74 



Garden and Forest. 



[February 13, 1889. 



about ninety inches, or at the lower place of measurement 103 

 inches, and by the rule of three I made the age of the tree a 

 little short of 900 years, and so could very well call it about a 

 thousand. Taking the lower diameter the result would be 

 1,184 years. Last December the tree was cut down, and it 

 was found that the trunk was a mere shell, the sound wood 

 from five to twelve inches thick. 



Last Wednesday I drove out to Woodbridge, and persuaded 

 one of the proprietors to let me have a large piece of the 

 wood from the trunk. I brought away, also, a small branch, 

 and some leaves and acorns, and send you a part of all of them. 



You will see that the tree was of the species Qiiercus tinc- 

 toria, the Black, Yellow, or Quercitron Oak, leaves, acorns, 

 timber and yellow inner bark all concurring in tlieir testimony. 

 One of the pieces I send is a transverse section of the main 

 trunk, passing from the bark inward as far as the wood was 

 sound. I send also a bit of the half decayed wood from still 

 further inward. The larger slice shows fifty-seven rings in the 

 outer five inches, and forty-one rings in the next five inches, 

 the innermost part showing about five and a half to the inch. 

 The bit of deadvvood from somewhere in the interior of the 

 tree is nearly four inches broad, and shows about thirty-one 

 rings, an average of eight to the inch. I conclude that the 

 tree must have had periods of rapid growth and other periods 

 of slow growth ; but I do not see that we can put the average 

 rate higher than twelve rings to the inch for the last sixty 

 years, and eight to the incli for the previous life of the tree. 

 This would give us 40x8 and 12 x5, or 380 years for the whole 

 life of the tree. With ample allowance for unestimated irregu- 

 larities I cannot now believe the tree to have been as old as 

 500 years, probably only 375 to 400 years. The tree stood at 

 the corner of two country roads about four and a half miles 

 from New Haven, on the top of a long hill, about 300 or 350 

 feet above tide level. It was a conspicuous object for miles 

 around, and was constantly visited by many lovers of nature. 

 The owners are having it sawed up into boards for sale, and 

 it is expected that many people will secure relics of this vener- 

 able Oak. 



It is almost incomprehensible that any man could be 

 found in New England sordid enough to destroy a tree of 

 such imposing dimensions, venerable age and widespread 

 fame, that it should draw about it the most distinguished 

 men in the state to celebrate the marvel and the mysteries 

 of its existence. The thought naturally arises that the 

 celebration had been organized for the express purpose 

 of increasing the value of the tree to relic-hunters. But 

 whether this is true or not, there is some consolation in 

 the fact that the tree was hollow, and that the amount of 

 material it affords will not go far to gratify the cupidity 

 of the man who destroyed it. It is devoutly to be hoped 

 that no one will be found willing to buy an atom of the 

 wood of this tree, and in this way or in any other 

 countenance this piece of vandalism. 



Ten years ago the forests covering the western slopes of 

 the Big Smoky Mountains in Tennessee were considered 

 as inaccessible and remote from market as any in this 

 country ; and a serious proposition to convert them into 

 lumber would have been regarded as purely chimerical by 

 persons who had seen those rocky wilds. A powerful 

 Scotch company has, however, been operating in these 

 mountains during the past two years, and the rocky and 

 precipitous beds of the Pigeon, the Little Pigeon and other 

 streams which flow west from the Smokies have been par- 

 tially cleared out and improved, and timber cut from their 

 banks is now manufactured in immense quantities at the 

 mills in Knoxville. Much of the best and most accessible 

 Yellow Poplar has been cut down already, and what has 

 not been cut is controlled by this company, who have had 

 for some time agents at work quietly buying up every good 

 tree at prices ranging from fifty cents to one dollar each. 

 These trees, it must be remembered, are the finest of their 

 kind, with tall, straight shafts six to ten feet in diameter, 

 running up without a limb for eighty or one hundred feet. 

 They represent the undisturbed growth, under conditions 

 of soil and climate perfectly favorable, during a period of 

 not less than 500 years. Five hundred years' growth, 

 under the changed conditions made by man, will not serve 

 to build up their like. The last stronghold of the great 



deciduous forests of eastern America, the richest, most 

 varied and most valuable found on the surface of the earth, 

 with the exception, perhaps, of the little known forests of 

 western and south-western China, has been invaded, and 

 its destruction is now a question of time alone. 



The Yellow Poplar only has suffered so far, but in these 

 same forests are Ash trees of a height and girth which even 

 the bottom-lands of the Ohio and the Mississippi have 

 never produced; Birch of a size and beauty unknown else- 

 where, and above these, and near the summits, Spruces 

 unmatched, except by those which grow, or once grew, on 

 the banks of the Columbia. The amount of lumber con- 

 tained in these forests of Spruce and Birch is comparatively 

 enormous, and certainly nowhere else is there so much, or 

 so valuable. Red Birch. The inaccessible position occu- 

 pied by the Spruce, and the small demand up to the pres- 

 ent time for birch-lumber, have saved these forests so far. 

 Their destruction, however, will not be delayed much 

 longer, and sooner or later a way will be found to transport 

 to the saw-mill the most inaccessible tree growing on the 

 remotest slope of the Alleghany Mountains. 



There is a bill before the Legislature of this State to 

 authorize the City of New York to expend $300,000 in 

 improving and extending the menagerie in the Central 

 Park. This bill ought to be defeated. There is not room 

 in the Central Park for a Zoological Garden. The present 

 collection of beasts is not a credit to the city; it injures 

 the park as a park, interfering seriously with those pur- 

 poses for which it was created, and thus injuring the 

 people who frequent it. New York ought to have a 

 Zoological Garden commensurate with its population, 

 wealth and commercial importance among the cities of 

 the world. There is no better educator than a good 

 Zoological Garden, and none of the equipments of well- 

 ordered modern cities are superior to it in attractiveness 

 and in the general interest and intelligence it creates. 

 Provision should be made now for the location of a gar- 

 den of this character in one of the proposed new parks; 

 but instead of spending more money on the existing 

 menagerie, the sooner it can be cleared away, and the 

 space it now makes offensive devoted to trees again, the 

 better. 



The Landscape Gardener. 



IRRESISTIBLE forces are drawing vast populations 

 into the cities. Here, in the busy centres of the 

 great towns, life is lived at high pressure— at such pres- 

 sure that men are continually compelled to seek rest and 

 refreshment, either in suburban home-life, or in frequent 

 flights to the country, the mountains or the sea. It is to 

 meet this want that millions of dollars are spent upon 

 public country-parks, and other millions upon country 

 seats and seaside seats, summer hotels and summer cot- 

 tage neighborhoods ; while, near the cities, the same want 

 causes the region of detached and gardened houses to 

 continually expand. This modern crowding into cities 

 results in a counter invasion of the country; and it is just 

 here that the special modern need of an art and profession 

 of landscape-gardening is first felt. How can we add 

 roads, and many or large buildings, to natural landscape, 

 without destroying the very thing in search of which we 

 left the city } How shall we establish ourselves as con- 

 veniently as may be, and at the same time preserve all 

 the charms of the scene we have chosen to dwell in ? 

 How may we rightly work to bring more and more beauty 

 into that scene ? 



Questions like these are not easily answered, and many 

 other problems arise equally difficult of solution. How shall 

 we arrange the roads and buildings of a new suburb so 

 as to make it a thoroughly pleasant place to live in .? 

 How shall we secure all possible convenience and 

 beauty in the door-yards and gardens of a neighbor- 

 hood ? How shall the railroad station-yard and the 

 church-yard, the public school-yard and the public square 



