December 24, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



617 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conduced by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1890. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— Country Roads 617 



The North Woods Thirty-six Years Ago 618 



The Autumn Flora of the L;il<e Michigan Pine il.iri ens.— III.. .E. J. Hill. 618 

 Basket-Work of the North American Indians. — I. Dr. V. Howard, 0. S. A. 619 



New or Little Known Plants: — Clematis paniculata. (With figure. )...C. S. S. 620 

 New Orchids A'. A. Rol/e. 621 



Cultural Department :— A Whiter Lettuce Crop. (With illustration.) 



C. \V. Mathiws. 622 



Begonias 7- W- Gerard. 622 



FilmvFerns W. Watson. 623 



Ruellia macrantha, Iris stvlosa B. 624 



Clematis Stans ' E. O. Orfiet. 624 



Dianthus plumarius semperllorens VIA B. 624 



The Forest :— Value of Mountain Forests— II J. B. Harrison. 625 



Correspondence : — The English Sparrow Charles Naudin. 625 



Why Private Grounds Should be Enclosed Charles C. Binney. (s-zb 



Autumn Colors in Oregon E. W. Hammond. 626 



Planting a Screen U'1/1. .1. Jenner. 626 



Sporting of Chrysanthemums J. C. 626 



Recent Publications: — The Forests of North America. — III 627 



The Golden Flower, Chrysanth ;mum 627 



Notes D2 7 



Illustrations :— Clematis paniculata, Fig. S2 621 



Lettuce in a Forcing-house .. ... 623 



Country Roads. 



DURING the autumn which has just passed a corre- 

 spondent of the Hazleton (Pennsylvania) Plain 

 Speaker gave a description of a typical country road 

 which attracted much attention. The road in question 

 climbed slowly up a mountain with a grade which made 

 drainage perfectly easy. In the County of Luzerne con- 

 glomerate rock and red shale abound and furnish such 

 good material to pack hard under travel that there is 

 no excuse for anything less than a smooth wheelway. 

 And yet it was said that the road was rendered almost 

 impassable in October by half liquid mud, in which the 

 wheels of a light wagon sank to the depth of eight inches. 

 This was not because the road had been left to itself, 

 but because it had been laboriously repaired with cart-loads 

 of black mould and clay scooped out from the road-side 

 and shoveled upon the track. Of course, the road-bed became 

 a continuous mass of mud after every rain and a stretch of 

 blinding dust in every dry time, and as cold weather 

 comes it will freeze into iron ridges, and nothing but the 

 merciful snow will cover up its iniquities. Unfortunately, 

 there is nothing singular about this Pennsylvania highway. 

 All through the United States our people drive through 

 mud and dust, to their discomfort, a great portion of the 

 year; and yet the annual cost of repairing vehicles, added 

 to the value of time wasted and the expense of extra horse 

 power used in hauling loads, would give us, as a rule, 

 passable highways. 



Now a road that is permanently good must be properly 

 made to begin with, and in the second place proper meas- 

 ures must be taken to keep it in constant repair. But no 

 such attention has been given to the construction or main- 

 tenance of one mile in a thousand of our ordinary country 

 roads. There was originally some excuse for this. The 

 first roads were built when the country was thinly settled 

 and anything like the expense necessary for a well con- 

 structed bed with adequate drainage was not to be thought 

 of. Perhaps, too, the old plan of mending the roads, under 

 which the farmers of a district assembled with hoes and 



shovels to do their road-mending all at once for the entire 

 year was a most natural and economical plan. But in the 

 older settled portions of our country, where the population 

 is no longer scattered, no reasonable excuse remains for 

 making a poor road or for tolerating improper road-mending. 



It is encouraging to find that public opinion is making 

 strenuous demands for reform in this direction, and in 

 addition to improved road laws which were passed in half 

 a dozen states last winter, we may probably hope for still 

 more effective legislation in twice as many states at the 

 next meeting of their Legislatures. Without stating here 

 any of the fundamental principles which should govern 

 the construction of roads, it is plain that such work should 

 only be done by experts trained to the profession. The 

 roads which have been famous for generations were built 

 by engineers on scientific principles, and the fact that in 

 several of our agricultural colleges a course of road-engi- 

 neering is obligatory indicates a hopeful direction in current 

 thought. The fact, too, that in so many states the old 

 district system has been abandoned, and that skilled 

 officers have been appointed to take charge of the roads of 

 an entire district, is certainly a great step forward; and this, 

 with the available machinery at command, which is multi- 

 plying in every part of the country, and the inspiring ex- 

 ample which every mile of good road exerts on its vicinity, 

 makes it probable that our improvement in this matter will 

 be more rapid than we dared to hope a few years ago. 



In the state of Pennsylvania this road question has been 

 a matter of such special agitation that a legislative com- 

 mission has been examining the subject in all parts of the 

 state, and they have practically agreed upon an act to be 

 introduced at the approaching session of the Legislature. 

 By the terms of this act three commissioners will be 

 selected in each township who will have the power to 

 appoint and pay road-masters. Farmers who choose to 

 work out their taxes must notify these commissioners be- 

 fore the 13th of April ; they will not be allowed to work at 

 their convenience, however, but will be required to report 

 at such times and places as are designated by the road- 

 masters, and on failure to comply with these terms their 

 tax will become payable in cash. This to a certain extent 

 puts road-construction and road-mending under something 

 like expert control. The next provision of the act is that 

 in addition to the annual mending of the roads a certain 

 portion of the money collected for this purpose shall be set 

 aside for permanent improvement. Wherever one mile in 

 a township has received such thorough construction, that 

 is, wherever the road has been built on a stone or gravel 

 foundation with a covering of such metal as is approved 

 by the county engineer, the county will be required to 

 build an additional mile of permanent road in the same town- 

 ship, and the state will be required to construct another 

 mile. The Attorney-General of the state announces that 

 there is no legal objection to the appropriation of state 

 funds to the permanent improvement of roads, and it is' 

 plain that local enterprise will thus be encouraged. The 

 state authorities with those of the county and of the town- 

 ship will be placed in competition, and there is no reason 

 to doubt that the miles of good road in the state will be 

 rapidly multiplied. 



Meanwhile, in order to increase the general knowledge 

 on this subject, the University of Pennsylvania has offered 

 a prize of $500 for essays on road-construction and road- 

 mending, and the publication of the most useful of these 

 essays is promised at an early date. Such a book ought to 

 prove of great value just at this time if the state is to inau- 

 gurate anything like a general improvement in its high- 

 ways. The initial expense will, of course, be considerable, 

 but it is believed that the state will have ample funds to 

 meet the townships and counties in competition. That 

 these improvements will pay for themselves in a few years 

 there can be little question. In a recent number of the 

 Philadelphia Inquirer, which contains a clear statement of 

 the whole project, there appears a quotation from a paper 

 read before the State Board of Agriculture by Mr. S. R. 



