October 29, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



521 



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 TOST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1890. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles:— Improvement of Trees 521 



Alphonse Karr M. G. Van Rensselaer. 522 



Max Leichtlin's Garden H. J. Ehves. 523 



October in the Pines Mary Treat. 524 



New or Little Known Plants : — Two American St. Johnsworts. (With figures.) 



C. S. S. 524 



Some Recent Portraits 525 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter W. Watson. 525 



Cultural Department : — Tuberous Begonias J. N. G. 528 



The Newer Gladioli W. E. Endicott. 528 



Cy pripedium Morganise John Weathers. 528 



A Few Flowering Plants W. H. Taplin. 529 



Notes on Shrubs J. G. J. 529 



Kniphofias from Seed O. 530 



Laelia Eyermaniana John Weathers. 530 



Amaryllis Belladonna H. Nehrling. 530 



Correspondence: — Kansas Farmers and Kansas Forests 5. C. Mason. 530 



Recent Publications 531 



Notes 53 2 



Illustrations :— Hypericum prolificum. Fig. 66 526 



Hypericum densiflorum, Fig. 67 527 



The Improvement of Trees. 



IMMENSE progress has been made, certainly, in the last 

 two hundred years in collecting facts about the trees 

 of the world and their utility to man, and much has been 

 done toward determining the best methods for their culti- 

 vation and something for their improvement. There is 

 still, however, much work of practical value to be accom- 

 plished by the scientific dendrologist, whether his investi- 

 gations are directed to the improvement of forests or to the 

 study of trees from the gardener's point of view. 



Trees useful primarily for the production of timber re- 

 quire long years, some of them centuries, in which to com- 

 plete the cycle of their existence. The observer who 

 records his investigations on the seedling Oak or Pine 

 cannot hope to do more than see the seedling become a 

 vigorous young tree. Then another man must take up the 

 investigation where the first dropped it, and so on from 

 generation to generation of men until the tree has lived out 

 its long existence. The difficulty of careful and sustained 

 observations made on .growing plants increases immensely 

 as their period of individual life is lengthened ; a man who 

 is ready to undertake the most minute and difficult investi- 

 gations in plant life whenever he feels that there is a chance 

 of his reaping a reward during his own life, hesitates 

 naturally when he knows that his work can only be 

 finished, if finished at all, by unknown hands. This, per- 

 haps, is the reason why fruits and vegetables and flowers 

 have been improved by selection and hybridization, and 

 why the selection of individual trees to be grown for tim- 

 ber is still left largely to chance. 



It can hardly be doubted, however, that trees, whether 

 grown for timber or for ornament, can be improved by 

 methods similar to those which have been used for the 

 development of our modern fruits and vegetables, and that 

 the time must come when the same attention will be paid 

 by scientific foresters to the improvement of races of tim- 

 ber-trees as is now paid to the improvement of plants of 

 far less importance to the human race. 



There are certain individuals of every species of plants 

 which, for some reason or other, grow more vigorously 



than others or possess other exceptional qualities. This 

 fact has been taken advantage of to establish new races of 

 garden-plants, but in the case of trees it has been too 

 generally overlooked, and sufficient attention has never 

 been paid to the selection of the seed-bearing parents, the 

 mothers of future forests. The whole question of the im- 

 provement of trees, whether as producers of timber or 

 merely as ornaments of gardens and parks, is still before 

 us. Humbler plants often gain hardiness by the mingling 

 of the blood of allied species, and what little has been 

 learned of the few natural hybrid trees known to exist 

 shows plainly that it is within the bounds of possibility to 

 produce trees artificially by hybridization which may 

 possess certain qualities to a greater degree than either of 

 their parents. Then there is the whole question of the re- 

 lation of the stock to the graft as applied to the production 

 of timber-trees to be investigated. It is known that certain 

 trees, when it is desirable to produce them under certain 

 conditions, grow much more rapidly and vigorously, while 

 young at least, if they are grafted, than they do on their 

 own roots ; but time and careful observations are needed 

 to determine what results, from economical points of view, 

 will finally be obtained by such a method of propagation. 



All such questions as these are matters which must one 

 day occupy the attention of scientific foresters, and which 

 can only be solved at well equipped forest-stations, which 

 all governments, following the example of Germany, can 

 wisely establish ; for without the stability which govern- 

 ments alone can give, scientific observations, demanding a 

 longer period than the life of one generation of men, are 

 apt to be barren of useful fruit. 



Such thoughts naturally lead us to consider whether it is 

 not possible to increase the number of ornamental trees to 

 be grown in any particular region and the beauty of indi- 

 viduals by the application of the same rules of selection of 

 seed from exceptionally fine individuals as we now employ 

 in producing cabbages or radishes. This seems such an 

 evident proposition that it requires no argument to support 

 it; and yet how few persons who raise trees from seeds pay 

 the slightest attention to the character or health of the indi- 

 vidual which supplies them. For the ordinary collector of 

 tree-seeds in the nursery or the forest a seed is a seed, and 

 the fact is ignored or forgotten that the constitutional weak- 

 ness of an individual plant can be transmitted through its 

 seed. Neglect to properly select the seed-parent is doubt- 

 less the cause why many nursery-grown trees fail before 

 their time, and why seedlings raised from trees subjected 

 in cultivation to more or less unnatural conditions are less 

 desirable than those raised from individuals growing spon- 

 taneously under the most favorable natural conditions. 



The possibilities of tree-culture widen when it is consid- 

 ered that there are certain species which possess a much 

 greater power than others of adapting themselves to their 

 surroundings — that is, which possess greater constitutional 

 flexibility. Such species are able to exist over wide areas 

 through individuals being able to support greatly diversi- 

 fied climatic conditions. If this fact is taken advantage of 

 and trees for any particular region are raised from seed 

 grown in a climate as similar as possible to that where the 

 seedlings are to be planted, these may be expected to 

 adapt themselves to their new surroundings more readily 

 than if the seed-parent had grown in a less favorable lo- 

 cality. This is shown by the familiar instance of the 

 Douglas Spruce. This tree is widely distributed in western 

 America from British Columbia to Mexico, and eastward to 

 the eastern base of the Rock)' Mountains. It was first 

 made known from the neighborhood of Puget Sound, where 

 the climate is mild and humid. Plants raised from seed 

 collected there grow well in England, where the climate is 

 not dissimilar to that of our north-west coast ; but when 

 these plants were brought from England to our eastern 

 states they failed entirely. Many years later this tree was 

 found in the Rocky Mountains in a severe climate, and 

 seeds from the Colorado trees were planted in New Eng- 

 land, and have proved abundantly hardy and in every way 



