January 9, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



13 



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 POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1889. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles : — The Needs of American Forestry. — When to Employ 



the Landscape-Gardener. — Destruction of a Remarkable Tree 13 



Bamboos (with illustrations) 14 



Notes from a South Carolina Naturalist. — II J. H. Mellichamp. 15 



Cultural Department: — Selaginellas; ....W. Watson. r6 



Winter Apples of New England T. H. Hoskins, M.D. 17 



About Sea Kale John Thorpe, jy 



Orchid Notes F. Coldring. 19 



Principles of Physiological Botany. — II Professor George Lincohi Goodale. 20 



The Forest; — The Catalpa speciosa for Timber Planting G. W. Fincher. 21 



Correspondence; — Knlphofias Max Leichtlin. 22 



Periodical Literature 22 



Recent Plant Portraits 23 



Notes 24 



Illustrations ; — Giant Bamboo (Dendrocalamiis giganieus) in the Botanic Gar- 

 den, Ceylon, Fig. 85 18 



Giant Bamboo {^Giganiochloa alter') in the Botanic Garden, Ceylon, Fig. 86. 19 



The Needs of American Forestry. 



EXCEPTION was taken in our last issue to Mr. Gan- 

 nett's sweeping- statement that cutting off the forest 

 from the watershed of a mountain stream increases its 

 irrigating capacities, a statement which we believe has not 

 been confirmed by a record of the exact flow of any 

 stream before and after the forests had been cut from 

 about its sources. We quote, however, the closing sen- 

 tences of the same address, which contain the whole gist 

 of the forestry question of the United States at the 

 present time, as we vmderstand it : 



"It seems to me that, apart from the uselessness of it, 

 Nature is planting trees at an infinitely more rapid rate 

 than man. For every tree planted under the Timber-cul- 

 ture Act, or on Arbor Day, a thousand spring up of their 

 own accord. Every deserted farm east of the plains grows 

 up to a forest. Half of southern New England to-day is 

 wooded, and the proportion is increasing every year, and 

 yet in Massachusetts they have every year an Arbor Day, 

 when the farmers turn out and solemnly plant a tree 

 apiece." 



What we need, indeed, in this country is not so much to 

 plant trees for forests, as to take care of those which are 

 planted without the assistance of man. The climate of east- 

 ern North America is surprisingly favorable for the growth 

 of trees. They spring up in every part of the country, 

 from the Atlantic Coast to the Missouri River, wherever 

 a piece of ground is left undisturbed ; and it is only in 

 the arid parts of the country, where the rainfall is too 

 small or too unevenly distributed to develop forest- 

 growth, that trees are not as common as weeds in a 

 neglected field. But in all that has been said and done 

 in this country under the general and rather ambiguous 

 terrn of "forestry," attention has been paid mainly to the 

 subject of planting trees, while little has been said in re- 

 gard to the necessity of taking care of and improving 

 the natural woods. This, perhaps, is not surprisino-. 

 There has been no question in the Eastern States unfil 

 recent years of any scarcity of naturally-grown timber, 

 or any practical necessity of husbanding the abundant 

 stores which were encountered on every side as the tide of 



immigration pushed westward. It reached in time, how- 

 ever, the treeless prairies and plains which distinguish the 

 interior of this continent ; and the efforts of the settler 

 were turned to securing shelter and a supply of fuel by 

 planting trees. The treelessness of the interior of the con- 

 tinent directed popular attention, naturally, to tree-plant- 

 ing, which has gradually come to mean forestry in the 

 minds of most Americans, as nearly all American 

 writers and speakers upon this subject confine their re- 

 marks to this comparatively unimportant branch of for- 

 estry, and overlook the broader question of forest- 

 protection. 



What is really needed in this country, now that the most 

 valuable products of the forests are growing scarce, is an 

 appreciation of the value of our native forests, and a com- 

 prehension of the natural laws upon which the develop- 

 ment of forests depends. We have yet to learn as a people 

 that fires are destructive not only to trees, but to the pro- 

 ductive capacity of the ground which bears trees ; that 

 animals browsing in the forest will, in time, destroy it en- 

 tirely; that some trees are more valuable than others, and 

 that the development of the valuable ones can be hastened 

 and increased by the assistance of man. The real work 

 for those persons who are interested in the forest as a 

 source of material prosperity for this nation is in inculcating 

 sound principles for the management of the forests that 

 spring up spontaneously on all sides, and not in urging 

 tree-planting exclusively as the only branch of forestry 

 worthy of consideration. 



Arbor Days have their uses, and they are not unimport- 

 ant ones, perhaps, but the mistake is often made of con- 

 sidering that Arbor Day has anything to do with forestry, 

 or can have any direct influence upon the forest-question. 

 The educational influence of Arbor Day is already consid- 

 erable, and this purely American institution is capable, no 

 doubt, of being turned to better account even than it has 

 been up to the present time. But we are among those who 

 believe that the care and development of a single acre of 

 self-sown White Pine seedlings will do more for American 

 forestry than has ever been accomplished under the work- 

 ing of the Timber-culture Act or of all the Arbor Days 

 that have ever been celebrated. 



When to Employ the Landscap.e-Gardener. 



IT has been said more than once in these pages that 

 small gardening problems, as well as great ones, de- 

 mand the artist's aid. Parks and city squares, cemeteries 

 and large country-places must be laid out and planted by 

 one who has studied design, and the effects and needs of 

 trees, shrubs and flowers. This has long been acknowl- 

 edged, and if we sometimes fail to act upon our knowledge,we 

 do it with full consciousness of error. But small country- 

 places and even villa-plots, if they are to be made the most 

 of, must be entrusted, too, to competent hands. Whenever 

 building, road-making and planting mean arrangement, 

 they mean varied combinations of lines, masses and 

 colors ; this means the opportunity for a work of art. We 

 certainly do not make the most of our surroundings if we 

 miss this opportunity when it offers ; and we are almost 

 sure to miss it unless an artist tells us how to seize it This 

 fact also we are gradually, but surely, learning in America. 

 Every prominent American landscape-gardener would 

 aiflrm, if asked, that he has more work to do now than 

 he had ten or fifteen years ago, and that the increase has 

 come largely in the shape of problems which, ten or fif- 

 teen years ago, would have been thought too small and 

 simple for professional treatment. 



There is much that is encouraging in this evidence of 

 increasing wisdom and good taste on the part of the pub- 

 lic. But it is important that another necessity should be 

 clearly understood, and that the client who feels the need 

 for a landscape-gardener's services should understand just 

 when they ought to be secured. 



This time is at the very outset of his undertaking. As 



