September io, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



437 



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, SEPTEMBER ro, 1890. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



I'AGK. 



Editorial Articles: — The Army and the Forests.— The Nomenclature of Gar- 

 den Plants .' 437 



The Clark Elm. (With illustration.) 438 



Color Notes on California Wild Flowers.— I C. R. Orcutt. 438 



Diseases of Chrysanthemums Caused by Insects. (With figure.) 



J. G. Jack. 439 



Plant Notes :— Pyrus nigra, Sargent Professor L. H. Bailey. 440 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter IV. Watson. 440 



Cultural Department: — The Propagation of Hardy Herbaceous Plants, 



E. O. O. 442 



The Wild Garden Mary Treat. 442 



Some American Ferns F. H. Horsforri. 444 



Notes on Shrubs J. 444 



Saccolabium Hendersonianum John Weathers. 444 



Schubertia grandifolia G. 445 



Gordonia Altamaha (pubescens) Joseph Mcchan. 445 



The Forest :— The General Condition of the North American Forests. — 1 445 



Correspondence B. 447 



Recent Publications 447 



Periodical Literature 447 



Notes 448 



Illustrations :— Insects Affecting Chrysanthemums, Fig. 55 441 



The Clark Elm, Lexington, Massachusetts 443 



The Army and the Forests. 



AT the meeting of the American Forestry Association 

 in Philadelphia last year a resolution was adopted 

 to petition the Congress of the United States to pass an act 

 withdrawing all forest-lands on the public domain from 

 sale until a commission appointed by the President shall 

 have made the necessary examination and reported to 

 Congress what part of these lands should be kept perma- 

 nently in forest. In accordance with these same resolu- 

 tions, it was asked that the army should be employed to 

 protect the public forest from spoliation and destruction 

 until the Commission had reported a plan for a permanent 

 system of forest-management. The objection which was 

 offered to this last proposition, that the army was not large 

 enough to perform the duties which such an enactment 

 would impose upon it, has some weight, although we are 

 not likely to secure any legislation in the near future which 

 will give to the country the services of a body of forest- 

 wardens which will approach in numbers the military 

 forces which might be made available for this purpose. 



The objection, however, that such an employment is 

 not a proper one for the soldiery of the United States does 

 not seem to be well taken. A conspicuous example in 

 which the army, or rather a minute detachment of it, has 

 served in exactly this capacity is found in the management 

 of the Yellowstone National Park. For some reason Con- 

 gress failed to make any appropriation for paying the sala- 

 ries of the Superintendent of the park and his assistants for 

 the year ending June 30th, 1887, and therefore a troop of 

 cavalry under Captain Harris was ordered into the park. 

 This was not a military post, and therefore the captnin, 

 who acted as Superintendent, had no right to enforce 

 military law, his sole authority, under a special act, con- 

 sisting in a power to remove trespassers from the bounds 

 of the park. Nevertheless, the presence of the visible 

 power of the Federal Government, as represented by this 

 little garrison, has proved a more efficient protection to 

 the park than could have been hoped. It is reasonable to 

 suppose that the same moral effect would follow if the for- 

 ests were placed under the control of the organized and 

 disciplined military forces of the nation. It would not be 



necessary to have a soldier ready to put out every fire and 

 arrest every depredator. If it were once understood that 

 the national forests were under the immediate charge of the 

 army, and that persons who harmed them would be dealt 

 with after the rigorous and summary processes of mili- 

 tary law, marauders and intruders of all kinds would be 

 deterred from any attempt at the spoliation of Government 

 property. Under the present system, or lack of system, 

 these attacks are invited by the assurance that there is no 

 danger of punishment, for although the laws may seem to 

 be rigid they are practically never enforced. 



If this system of entrusting public forests to the army 

 were not avowedly temporary, it might be worth while to 

 consider whether the officers of the army, being men to a 

 certain extent of scientific training, would not make the 

 best supervisors of such a system of forest-policy as would 

 be the best for this country. It will be many years before 

 it will pay to go into the refinements of forest-practice here, 

 and perhaps no body of men could be found who could be 

 so readily prepared in the rudiments of forest-management 

 as the officers of our army. We are ultimately to have 

 forest-schools in this country no doubt, and that time will 

 come when there is a demand for skilled foresters ; but is 

 it altogether an impracticable idea to add to the course in 

 West Point some instruction in the rudiments of forestry 

 and to establish the nucleus of the first forest-school there 

 upon the Government reservation ? Here are 2,000 acres 

 of forest-land, and why would this not be an excellent 

 practice-ground if some system of forest-instruction were 

 to be given to the cadets ? At all events, this large tract of 

 Government forest-land would offer an admirable chance 

 for lessons in the rudiments of forest-management if the 

 woodlands on the public domain are to continue for any 

 time under the protection of the army. 



However this may be, we venture to suggest that in the 

 reservation of public forest which is likely to be set apart 

 by the act which has already passed the House of Repre- 

 sentatives, and is now before the Senate, a detachment of 

 the army would be all the protection needed for several 

 years to come. We refer to the bill making a so-called 

 public park in Tulare County, California, of certain desig- 

 nated townships which contain the remarkable grove of 

 Sequoias to which allusion has been already made in these 

 columns. It might have been better if this territory had 

 been designated as a forest-reservation instead of a park. 

 The name, however, is of little consequence if it is under- 

 stood that this grove is to be kept as it now is, a primeval 

 forest. There is not so much need of "improving" the 

 scenery which Nature has made as there is of protecting 

 it from desecration, and it seems to us that for the present 

 the most efficient way in which this can be kept from 

 desolation b) r fire and axe and trampling and browsing 

 herds is to place it under the guardianship of the army. 

 In time to come the making of roads and other works will 

 be necessary, but there is no need of haste in this matter. 

 The great desideratum now is protection, and it would 

 seem that this could be provided more effectively by the 

 army of the United States than by any other agency. 



The Nomenclature of Garden Plants. 



THE report of the Committee of Nomenclature at the 

 late Convention of Florists in Boston showed that the 

 instances in which old plants have been fraudulently sent 

 out under new names are less numerous than has been 

 usually supposed. The truth is that when a dealer delib- 

 erately attempts to deceive buyers the case is usually 

 brought to public attention, and so much comment is made 

 that the evil seems to bo much more prevalent than it 

 really is. This Committee, which, in addition to other 

 methods of obtaining information, sent out twelve hundred 

 circulars of inquiry, found that a large percentage of the 

 mistakes were unintentional, and arose from mixing labels 

 or mistaking identity in some other way easily and 

 naturally explained. When the immense number of garden 



