February 20, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



8s 



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, FEBRUARY 20, 1889. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — The Defense of National Property. — New Varieties. — 



Bartram's Garden.— Destruction of Forests in New Hampshire 86 



Some Old American Country-seats, i. — The Gore Place. ..CAar/^j Eliot. 86 



Winter in the Pines Mrs. Mary Treat. 87 



History of the White Lilac Industry George Nicholson. 88 



Cultural Department : — Hybridization of Gladioli (with figure), 



Robert T. Jackson. 88 



Window Plants 5. gi 



Propaeating Herbaceous Paeonias F. L, Temple. 91 



Orchid Notes F. Goldring. 91 



Doronicums as Pot-plants E. Orpet 91 



Principles of Physiological Botany. VIII Professor George Lincoln Goodale. 92 



The Forest: — Forestry in New England J. B. Harrison. 92 



Correspondence : — Shrubs for Shady Places E, A. 93 



Mutilating Street Trees F. C. P. 94 



Is Primula Obconica Poisonous Professor Jas. C. White. 94 



Propagating Cypripedium insigne C. O. W. 94 



Recent Publications. — Contributions to American Botany 94 



Periodical Literature g4 



Recent Plant Portraits 



Notes 



Illustrations :— Sketch Plan of the Gore Place. 

 Gladiolus purpureo-auratus. Fig. 96 



95 



87 



The Gore Place. 



The Defense of National Property. 



THE greatest obstacle in the way of effective action 

 for saving the forests on the nation's lands, is the 

 lack of a clear understanding of the situation and of what 

 it requires on the part of the people of this country. The 

 problem is specific, limited and particular. It is not merely 

 a topic for leisurely discussion and contemplation. One 

 of the most important possessions of the nation is in im- 

 minent danger of extinction. An exigency now demands 

 immediate and effective action, and the only alternative 

 is ruin. 



The plan presented in this journal three weeks ago, and 

 to which we now recur, requires the immediate withdrawal 

 from sale of all the public lands in the mountain forest- 

 regions of the country, and the employment of the Army 

 of the United States to protect these forests from injury 

 and spoliation until a permanent policy for their care 

 and preservation can be put in operation. 



An emergency confronts us, and the employment of the 

 army for this work of national defense is a necessity. If 

 one of our great seaboard cities were demolished by a for- 

 eign foe, the loss to the nation would be far less than that 

 which would result from the destruction of the forests on 

 the lands now belonging to the nation. Or, if hundreds of 

 millions were exacted as the price of escape from bom- 

 bardment and obliterating flame, the subtraction from the 

 nation's wealth which this would require would be trivial 

 cornpared with the permanent extinction of the very 

 springs and sources of national wealth and revenue which 

 would be caused by the destruction of these forests. 



The overwhelming and unanswerable argument for the 

 adoption of this plan, and for the employment of the na- 

 tion's army for the defense of the nation's property, is the 

 fact that it is the only method which can be made efficient 

 and successful. It is obvious that so much time would 

 be required to prepare any other administrative machinery 

 and put it into operation, that the forests would be extinct 

 before the completion of an elaborate arrangement for 

 their defense. But here is the best available machinery for 

 the protection of this invaluable national (property ready 



to our hands in the thorough organization and intelligent 

 efficiency of the Army of the United States. Its officers 

 are superior men, who have been trained at the expense 

 of the nation, and they are already in its paid service. 

 There is not at present any other service so important as 

 this in which the ariny can be employed. 



As for official or Government work in forestry in this 

 country, nothing could be attempted that would so strongly 

 tend to vitalize and popularize it, as the success of the 

 scheme which we have proposed. Official persons often 

 justly complain that they are not sustained in their work, 

 as they should be, by public interest and sentiment. There 

 is no other way in which intelligent and public-spirited 

 citizens can so efficiently co-operate with all that is vital 

 in the forestry work of the national Government, as by 

 urging the adoption of the plan we have presented — the 

 immediate withdrawal from sale of all the public lands in 

 the mountain forest-region of the West, and the employ- 

 ment of the United States Army to guard these forests 

 until a plan for their permanent administration has been 

 completed. 



New^ Varieties. 



MONSIEUR ANDRE, in a recent issue of the Rhue 

 Horticole, calls attention to the difficulties which 

 confront the purchasers of plants who are obliged to rely, 

 in making their selections, upon the glowing and inter- 

 ested statements of value with which new plants are 

 habitually put upon the market : 



" Plant-buyers, no matter what class of plants they are 

 interested in, must often find themselves confused if they con- 

 sult the catalogues of dealers. The immense nimiber of new 

 varieties now obtained on every side, and named and 

 described as possessing every desirable quality and virtue, 

 must cause a well-nigh hopeless embarrassment. If they 

 are not fortunate enough to possess some work vipon garden- 

 ing containing authoritative lists of the different varieties of 

 garden plants, they must buy on the strength of the catalogue 

 descriptions, and then be compelled to throw away, as worth- 

 less, a large part of what they have bought, or else continue to 

 cultivate inferior forms. The way to prevent this is simple; 

 and it can, with a little trouble, be arranged. It is only neces- 

 sary to establish, for the different classes of ornamental plants, 

 juries of approval, of the same character as the pomological 

 congresses, which have successfully established the nomen- 

 clature and the merits of culdvated fruits. Monsieur Gode- 

 froy-Lebeuf has recently suggested such a plan in the case of 

 Orchids; but every new plant, no matter of what class, should 

 be submitted to a jury of specialists to determine if it merits 

 recommendation, if it is not already cultivated under another 

 name, or if it is really worth cultivation for any particular pur- 

 pose or special reason. The question is certainly somewhat 

 complicated, but it can be solved to the satisfaction of intelli- 

 gent producers of new plants and of all plant-buyers." 



American plant-buyers suffer, perhaps, more than those 

 of any other country, from exaggerated statements regard- 

 ing new plants, which too often appear in trade-cata- 

 logues, because Americans are, as a rule, more easily 

 misled by glowing advertisements than Europeans, and 

 because in America trade-catalogues are too often the only 

 sources of information about new plants and horticultural 

 matters generally, with which plant buyers provide them- 

 selves. 



An international jury, or a number of juries, to pass 

 upon all new plants originated in England, France, Bel- 

 gimn, Holland, Germany and the United States, might, 

 perhaps, be impracticable, but there ought to be no very 

 serious or insurmountable difficulty in organizing such 

 juries in Europe, with an American jury of American 

 specialists to confirm, so far as the United States is con- 

 cerned, the action of their European associates. It is 

 pretty evident that the vast numbers of varieties of garden- 

 plants which are now produced everj^ year must, sooner 

 or later, necessitate some such plan as this, and the sooner 

 it can be perfected, and put in good working order, the 

 better it will be for ever)^ one interested in horticulture. 

 The producers of valuable varieties would gain as much, 



