October 15, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



507 



and the establishment of charcoal kilns along its line. The 

 best basis for work for improvement is usually the recognition 

 of existing conditions and facts. 



Deadwater, N. Y. 



R. D. W. 



Spring or Fall Planting ? 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir. — There are some things that it seems are never settled. 

 The reason is, that their settlement depends on conditions 

 which may vary in every individual case. One of these things 

 that are destined to remain in dispute is the question of spring 

 or fall planting. I have always contended, with the best 

 authorities, I believe, that trees may be planted at any season 

 of the year, provided it be done with proper care. The 

 question then remains, what is " proper care "? and the kind 

 ajid amount of care necessarily differs with the season and 

 locality. 



I wish to call attention to one care which may be necessary 

 where fall-planting is practiced in northern latitudes, and which 

 suggested itself to me when inspecting the plantations of M. 

 Joly, near Quebec, after the meeting of the American Forestry 

 Association at that city. 



M. Joly de Lotbiniere, whom all defenders of the forest 

 know, or ought to know, as one of their stanchest and most 

 influential friends in Canada, delights in making the Black 

 Walnut grow far beyond the natural limits of its northern 

 distribution. As recorded at length in the Proceedings of the 

 Forestry Congress for 1885, after the severe winter of 1884-5, 

 quite a* large number of his trees were found dead in the 

 spring. Examination developed the fact that the bark had 

 been severed from the wood below the root-collar underneath 

 the ground and for some distance along the roots near the 

 surface of the soil ; it was also observed that the trees which 

 had succumbed stood in places where the wind had been able 

 to sweep away the snow. The soil had evidently been 

 severely frozen, and when thawing, in contracting away from 

 the roots, had torn off the bark ; where the frost did not pene- 

 trate the roots remained intact. M. Joly now has provided 

 Willow hedges to collect and hold the snow, or he packs it 

 where it seems necessary. 



This suggests that where the soil has been newly dug the 

 danger from frost is very great, since seedlings are sometimes 

 entirely uprooted and heaved out by the frost ; and that snow 

 is a very efficient mulch where mulching is one of the cares 

 which may be necessary for fall-planting in cold latitudes. 



By the way, it seems to be time that a forestry association 

 should avoid such planting as was performed at the end of the 

 meeting at Quebec, where two Hickories sent from the sunny 

 clime of Tennessee — from Andrew Jackson's own grove, it is 

 true — were set out on the cold rock in front of the Parliament 

 Buildings. Though the sentiment was praiseworthy, sound 

 forestry would forbid the use of such plant material, which is 

 bound to succumb, and the Forestry Association cannot afford 

 to set so bad an example. ' 



Washington, D. C. *>■ E- rerilOW. 



Recent Publications. 



The Flora of the Kurilc Islands, by K. Miyabe. Memoirs of 

 the Boston Society of Natural History, volume iv., No. 7. Bos- 

 ton, 1890. 



This excellent piece of work is from the pen of a former 

 student in Harvard University and now the professor of bot- 

 any in the college at Sapparo. After some general remarks 

 on the physical geography of the Kurile Islands and a carefully 

 worked out analysis of the composition of the flora, Mr. 

 Miyabe gives a catalogue of the 307 species of plants which 

 have been detected on them at different times, including those 

 noticed by himself during a journey made to some of the 

 southern islands in 1884. The critical notes on the characters 

 and distribution of many of the species are specially valuable 

 and interesting, the whole forming the only account of the 

 flora of this group of islands, which extends for a distance of 

 nearly 800 miles, from the Island of Jesso to the southern 

 point of Kamschatka, and forms the boundary between the 

 Sea of Okhotsk and the northern Pacific. Only a few of these 

 islands are inhabited, owing to their barrenness and lack of 

 good drinking water, and all are precipitous and inapproach- 

 able from the south side. The few bays which they do pos- 

 sess on the north-west and north-east sides are barely pro- 

 tected from the wind and do not serve as safe harbors for 

 vessels. It is not remarkable, therefore, that so little has been 

 known of their natural history, especially as they are encased 

 in ice from November until April, while navigation in their 



neighborhood during the early summer months is made diffi- 

 cult and dangerous by drifting ice from the north. 



Mr. Miyabe's analyses of the composition of the flora 

 bring out the fact that 84 per cent, or 156 of the genera of 

 plants found on these islands occur in Europe, northern Asia 

 and North America ; while of the remaining thirty-one genera 

 only three, Skimmia, Crawfawdia and Acanthopanax, are con- 

 fined to eastern and tropical Asia, while there are only four 

 genera in the Kurile Islands which are peculiar to eastern 

 North America and to eastern Asia — these are Leucothoe, 

 Diervilla, Hydrangea and Astilbe. When it comes to species, 

 thirty per cent, are distributed through Europe, northern Asia 

 and North America, while only two rather doubtfully endemic 

 have been noticed on the islands, whose flora is also remark- 

 able in view of their northern position in the small proportion 

 of circumpolar species. Fifty-five species extend into Europe, 

 while eighty grow in North America. Of these, thirty-four are 

 limited to north-western America, including Alaska and Brit- 

 ish Columbia; twenty-two extend southward to the Rocky Moun- 

 tains and through the high mountain ranges of the Pacific states, 

 and twenty-four are widely distributed across the continent. 



Mr. Miyabe's conclusions, based on a careful investigation 

 of this insular flora and of its relations to the floras of Amer- 

 ica and north-eastern Asia and of Japan, lead him to agree 

 with Professor Milne in the opinion "that at the time of the 

 last great southerly migration of the rich polar flora, Japan 

 received her portion mostly through thej Island of Saghalin, 

 and but little, if any, through the then incompleted chain of 

 the Kurile Islands." 



The report made by the Earl of Meath on the public parks 

 of America to the Committee of the London Council on Parks 

 and Open Spaces has now been printed, by order of that body, 

 in pamphlet form. It contains Lord Meath's views upon the 

 American park system, already expressed in an article pub- 

 lished in the New Revieiu for May, and noticed at the time in 

 this journal. The descriptive list of parks and open spaces in 

 America, which is appended to the report, contains more com- 

 plete statistical information of the area, cost, etc., of the pleas- 

 ure-grounds of the United States than will be found elsewhere. 



It appears from this report that of the large cities of the 

 world of which we have park statistics, Paris is the best pro- 

 vided with parks with 25.55 acres for every 1,000 inhabitants, 

 and a total park acreage of 58,000 acres. Vienna comes next 

 with 7.25 acres for every 1,000 inhabitants and 8,000 acres of 

 park. The park capacity of Tokio surpasses that of other 

 European cities and of all the large American cities with 6 

 acres for every 1,000 inhabitants and 6,000 acres of park. 

 London, with 22,600 acres, has but 5.76 acres for every 1,000 in- 

 habitants, while New York, with the new system of parks in- 

 cluded, has but 4.29 acres for every 1,000 inhabitants. Phila- 

 delphia has but 3.38 for every 1,000 inhabitants, while Chicago, 

 which is better provided with parks than any other large 

 American city, has 5.66 acres for every 1,000 inhabitants. 



Lord Meath finds several things to admire in the American 

 parks, and names, especially, the introduction of tropical 

 Water Lilies into fountain basins in the parks of Chicago and 

 New York, the lofty Palm-houses in South Park, Chicago, and 

 in Druid Hill Park, Baltimore ; the public ball-room in Jackson 

 Park, Chicago, a permanent structure of stone and brick 

 sufficiently large to contain 2,500 people, with a floor of 

 polished maple for dancing and a music gallery ; the lawns in 

 Central Park in this city and in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, 

 specially devoted to such games as tennis, croquet, base-ball 

 and archery ; the setting aside of special places for picnics, 

 a custom which prevails in all the large parks of this country ; 

 the boats and cariages owned and controlled by the commis- 

 sioners of some of the parks and leased to visitors for a fixed 

 price ; the swings which are provided in Central Park for 

 children, with goat-carriages, swan-boats and other devices for 

 their amusement ; the music, which is provided free in almost 

 all the principal parks of America, and especially the open-air 

 gymnasium, one of the features of the Charles River Embank- 

 ment in Boston. The lighting of small parks and other open 

 spaces in American cities Lord Meath finds worthy of imitation 

 in London, and it is surprising that in a city so crowded the 

 open spaces have not already been made available for the 

 public during the night in this way. 



Notes. 



At Indianapolis, Dr. Britton, of Columbia College, read a 

 paper, prepared by request, which gave an account of the 

 present stale of systematic botany in North America. 



Cyclamens are largely grown in Berlin, and at a recent flower 

 show in that city there were forty exhibitors of this plant. 



