. 



The causes and extent of the forest-fires of the Pacific coast 

 have often been discussed, but I cannot refrain from giving a 

 bit of evidence from Professor Joseph Le Conte. In a recent 

 conversation he referred to "one of the saddest sights" he 

 ever beheld. It was a fire-killed forest in Oregon. "For 

 thirty miles," he said, "I rode across a belt of timber. The 

 trees had been magnificent Pines, few of them less than 

 250 feet in height. Fire had destroyed every vestige of 

 vegetation, and in places the soil was burned out in great pits 

 and hollows." The traveler in the Californian mountains will 

 often come upon such fire-swept districts, where miles upon 

 miles of forests that belong to the whole American people 

 stand in utter ruin. 



The lesson that Californians are strangely slow to learn is 

 that the prosperity of the orchard-planted valleys depends 

 upon the maintenance of the forest-reserves. The shortage 

 of the Delaware peach crop of 1890 is said to have added a 

 million dollars to the value of the California peach crop. But 

 the limits of the possible extension of the peach industry are 

 fixed by the condition of the high Sierras and of the upper 

 ridges of the Coast Range. If California keeps the forests as 

 the orchards of the mountains, gathering the annual timber 

 crop as she gathers her annual fruitage in the valleys, then 

 orchard belt and Pine belt will meet, and the whole state blos- 

 som, and every acre of barren waste be reclaimed at last. 



Professor George Davidson, one of the mostcaref ul of observ- 

 ers, made a report, now almost forgotten, on the irrigation of the 

 two great valleys, the San Joaquin and the Sacramento. This 

 report, sent to Washington in 1876, still remains the most 

 complete and practical study of the subject, but its suggestions 

 have never received attention. The region under considera- 

 tion, including valley and low foot-hills, covers 12,000,000 

 'acres. Professor Davidson shows that the average rainfall in 

 the mountains is sufficient to irrigate every tillable acre of this 

 great district, and that the engineering problems involved are 

 not difficult. He tabulates the catchment basins of all the 

 streams on either side of the valleys, and shows that on the 

 maintenance of the great forests the success of the entire sys- 

 tem depends. First, he says, the waters must be controlled, 

 placed under a general system of law and be irrevocably 

 bound to the lands they irrigate. Secondly, the forest must 

 be maintained in a systematic manner, so as to avoid waste. 

 Thirdly, the development of a complete irrigation system 

 must go hand in hand with a drainage system to reclaim the 

 swamp and tule lands and carry off the surplus water from 

 the plains. The Davidson Report, which makes a large volume 

 of several hundred pages, illustrates the possibilities of scientific 

 irrigation in California by the best examples of similar work in 

 other countries, but its chief value is in the clear presentation 

 of the necessity of utilizing the water of the Sierra if horticul- 

 ture is to reach its full development in the great valley. 



An ideal California is yet possible, but a few more years 

 of neglect will forever destroy that ideal. California should 

 be a state with one-third of its surface one vast garden and 

 orchard, one-third occupied by great and permanent forests, 

 yielding a revenue almost as large as that of the lowlands, 

 and one-third snow peaks, wild Alps of rocks, high, open pas- 

 tures and level tule islands reclaimed and changed into such 

 Grass-fields as those of Holland. Everywhere there should be 



sufficient water, but nowhere torrents nor uncontrolled floods. 

 On every terraced hill should flourish the Olive andCarob, the 

 Vine and Orange, and the miners should toil in their camps 

 among stately Pines. 

 Niies, Cai. Charles H. Shinn. 



Earliness from Unripe Seed. 



TP\R. STURTEVANT'S remarks on page 355, alluding to 

 *— experiments at Geneva in growing Tomatoes from un- 

 ripe seed, invite a reply, which I have delayed offering for a 

 few days, until the different strains now growing in the garden 

 of the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station should have 

 ripened their first fruits. A brief history of the case is this : 

 Seed of the Cook's Favorite Tomato has been saved from 

 very immature fruits through five seasons, the fruits being 

 selected in every case from the plants grown from immature 

 seed. The fruits from which the seed was saved had not attained 

 full size, and exhibited none of the indications of ripeness. 



The present season, the first fruit from the immature seed 

 ripened on August 8th, while that from plants grown every year 

 from thoroughly mature seed ripened August 14th, showing 

 a gain in this case of six days in favor of the immature seed. 

 The dates of maturity of the two selections, that is, from the im- 

 mature seed and from the ripe seed, in our Geneva plantings 

 are not at hand, but it is my impression that in some instances 

 the gain has been greater than this. In a slightly different strain 

 which was originated in 1889, by selecting thoroughly ripened 

 fruits from the plants grown for three seasons from immature 

 fruits, the first fruit ripened this season ten days in advance of 

 that from the seed grown continuously from ripe fruit. 



This experiment, including certain branches not here men- 

 tioned, has proved most interesting and instructive; and it is 

 our intention to publish the results in detail when carried a 

 little farther. I will only add here that the increase in earliness 

 is accompanied by a marked decrease in the vigor of the plant 

 and in the size, firmness and keeping quality of the fruit. 



University of Wisconsin, Madison. i.. S. Goff. 



The Cactus in Garden Art. 



The Cactus is a curiosity, one of the wonders of the vege- 

 table kingdom. It is unusual, and therefore always bold and 

 striking. For this reason it is a favorite with many as an ob- 

 ject of ornamentation in lawns, and the species are often used 

 in composition for landscape effect. In fact, so common is 

 this use of Cactuses that we may take them to represent a 

 type of ornamentation which is characterized by obtrusive- 

 ness and uncommonness. This is almost universally the form 

 adopted by those who have a shallow love of Nature. It indi- 

 cates that the designer is less in sympathy with his surround- 

 ings than with other regions, and that his desires are to be 

 satisfied only by something which appeals at once to the eye 

 as peculiar. Such types of gardens are common. One fre- 

 quently sees glaring curves, angular banks, balanced figures, 

 piles of stones, curiosities and abundance of abnormal and 

 unusual trees and plants, but he rarely finds a picture painted 

 in a landscape with the same taste that the artist defines and 

 composes on his canvas. And even when we do find a gar- 

 den created in the love and appreciation of Nature we are too 

 apt to pass it by as tame or commonplace. 



It is apparent that if Cactuses are to be used in landscape 

 work, they must be treated wholly as accessories are treated, 

 in the same manner as we treat a rockery or anything which 

 is out of keeping with the general spirit of the scene. They 

 should be inconspicuous, unless near a greenhouse or in re- 

 stricted areas devoted to rarities and curiosities. In this cli- 

 mate they should never form an integral part of the landscape, 

 for they never combine well with greensward and trees. 



But we are not to be understood as discouraging the culti- 

 vation of Cactuses. We are only protesting against the gross- 

 ness of fashion and taste which is too often confounded with 

 landscape-gardening. Fashion often springs from an inhar- 

 mony with nature, while landscape-gardening is always in- 

 spired by the genius of contiguous landscapes. As green- 

 house plants, Cactuses possess many merits, and are eminently 

 worth much more general cultivation. They possess, in a 

 remarkable degree, curiousness anil beauty, and they present 

 an almost endless variety of forms and peculiarities. . . . 

 The peculiarities of shape and form, combined with the great 

 beauty of their flowers, are the very features which tend to 

 make them common favorites for lawn decoration. But every- 

 thing must have its place, and it should be borne in mind that 

 Cactuses are valuable as Cactuses, not as elements in the 

 landscapes of our climates. — The American Garden. 



