59° 



Garden and Forest. 



[December 3, 1890. 



The Douglas Spruce is by no means an exception. I have 

 met with several other cases as marked as the one I have 

 related. Many years ago there was a great demand for Red 

 Cedars for ornamental planting in the west. Many people 

 liked them for hedges. We collected our seeds from native 

 trees growing on the bluffs here. These trees did not, how- 

 ever, produce enough seed to s'upply the demand, and we 

 ordered five bushels of it from western Tennessee and the 

 same quantity from southern Illinois. We had the same ex- 

 perience as with the Douglas Spruce. The seeds collected 

 here produced hardy trees; the others produced tender trees. 

 At another time Black Walnuts did not fruit well in our county. 

 We gathered what we could find and ordered a large quantity 

 of nuts from southern Illinois. The plants raised from these 

 southern plants made a much larger growth than ours during 

 the first season. The following spring ours were all alive 

 with terminal buds, while the southern plants were killed to 

 the ground and went to the brush-pile. I could cite many 

 other instances as marked, but these ought to be enough to 

 convince any reasonable man that it is necessary to select 

 seeds of trees with reference to the locality where the seed- 

 lings are to grow. _, ^ 



Waiikegan, I1L #• Douglas. 



Recent Publications. 



The Silva of North America. A Description of the Forest- 

 Trees which grow naturally in North America exclusive of 

 Mexico. By Charles Sprague Sargent, Director of the Arnold 

 Arboretum of Harvard University. Illustrated with Figures 

 and Analyses drawn from Nature by Charles Edward Faxon, 

 and engraved by Philibert and Eugene Picart. Volume I. 

 Magnoliacece — Ilicinea. Large 4to, pp. ix. -f- 119; 50 plates. 

 Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1891. 



It is with a sense of profound gratitude and with the highest 

 admiration for the immense labor devoted to the work that we 

 welcome the appearance of the first volume of this magnifi- 

 cent book. Professor Sargent has been engaged in the accu- 

 mulation of the material now collated and given to the world 

 for a large number of years, and the result will rank with the 

 works on science and art that are recognized as classics the 

 world over. 



The book is sumptuously printed on heavy paper and cut 

 with broad margins. The illustrations are superb, the de- 

 scriptions are excellent, and the notes on geographical distri- 

 bution, history and economic importance are of the highest 

 interest and value. 



The descriptions of genera and species, which follow the 

 sequence adopted in the "Genera Plantarum " of Bentham 

 and Hooker, are prefaced by an account of the various publi- 

 cations which have been especially devoted to our trees, the 

 earliest being Humphrey Marshall's "Arbustum Ameri- 

 canum," and the most recent noted Professor Edward L. 

 Greene's "West American Oaks." 



The author's definition of a tree is certainly the most rational 

 one. He says : "The line which divides trees from shrubs is 

 a purely arbitrary one, and an attempt to separate them is 

 often unsatisfactory. A division based on habit, rather than 

 on size, seems, upon the whole, more easily applied than any 

 other, and therefore less objectionable. So, for the purposes 

 of this work I have considered as trees all woody plants which 

 grow up from the ground with a single stem, whatever size or 

 height they may attain." As to the number of species coming 

 within this definition it is stated "Theforestsof North America, 

 exclusive of Mexico, are now believed to contain four hundred 

 and twenty-two, besides numerous varieties." 



The question of nomenclature is treated of in the following 

 sentences : " I have adopted the method which imposes upon 

 a plant the oldest generic name applied to it by Linnasus in 

 the first edition of the ' Genera Plantarum,' published in 1737, 

 or by any subsequent author, and the oldest specific name 

 used by Linnaeus in the first edition of the 'Species Planta- 

 rum,' published in 1753, or by any subsequent author, without 

 regard to the fact that such a specific name may have been 

 associated at first with a generic name improperly employed. 

 The rigid application of this rule leads to the change of many 

 familiar names and considerable temporary confusion. But 

 unless it is adopted, anything like stability of nomenclature is 

 hopeless, and the sooner the changes which are inevitable in 

 the future are made, the more easily students will become 

 accustomed to them and acquire a knowledge of the correct 

 names of our trees." This position will be heartily welcomed 

 by almost every American botanist. Indeed, we believe that 

 the publication of this great work on this principle will practi- 

 cally remove all opposition to the method here adopted, and 



which some of us have for many years foreseen as the only 

 escape from a very troublesome question. 



The following species are described and figured in this 

 volume : Magnolia fajtida, M. glanca, M. acuminata, M. tripe- 

 tala, M. Fraseri ; Liriodendron Tulipifera ; Asimina triloba; 

 Anona glabra ; Capparis Jamaicensis ; Canella alba; Gordo- 

 nia Lasianthxts, G. Altamaha ; Fremo?itia Californica ; Tilia 

 Americana, T. pttbescens, T heterophylla ; Guiacum sanctum ; 

 Xanthoxylum Clava-Herculis, X. cribrosum, X. Fagara ; Ptelea 

 trifoliata; Helietta parvifolia ; Amyris maritima ; Canotia ho- 

 lacantha ; Simaruba glanca ; Ko>berlinia spinosa ; Bur sera 

 Simaruba ; Swietenia Mahagoni ; Ilex opaca, I. Cassine, I. 

 vomitoria, J. decidua and /. monticola. 



The "Silva" will be completed in twelve volumes, to be 

 issued two each year. The price is fixed at $25 per volume. 

 It ought to find a place in every public library in this country 

 and abroad, and the proprietor of every country-place will be 

 one thing short of complete equipment until a copy of it is 

 within reach in his drawing-room. 



Columbia College, New York. N L. BrittOH. 



Our New England: Her Nature Described by Hamilton 

 Wright Mabie, and Some of her Familiar Scenes Illustrated. 

 Boston : Roberts Brothers. 



We do not often have occasion to speak in these columns 

 of a Christmas "gift-book." But this one has merits beyond 

 those that make the usual example of its class a more or less 

 desirable object to lay on the centre-table. It is a long quarto 

 volume, illustrated by reproductions of photographs from typi- 

 cal New England scenes, beautifully printed as a rule, always 

 interesting in their subject matter, and sometimes — as in the 

 view of die Exeter River, the " Milking Time" and the "Coun- 

 try Road in Summer" — really charming. Unfortunately, how- 

 ever, in a seeming desire to enhance the "decorative" effect 

 of these simple transcripts from reality, each has been printed 

 on a page partly covered with pen-and-ink drawings of the sort 

 which, when etching margins are similarly defaced, are called 

 "remarks." In some cases these pen-and-ink accessories are 

 modest enough to injure the effect of the main picture but lit- 

 tle. In other cases, however, they are most unfortunately 

 obtrusive, and they have small merit of their own to excuse 

 their intrusiveness. 



But better even than the photogravures is the delightful essay 

 of Mr. Mabie, which, while following lines that have often 

 been trodden — with its four chapters devoted to the aspects 

 and moods of the four seasons — gives us a genuinely fresh 

 impression of New England nature. One passage, as true as 

 it is fresh, runs thus: "First impressions linger long after 

 fuller knowledge has shown them to be mere illusions : and 

 the first impressions of New England were distinctly unfavor- 

 able. If the colonists of 1620 had landed in Plymouth Bay in 

 June instead of December the report that went abroad of New 

 England would have conveyed a genial and mellow instead of 

 a harsh and bleak import. The melancholy monotone of the 

 waves breaking on a ' stern and rock-bound coast ' would not 

 have lingered in the ear as the dominant note of the New 

 England landscape ; nor would short and bitter days and snow- 

 beleagured forests have furnished the atmosphere and back- 

 ground of New England scenery as often conceived by per- 

 sons at a distance. That December landing was not without 

 obvious advantages in the way of discipline, but it gave occa- 

 sion for a misapprehension which still exists in many minds. 

 The year in New England has four well defined seasons, and 

 winter is one, not all, of them." This, we repeat, is at bottom 

 quite true. But perhaps Mr. Mabie has not laid the greatest 

 blame exactly wdiere it belongs. It is not facts which impress 

 later generations so much as the report of these facts, and the 

 report which makes the profoundest impression and echoes 

 longest is the report voiced by some form of art. It has been, 

 we think, the poem from which Mr. Mabie quotes which is 

 chiefly responsible for the popular idea, current at home and 

 abroad, with regard to New England as a typically inclement 

 region. Of course, if the Pilgrims had not chanced to land in 

 December, Mrs. Hemans would not have written her thrice- 

 popular verses in the strain she chose. But the fact that she 

 wrote them, not the fact that she had historical excuse for 

 writing them, seems to us the real lion that has stood in the 

 path of a general understanding that New England has delight- 

 fully hot summers as well as painfully cold winters. It matters 

 not who writes the history of things — it is the person who 

 sings songs about them, in a way to catch the popular ear, who 

 really moulds popular impressions. And is not Mr. Whittier 

 in this sense another sinner ? Why, we ask — we who think 

 the New England summer and autumn the most delightful 

 earth can offer — why did he write " Snow r -bound " instead of a 



