December io, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



593 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted bv Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND CLASS MATTER AT THE l'OST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y, 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1890. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articled : — Protection of the Yellowstone Park. — Playgrounds for 



Poor Children 593 



Private Grounds and Enclosures in Cities and Towns. — I., 



Sylvester Baxter. 594 



The Autumn Flora of the Lake Michigan Pine Barrens. — I E. J. Hill. 594 



Plant Notes :— Some Recent Portraits 595 



New or Little Known Plants : — The Pelican-Flower (Aristolochia grandiflora). 



(With figures.) 59 s 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson. 596 



Cultural Department: — Another Year Among Grapes E.Williams. 598 



Tritonias W. E. Endicott. 600 



Cattleya maxima John Weathers. 600 



Lontcera quinquelocularis J. G. J. 600 



Correspondence : — Early Chrysanthemums J. N. Gerard. 601 



Cycles of Fruit Growing E. P. Powell 601 



The Forest : — Systematic Timber-Cutting in Quebec Goi 



Recent Publications 603 



Notes 604 



Illustrations :— A Fruit of Aristolochia grandiflora, natural size, Fig. 78 597 



Side View of a Flower of Aristolochia grandiflora, much reduced, Fig. 79. 598 

 A Flower of Aristolochia grandiflora, much reduced, Fig. 80 599 



Protection of the Yellowstone Park. 



IT is to be hoped that Congress will take some definite 

 action this winter on the bill now before the House of 

 Representatives for the enlargement, protection and main- 

 tenance of the Yellowstone Park. The preservation of the 

 national park is a matter in which a large number of 

 people throughout the country feel a deep interest and 

 patriotic pride. They believe in its preservation for the 

 purposes for which it was originally set aside, and at the 

 same time realize its importance from an economic point 

 of view. Thousands of citizens have memorialized Con- 

 gress for the passage of some measure looking to its better 

 protection. 



The park is a high plateau with an average elevation of 

 nearly 8,000 feet, surrounded on nearly all sides by moun- 

 tains rising from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above this broad table- 

 land. Numerous streams from the high mountains pour 

 their waters into the park, from which, by means of three 

 large rivers, the greater part of it leaves this elevated 

 country for the more arid regions below. Hundreds of 

 lakes, many of them of large size, lie scattered over the 

 plateau. Yellowstone Lake, one of the grandest bodies of 

 water in the world at so high an altitude, presents a mag- 

 nificent natural reservoir twenty miles in length, with a 

 breadth, across its greatest expansion, of fifteen miles. 

 Two large rivers, the Yellowstone and the Snake, find 

 their sources in these lakes and mountain recesses. In all 

 the vast Rocky Mountain country there are few, if any, 

 areas of equal extent so admirably adapted for a national 

 forest-reservation, and none which present greater advan- 

 tages as a natural reservoir for the storage of water. Over 

 eighty per cent, of the park country is covered with a 

 coniferous forest. For the collection and preservation of 

 this water supply the forest of the park and the adjacent 

 territory is of incalculable value. It is indeed a prime 

 necessity. The importance of this water in an arid region, 



and one with a constantly increasing population, cannot 

 be overestimated. It is safe to say that without the forest 

 and with the diminished water supply, which would natur- 

 ally follow, the grand scenic effects of the park would be 

 wholly wanting. The geysers, hot springs and water-falls 

 would be despoiled of their charm. 



At the time the park was originally set aside as a pleasure- 

 ground for the people the boundaries were very loosely 

 denned, the country being almost a terra incognita. With 

 our present knowledge of the physical features of the region 

 these errors can easily be rectified. The proposed bill en- 

 larges the park to the south and west, including a large area of 

 forest-covered mountains now wholly unprotected. These 

 mountain lands arc useless for agricultural and grazing 

 purposes, but they are invaluable as the sources of the 

 main streams and the feeders of the Yellowstone Lake and 

 Snake River. Besides its economic value, this proposed 

 extension of the reservation would give to the park pictur- 

 esque valleys and bold panoramic scenery, both of which 

 it now in a great measure lacks. 



A bill to meet the present requirements of the park has 

 been before Congress for eight years. It has passed the 

 Senate four times, only to be lost in the House. In the 

 present Congress a carefully considered bill has passed the 

 Senate, and has been reported to the House from commit- 

 tee with one or two amendments. No objection whatever 

 is raised to the proposed enlargement or the provisions 

 made for the punishment of criminal offenses committed 

 within the reservation, the two most important objects of 

 the bill. Yet the bill is again liable to fail of becoming a 

 law owing to a small but persistent lobby, who are de- 

 termined that it shall not pass without an amendment 

 granting an exclusive privilege to a railway company to 

 lay fifty or sixty miles of track in order to reach Cooke, a 

 small mining camp lying just outside the north-east corner 

 of the park. 



Those interested in the park, for many obvious reasons, 

 object to the admission of any railway. They see in 

 such an admission the beginning of the end. They are 

 quite willing to adjust the northern boundary so as 

 to allow not only the railway but traffic of all kinds to 

 reach the mines without going through the reservation. 

 This object can be easily attained by making the Yellow- 

 stone River the north-eastern boundary, an excellent 

 physical feature which all could recognize. Curiously 

 enough the Montana Mineral Railway Company, the cor- 

 poration asking for this franchise, objects to this adjust- 

 ment of the northern boundary, because, as they say, it 

 would allow any railway to build to Cooke. What they 

 really desire, it seems, is an exclusive privilege which the 

 proposed amendment would give them, and without which 

 they oppose the bill. It is far better that people along the 

 line of the railway should live under state jurisdiction 

 rather than reside within the reservation. The people in- 

 terested in Cooke, w T ho consider a railway essential for the 

 development of their property, prefer that the track should 

 run wholly outside the park. They are becoming irritated 

 at the delays caused by the small number of individuals 

 who, for their own personal ends, object to any modifica- 

 tion of the boundary and insist upon the railway running 

 through the park. 



Since the matter was first agitated in Congress large 

 tracts of the country which it is proposed to add to the 

 park have been devastated by forest-fires either maliciously 

 or carelessly started. Large herds of elk, deer, sheep and 

 moose have been wantonly slaughtered for their hides by 

 skin-hunters. By those qualified to give an opinion, it is 

 stated that the country immediately south of the park, 

 which it is proposed to add to it, is one of the favorite 

 breeding places of the elk. Secretaries Lamar, Vilas and 

 Noble have each in their annual reports urged the passage 

 of a similar bill to this one now before Congress. It is cer- 

 tainly not too much to ask of Congress that they take some 

 action in this matter and protect from vandalism of all 

 kinds this most valuable forest and game reservation. 



