462 



Garden and Forest. 



[September 24, 1890. 



ruin here than in any other valley of the Sierras, although 

 this is the only, one under the special protection of the Gov- 

 ernment; and he adds that by far the greater part of this de- 

 struction of the charm of wildness is of a kind that can claim 

 no right relationship with that which necessarily follows use. 

 But the larger features of the park, especially its water- 

 falls and streams, are in danger from attacks upon the re- 

 gion without its borders. The time is at hand when lum- 

 bermen will begin to clear away the woods and herders 

 will drive in sheep and cattle to browse and trample the 

 life out of the ground, and the result will be that not only 

 the valley will lose the frame-work of the surrounding 

 beauty, but the streams which flow into it will become tur- 

 bid and irregular torrents. 



With these facts in view one can hardly understand why 

 Congress should any longer delay action upon the bill 

 offered by General Vandever, which extends the limits of 

 the reservation so as to include the watershed of the im- 

 portant Yosemite streams and many beautiful groves and 

 canons, mountain lakes and meadows. The Act in its pro- 

 visions is similar to the Tulare Forest Bill which has so 

 recently been enacted. The enlarged reservation is to be 

 under the control of the Secretary of the Interior, who is to 

 make regulations for its management. Of course, the ad- 

 ministration of the original reservation will continue in the 

 hands of the state of California. It is not to be assumed, 

 however, that the good people of that state will suffer its 

 name for public spirit, and for an enlightened apprecia- 

 tion of the value of this sublime scenery, to be clouded much 

 longer by the brutality of the men who are willing 

 to barter away its unique beauty for the price of a hay 

 crop. A rational management of the extension of the 

 reservation must exert a wholesome influence on the man- 

 agement of the valley itself, and, therefore, the sooner the 

 new reservation is established and put under national con- 

 trol, the better. This will not only preserve the rare beauty 

 of the region about the Yosemite proper, but it will help to 

 rescue the wonderful valley itself from deliberate ravage, 

 which the civilized world would look upon as a calamity. 



Mr. William Little, who is a remarkably well in- 

 formed lumberman, has published an open letter, ad- 

 dressed to the Montreal Board of Trade, on the wasteful 

 mismanagement of timber lands in Canada and in this 

 country. He says : 



" Contrast the character of the timber manufactured at the 

 present time, running largely into the different grades of culls, 

 with the magnificent black walnut, black cherry, butternut, 

 chestnut, hickory, buttonwood, whitewood, black and white 

 ash, red and white oak, red and white pine which, when not 

 used for fencing or fuel, were burnt up in the log-heaps of 

 Ontario in Canada, and in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indi- 

 ana, Michigan and Wisconsin in the United States, only a few 

 years ago, and which, when manufactured, ran largely into the 

 grades of selects and clear lumber. While hardly a thought 

 is given to the matter by the people, we are almost face to 

 face with a problem that must be quickly solved or disaster 

 will surely and speedily follow. 



" New lines of railway are being built or extended into dis- 

 tricts dependent almost entirely on the timber trade for busi- 

 ness ; the carrying capacity of the lake marine is being in- 

 creased at an enormous rate ; cities, towns and villages, 

 depending largely on the lumber industry, are enlarging their 

 borders as if the supply was inexhaustible. But timber cannot 

 be grown like a crop of corn ; its growth is a matter not of 

 years, but of ages, and when it is once gone it cannot be re- 

 stored during the lifetime of those now living, while the really 

 good timber of the north Atlantic and lake regions is not only 

 not inexhaustible, as many suppose, but is actually almost 

 exhausted. 



" The forests of the vast territory extending from the con- 

 fines of New Brunswick to the head-waters of the Mississippi 

 are almost on the verge of immediate exhaustion, and yet, so 

 ignorant or indifferent are the people of the United States to 

 the seriousness of the situation, that they are even now hig- 

 gling about what special restrictions they can impose upon 

 Canadian lumber. Let them increase the duty by all means, 

 if they like — the higher the better, in my opinion — for they will 

 then the sooner know how grievously they have erred and 



how imprudent they have been when they are compelled to 

 pay these duties themselves, and Canadians are able to get 

 what prices they want for their lumber. 



" But if we continue to stock American saw-mills with logs, 

 taken from our already too scanty supply, to forestall the mar- 

 kets in advance of our own manufacture, and keep slashing 

 away at our timber as we have always been doing, overstock- 

 ing the markets as if it were something to be exterminated at 

 any cost, and with the Government, the capital, and, I may 

 say, the public opinion of the country, when not indifferent, 

 all arrayed against the forests and animated with the same 

 destructive impulse, we will no doubt soon be able to get rid 

 of the timber, and to get rid at the same time of the most valu- 

 able property we ever had, or may ever expect to have, in our 

 country." 



The American Elm. 



WE published in the issue of June nth a portrait of 

 what may be considered a typical specimen of an 

 American Elm [Ulmus Americana), planted by man, and 

 allowed to develop during a hundred years all the grace 

 and beauty peculiar to this tree. The American Elm, how- 

 ever, differs in its habit of growth considerably and as- 

 sumes various forms as conditions are more or less favor- 

 able to its growth. A more recent number of this journal 

 (Sept. 10th) gave an illustration of another form of this 

 tree with pendulous branches which sweep the ground. 

 A not unusual type of the American Elm is the 

 one represented in our illustration on page 467. The 

 trunk and principal branches of this tree are clothed 

 along their whole length with short, lateral, feathery 

 branchlets, giving to the tree the peculiar appearance 

 which is well reproduced in our illustration. There seems 

 to be no particular reason why some individuals should 

 develop these lateral branches and why some should not. 

 Many Elm-trees do it, however, and it is not an unusual 

 sight to see two trees growing side by side under precisely 

 similar conditions, the one with a naked stem and main 

 branches, and the other clothed as fully as the tree of our 

 illustration, which is, moreover, a remarkably fine speci- 

 men. It is growing on rich intervale land in the town of 

 North Sandwich, in New Hampshire. 



We are indebted to Dr. William Herbert Rollins, of Bos- 

 ton, for the photograph from which the illustration has 

 been made. 



Effect of Forest-Mismanagement on Orchards. 

 T DO not intend here to rehearse the influence which the ' 

 *■ forest exerts upon fruit-culture by reason of its protection 

 against cold and hot winds. The value of a properly disposed 

 shelter-belt for the orchard is well understood. It is also well 

 known that by opening up the country to the sweep of the 

 northern winds the cultivation of the Olive in northern France 

 was made impossible, and other such results of injudicious 

 deforestation, of local as well as general character, are on 

 record. I wish to show that not deforestation, but the mere 

 mismanagement of the forest in the way of leaving large parts 

 of felled trees in the woods and in allowing fires to run 

 through the woods, works injury not only to the forest itself, 

 but to the neighboring orchard. It is a well known fact that 

 a large proportion of the beetle larvae which infest living trees 

 cannot exist in a thoroughly healthy and vigorously growing 

 tree ; those larvae in particular which are found in the cam- 

 bium layer between the wood and the bark would be drowned 

 in the sap of healthy trees. They are, therefore, mostly found 

 in those trees which, for some reason or other, are less vigor- 

 ous or on the road to decay. When a fire has run through 

 the Pine forest, or when a leaf-destroying caterpillar has 

 ravaged the foliage and thus reduced the vigor of the trees, 

 these beetles find a most favorable breeding place in the 

 weakened trees, and their larvae multiply rapidly and finish the 

 work of destruction in short time. For this reason it is often 

 necessary to cut millions of feet of lumber and cordwood at 

 once, or it will be entirely ruined. While, then, these little 

 insects — belonging to the families Bostrichida; and Scolytida; — 

 are great enemies to the forest itself, there is no doubt that 

 many of the insects injurious to our fruit and shade-trees find 

 their most favorable breeding place in the trunks and limbs 

 of the scorched or freshly felled trees. The frequent forest- 

 fires and the failure of the farmer and lumberman in disposing 

 of large parts of the felled trees must be considered as among 



