506 



Garden and Forest. 



[October 15, iE 



settling the vexed question as to whether our native forests 

 can be replaced by artificial planting-. The booths or rooms in 

 which such exhibit is made should be constructed of native 

 wood entirely, arranged so as to make practical application of 

 the scientific facts above mentioned, and this feature would 

 offer an indefinite held for expansion, where rival states as 

 well as lumbermen could display their products. 



Closely connected with this scientific portion, so as to show 

 it to be a part of one symmetrical whole, should come the 

 wood-working machinery of every kind, beginning with some 

 specimen of the primitive sash or pit saw, through the wide 

 range of circular and band saws, then gang saws, edgers and 

 trimmers, shingle and lathe machines. Practical examples of 

 the operation of this machinery should by all means be given, 

 either on certain days or at certain hours. After these ma- 

 chines designed for reducing the raw material to manufac- 

 tured form would naturally follow the more intricate planing 

 machines, tenon and mortise machines, surfacers, moulding, 

 barrel, matching, veneer, pail, nailing, sand-papering and 

 turning machines, and the wonderful and novel carving ma- 

 chines, where the numerous manufacturers would properly 

 have all the needed space to show the advantages of their rival 

 inventions. 



Lastly, it would be eminently proper, though perhaps not 

 practical to the full extent, to have connected with the lumber 

 and forestry exhibit a display of all kinds of articles made of 

 wood, carved specimens, wood pulp, and the numerous arti- 

 cles made from it, such as pails, dishes, pressed ornaments, etc. 



Too much stress cannot be laid on the necessity of system 

 in such a varied and extended exhibit. Though logically the 

 parts are all intimately connected, yet a careless, immethodi- 

 cal display, difficult to comprehend, would leave the ordinary 

 visitor with no definite notion of any part, while one strictly 

 subordinated to an orderly progression would give a clear, 

 though perhaps from the nature of the case often a superficial 

 view, but one which could easily be remembered and of per- 

 manent benefit. 



Of equal importance is the question of some government 

 supervision of at least the scientific part of the exhibit, if it 

 can be done within the limits of the act. Lumbermen and 

 machinery makers, practically interested, can be trusted to 

 make a fitting display in the direction in which they are ac- 

 quainted. They represent a broad minded class of men, already 

 greatly interested in the "widest success of a lumber exhibit, 

 who can be relied on to join heartily in the exhibit, if only a 

 proper initial movement is made. Hence the necessity of a 

 generalship declared by a higher authority, not only impartial, 

 but more catholic. 



The best interests of the lumber industry, as well as of the 

 Exposition, will be subserved by an exhibit covering as near as 

 possible all branches of this department and allowing no one 

 to usurp undue importance. 



Correspondence. 



Improper Pruning. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Will you give us your views on the removal of the 

 lower branches from ornamental trees ? Many people here 

 insist that all lower branches must be trimmed away in order 

 that the ground may be thoroughly cultivated up to the very 

 trunks of the trees. Clumps of conifers, Grevilleas, Acacias 

 and other trees are spoiled in this way and have about as much 

 beauty as an ostrich. I leave you to imagine what an Arau- 

 caria excelsa looks like treated in this way. 



Santa Barbara, Cal. *" . V. U. 



[It should be the aim of cultivators of ornamental trees 

 to preserve as far as possible all their lower branches. 

 The highest type of beauty in a lawn or park tree is that 

 in which the lower branches repose on the ground, and 

 which present a solid mass of foliage from top to bottom. 

 It is not easy always to produce trees of this description, 

 and it can only be accomplished by allowing them abun- 

 dant room and air on all sides for free growth and devel- 

 opment. Even with sufficient space about them, cer- 

 tain trees, like some of the Pines and the Sugar Maple, 

 lose their lower branches early and develop tall naked 

 trunks. Lower branches are essential to the beauty of all 

 coniferous trees which grow naturally with a pyramidal 

 habit, like the Firs, Spruces and Araucarias. Nothing is 

 more ugly than one of these trees deprived of its lower 

 branches growing by itself as a specimen. 



Lower branches perform a valuable service to the tree, 

 especially such trees as grow in very moist climates or in 

 situations where they are exposed to high wind. Young 

 trees, like Firs and Spruces, which grow generally on high 

 mountains where the rainfall and wind are excessive, are 

 provided invariably with long lower branches, which have 

 two purposes: first, to check evaporation from the ground 

 immediately about the stems of the trees, and then by 

 keeping the principal weight of the branches near the base 

 of the tree to enable it to withstand severe lateral pressure 

 from wind. Such trees as they grow naturally in the forest 

 become crowded, and the lower branches being deprived 

 of light, cease growing and gradually die and fall off, being 

 no longer needed for the welfare of the tree, which is pro- 

 tected by its neighbors from evaporation from the surface 

 of the soil and from the sweep of the wind. 



A specimen tree growing by itself with all its lower 

 branches preserved is in very much the same condition, 

 so far as protection is concerned, as the same tree growing 

 in the midst of a dense forest and entirely destitute of 

 branches for a height perhaps of fifty or sixty feet. That 

 this is true appears from the fact that if all its neigh- 

 bors are cut away from about a tree which has grown in 

 a dense forest, it will soon perish from exposure to the 

 sun, or will succumb to the first severe gale. It is more 

 important to check evaporation from the surface imme- 

 diately about the trunk of a tree than it is to cultivate the 

 ground. Trees feed only through the ends of their roots, 

 which extend laterally as far or further from the trunk than 

 the branches. The place to cultivate a tree is outside the 

 spread of the branches, and not beneath them. The re- 

 moval, therefore, of the lower branches of ornamental 

 trees, especially of conifers, is a barbarous practice, which 

 destroys their beauty and sometimes seriously threatens 

 their existence. — Ed.] 



Forest Destruction. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — The impassioned oration of Mr. O'Neil, which is re- 

 ported in the letter from Tupper Lake Station in the New York 

 Tribune of October 6th, contains some extremely careless 

 talk. How can a man expect what he says to be taken se- 

 riously when he declares that "there is no danger that the 

 Adirondack forest will ever be destroyed"? Anybody who 

 has any considerable knowledge of the region knows that great 

 areas of it have already been entirely and finally destroyed. 

 Every traveler from this Deadwater region down through the 

 "Schroon country" to North Creek sees all day a scene of ut- 

 ter desolation unrolled before and around him. Not only has 

 the forest been destroyed. That in itself would be but a slight 

 matter, though every tree and bush and twig had been re- 

 moved. But on these hills, across leagues and leagues of 

 country, the soil itself has been destroyed and removed, and 

 the rocks lie bare and glistening to the sun. This soil was the 

 accumulation of countless ages of vegetable growth, and its 

 destruction brings back the conditions under which nature 

 began the work of placing it here. Everybody but Mr. O'Neil 

 is aware that this region, now so utterly ruined, was formerly 

 covered by most valuable forests. Now it will require un- 

 counted centuries to clothe these bare rocks with the soil 

 required to sustain a forest again. He says that traces of 

 abandoned farms are to be found in all parts of the region. 

 That is very true. But he says the owners have fled. Yes, 

 they have fled to the adjoining tracts. Each one, after he has 

 burned out and exhausted the soil of the acres he cultivated 

 till it will never produce trees again, has moved a little farther 

 up or down the valley, or over to the opposite side of the 

 stream running through it, there to repeat the same process of 

 devastation, not of the forest only, but of the soil itself. But 

 the ruin of the aggregate area of their "farms" is a trivial mat- 

 ter compared with the destruction which has been produced 

 by the extensive forest-fires which these farmers have reck- 

 lessly started in burning off the brush and timber in order to 

 plant a crop in the ashes. These people are still "fleeing" 

 from place to place within the Adirondack region, and burn- 

 ing out new farms, which will in turn soon be abandoned. 



It is no wonder that people who are familiar with the coun- 

 try along the Chateaugay Railroad should regard with' appre- 

 hension the extension of the Northern road to Tupper Lake, 



