614 



Garden and Forest. 



[December 17, 1890. 



our forests now ; but they were the best that the still scanty 

 soil would sustain, liver since the leaves of the first trees 

 began to tall the trees have been slowly adding to the deposit 

 of soil which now covers the rocks, and which has reached the 

 depth and productive potency required to sustain the noble 

 forests of our own time. 



The great stratum of fertile, life-producing- soil which now 

 lies folded around the shoulders of the hills is the result and 

 accumulation of patient ages of dendral toil. Nature has 

 wrought incessantly, through mighty cycles of time, to clothe 

 the desert rocks with life and beauty, and in the untainted air 

 of these lofty slopes and plateaus she now grows forests which 

 are like the columned aisles of vast cathedrals. Ships which 

 cleave the waves of every sea, and the cottages and palaces of 

 mighty cities, with myriads of structures for man's varied 

 industries, have been budded of the materials supplied by our 

 mountain forests. The superior quality of the timber now 

 grown, and the vast quantities in which it is produced, are 

 effects of the wonderful fertility which the soil has attained. 

 It is richer than ever before, but it has not reached the limit 

 of possible productiveness. There is no such limit, indeed, 

 and if our mountain forests were rightly managed they would 

 forever increase in fertility, and the quality of their timber 

 would be thereby gradually improved. 



A forest is the only crop, so far as I know, which can be pro- 

 duced perpetually on the same ground without diminishing 

 in any degree the fertility of the soil. It is a remarkable fact 

 that a forest not only does not impoverish the soil out of which 

 it grows, but that it actually enriches it. As the soil is thus 

 improved it responds by producing superior timber. A moun- 

 tain forest would yield better timber, and more of it, at the end 

 of a thousand years of proper management than at the begin- 

 ning, and proper management means and includes the cut- 

 ting of every tree when it reaches its best estate. 



FARMING IN MOUNTAIN REGIONS. 

 The entire effort at farming in mountain forest-regions in 

 this country is often a most destructive and suicidal mistake. 

 Much of the ground that has been cleared for cultivation in 

 such regions is so steep that if forest-conditions are once de- 

 stroyed upon it the soil is certain to be washed away. It has 

 always been manifest to intelligent observers that such land is 

 suited to the perpetual production of timber, and of that crop 

 alone. In many instances in our state land has been cleared 

 and "farmed " with very slight returns which would be much 

 more valuable than it now is if it were still clothed with forest. 

 The yield of farm products in such cases is scanty and uncer- 

 tain. In some places the land is too high and cold for success- 

 ful cultivation. There are frosts late in spring and early in 

 autumn, and sometimes in every month of the brief summer, 

 and the soil is soon exhausted. It would be difficult to find 

 anywhere an instance of more obvious natural adaptation to a 

 particular function than our whole mountain forest-region ex- 

 hibits in its fitness for permanent forest-growth and its unfit- 

 ness for any permanent beneficial use after forest-conditions 

 have been fully destroyed. It would have been much better if 

 some of our " abandoned farms " had never been cleared. In 

 some parts of our country vast values have been permanently 

 blotted out by clearing and cultivating mountain land, and 

 those states will be poorer for all time to come by reason of 

 the resulting destruction and removal of the soil of consider- 

 able areas of their mountain regions. 



RUIN BY FIRE. 



The most fatal agency in destroying the soil of a mountain 

 forest-country, and in wrecking the mountains themseves, is 

 that of fire, and in the history of most mountain forest-regions 

 the operation of this agency has been closely connected with 

 the attempts to cultivate the soil to which I have just referred. 

 In various regions of the Appalachian mountain system many 

 of the farms have been cleared simply by burning the timber 

 and brush left on a tract after it has been lumbered over, and 

 the first crop is planted in the ashes. In a few years the soil 

 is exhausted or washed away, and the farmer goes a little 

 farther up or down the valley, or across the stream which runs 

 through it, and repeats the operation. But the injury to the 

 mountains which is caused by the destruction of the soil of 

 these limited tracts which have been cleared for cultivation is 

 trivial when compared with the losses which have resulted 

 from the forest-fires having their origin in these clearings. 



When we consider the rapidly increasing density of the 

 population of our country, and the great advance in the value 

 of all fertile lands, especially in the eastern states, it is obvious 

 that the complete destruction of the soil of any considerable 

 area is a very serious matter. There are few kinds of losses 

 or misfortunes affecting property which are so calamitous as 



this. It is a crime against posterity, a permanent subtraction 

 from the wealth and the capabilities of the country. The soil 

 is, to a very great extent, the country itself. A burned city 

 can be rebuilt, and the system of insurance distributes the loss 

 widely. But there is no insurance on the soil of our mountain 

 forests, and when it is once thoroughly burned it will require 

 mighty cycles of time to restore it. Its producing capacity for 

 ages, and all the " promise and potency " of a perpetual succes- 

 sion of valuable crops, are at once reduced to nothingness. — 

 From the Report of J. B. Harrison, Commissioner of Forests 

 for New Hampshire. 



Correspondence. 

 A Good Tree for the South. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Your southern readers, perhaps, are not generally 

 aware of the value of Moringa pterygosperma as an orna- 

 mental tree in the southern states. It is the Horseradish-tree 

 of India, the fleshy roots when young being equal if not supe- 

 rior to the roots of the common Horseradish. Those in Mex- 

 ico are highly prized and form a staple article of diet. From 

 the seeds are prepared the finest "oil of benne " used by jew- 

 elers, and the seed-pods are said, when young and tender, to 

 be edible cooked in soups. 



The tree is a very rapid grower. I have specimens that are 

 only four years old from seed and which are well bushed out 

 and form excellent shade trees fully thirty-five feet in height 

 with trunks from six to eight inches in diameter, while some 

 of my young trees, planted only a year ago, are twenty feet 

 high. The Moringa has graceful, ternately decompound 

 leaves, and produces, when only a year old or sometimes 

 even earlier, clusters of delicate flesh-colored flowers resem- 

 bling in size and shape those of the Wistaria, with a fragrance 

 not unlike that of Sweet Peas. The flowers are followed by 

 long pods which contain the triangular winged seeds. 



I am much surprised that this tree is so little known in the 

 United States, especially in the south. It is very easily propa- 

 gated either from seeds or by cuttings, and it thrives on any 

 well drained land of good quality. It can be grown in the 

 north if plants are started in a greenhouse during the fall and 

 then planted out in the spring. This tree will add variety to 

 any garden through the summer and autumn, and when cut 

 down by frost its roots can be dug up and utilized. 



I consider the Moringa a very valuable addition to our list 

 of ornamental and economic plants. 



Villa City, Fia. George T. King. 



From a Foreign Creditor. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir.— We shall be much obliged if you will inform us through 

 your columns how an English firm can recover debts which 

 are not forthcoming from America, whether by summons or in 

 what manner, and whether the statute of limitation of a debt 

 is the same as in England — six years. 



Langport, England. Kelway &* Son. 



[An American debtor can be summoned in any court 

 where he can be found, either by an American or a for- 

 eigner. Practically, the best way for our correspondents 

 to collect debts due them in this country would be to place 

 the matter in the hands of a lawyer to manage. The stat- 

 ute of limitation of a debt is six years in this country. — Ed.] 



A Weeping Maple. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir. — Last summer a writerin the Critic made some inquiries 

 concerning a peculiar Maple-tree which was standing in along 

 row of ordinary trees of the same species by the old Hopkin- 

 son place, in Bordentown, New Jersey. It was stated that this 

 exception was a particularly large tree standing nearer the 

 house than the others. Within about fifteen feet of it is the 

 stump of a great Weeping Willow which was cut down many 

 years ago. The large Maple seems to have the peculiarities 

 of this Willow — that is, its leaves are more feathery than is 

 usual with Maples, and its branches droop just as the Willow's 

 did until they almost sweep the ground. 



The inquiry was made whether the peculiar form of this 

 Maple was due in any way to its proximity to the Willow. The 

 matter was referred to Garden and Forest, but I have seen 



no response. 



Trenton, N.J. 



Q- 



[It is not probable that the writer in the Critic had any 

 belief in the "theory of re-incarnation" or that the Willow 



