February 27, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



105 



classes — those which serve as treasuries of energy and those 



which subserve some minor but doubtless important end. ^..^^.^ ..^ ...„ ^^ ...... 



We turn next to glance at that group of substances in which is vised and put in operation 

 found the vehicle of all these activities which present them- 

 selves when the energy treasured in the plant is released and 

 manifests itself to us in some other way. 



Cambridge, Mass. GeorgC LillCOlll Goodalc. 



to adapt itself to conditions unlike those existing elsewhere. It 

 should be maintained until a more efficient system can be de- 



Correspondence. 

 Forest Changes in Rhode Island. 



The Forest. 



The Forests of Michigan. 



The first report of the directors of the State Forestry Com- 

 mission of Michigan is a remarkably interesting and valuable 

 document. It includes the law establishing the Commission, 

 an account of a forestry convention at Grand Rapids, at which 

 there seems to have been a much larger proportion of practi- 

 cal and sensible talk than is usual at such meetings, a list of 

 trees and shrubs found in Michigan, and a large number 

 of useful illustrations, which show the appearance and habit of 

 growth of some of the principal trees of the state. The most 

 important portions of the report are the brief and admirable 

 discussions by Professor W. J. Beal of such subjects as forest- 

 management in southern Michigan, forest-fires, the succession 

 of forests in northern Michigan, cutting and removing logs for 

 lumber, a lumber-camp, new uses for certain kinds of timber 

 and the amount of pine yet remaining in Michigan. 



The law provides for sending questions to the township- 

 supervisors of the state regarding the area of forest-land, the 

 origin and extent of fires and resulting damage, and the need 

 of additional forest-legislation. The answers are not always 

 very important, but the practice of sending out such questions 

 has great value as a means of popular education regarding 

 forestry subjects. 



There are interestmg communications from Professor A. J. 

 Cook, Eugene Davenport, A. C. Glidden, A. A. Luce, T. T. 

 Lyon (President of the Michigan Horticultural Society), Geo. 

 D. Moore, W. K. Sexton, Professor V. M. Spalding, B. W. 

 Steere, A. S. Kedzie, J. H. Moores, Geo. C. Nevins, and Hon. 

 John T. Rich, Commissioner of Railroads. There is pretty 

 uniform testimony that pasturage destroys the forest. But 

 one gentleman says : " It is customary to pasture timber-lots. 

 I consider it no injury to the trees, and but little benefit to the 

 stock, except in the way of shade." If his judgment is correct, 

 domestic animals might as well be kept out of Michigan 

 woods. 



There are several pages of apt quotations from this journal. 

 The officers of the Commission are : Hon. Franklin Wells, 

 President ; Hon. Henry G. Reynolds, Secretary ; Hon. Wm. B. 

 McCreery, Auditor ; Dr. W. J. Beal, of Agricultural College, 

 and Hon. Chas. W. Garfield, Grand Rapids, Directors. 



■If every public library in the country could have a copy of 

 this report it would vitally aid the work of popular education 

 regarding forestry. An appendix contains the laws of Michi- 

 gan relating to forests. 



We make the following extracts from an address by Col. E. 

 T. Ensign, of Colorado, at the Forestry Congress at Atlanta, 

 last December, on the Colorado Forestry System. 



The Colorado State Forestry Association was the first fruit 

 of systematic local agitation of the forestry question. After 

 its organization followed the enactment of a forest law in 

 1885. It created the office of State Forest Commissioner, and 

 made the County Commissioners and Road Overseers 

 through the state forest-officers for their own districts. The 

 Commissioner has an annual salary, office equipments and 

 traveling allowances. The county officers are paid per diem 

 by the counties for services rendered. These officers are 

 charged with the oversight of the public forests, they are to 

 guard them against depredation and the outbreak and spread 

 of fires, and they are to promote the culture of forest trees. 



There are penalties for the willful or careless setting of 

 forest fires, and for failure to extinguish camp-fires. The 

 county officers must post notices conspicuously along the 

 highways, warning travelers to put out their camp-fires, and 

 citing penalties for failure to do so. Arboriculture is taught 

 at the State Agricultural College, and provision has been made 

 for the establishment of four experiment stations in different 

 parts of the state. Forest-tires have become less frequent 

 and destructive, and federal officers are aided somewhat to 

 protect the timber on the national domain. Special effort has 

 been made to show the intimate relations between the moun- 

 tain forests and the streams of the state and its irrigation sys- 

 tem. The forestry system of Colorado is an effort to improve 

 local forest conditions. It deals with new methods, and seeks 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — When Roger Williams entered the Narragansett coim- 

 try and landed at what is now Providence, he had passed 

 through a Pine and Cedar country. The slopes of the Moss- 

 hassuck, of the Blackstone and Seekouk were heavily covered 

 with Pine and Cedar. The stately Pine towered high and 

 spoke to the winds ; the Cedars were large and thick. There 

 was Oak, but not in abundance. Now, confining myself to the 

 region north of Providence, for a few miles of which I am 

 familiar in ministerial work, I find that wherever the Pine has 

 been cut down, not the Pine, but the Oak, has appeared. In 

 Lincoln township there is abundance of Oak. Let us suppose 

 ourselves in Pawtucket, a city adjoining Providence; we reach 

 the end of Dexter Street, and for half a mile have woods. 

 Much of it is little, scraggy Oak, in outer appearance like the 

 Oak-forests I have often surveyed in central Illinois. Ascending 

 the hill towards Saylesville, we see rising out of these puny 

 Oaks perhaps twenty tall Pines, isolated and magnificent, and 

 as graceful as any I ever saw. They stand alone like the pil- 

 lars of the Temple of Jupiter Stator, monuments of a splendid 

 arboreal age, when all those hills and valleys were filled with 

 their brethren. In Saylesville itself, south of the bleacheries, 

 and all alone, stands one of the most perfect and magnificent 

 Pines in Rhode Island, its spreading branches a dark, rich, 

 beautiful green. Above, around the rising hill, is the Oak. 

 Between Saylesville and Pawtucket is a forest, a few tall Pines, 

 but invariably where there has been a cutting is the Oak. 

 Now, why is it that in this section of Rhode Island Oak succeeds 

 Pine ? The Pines disappear. Tall and stately, and beaudful 

 and strong, they have no successors. I tremble for that grand, 

 unparalleled tree in Saylesville. It stands unique, and if your 

 widely read journal can induce some Rhode Island photogra- 

 pher to take its picture I shall rejoice. It may be removed 

 at any time from business necessity. 



Providence, R. I. Heiiry H. NortJirop. 



[The changes in the character of the forest-growrth 

 noticed by our correspondent in the neighborhood 

 of Providence are gradually going on in many different 

 parts of the country. They represent the bad effects 

 which invariably follow ignorance in the management 

 of the soil, whether it be the rich Corn-land or Cotton- 

 land of the west or south, or the Pine-producing drift of 

 New England. We are paying now, and dearly, for the 

 mistakes made by earlier generations in the treatment of 

 the soil in the first settled parts of the country, and we 

 owe it to ourselves and to the generations which are to 

 follow us, that the same charges are not made against 

 us by our children's children. Land which produces large 

 Pine trees does not produce vigorous or valuable Oaks. 

 If the forests that once covered the gravelly plains and 

 hills which surround Providence had not been disturbed 

 by man ; if the trees had not all been cut off and the sur- 

 face soil licked up by constant burning, they would have 

 been composed principally to-day of large White Pines and 

 Cedars, as they were two hundred years ago. Fire and 

 exposure are fatal to seedling White Pines. It is found that 

 the seed of this tree does not germinate in soil which has 

 recently been burned ; and that the seedlings, when the 

 seeds do germinate, perish when they are too much ex- 

 posed to the sunlight, as is the case when the forest has 

 been entirely cut away. The fact, however, that White 

 Pines germinate freely and grow rapidly on abandoned 

 pastures and old fields in many parts of New England, 

 shows that the changed character of the soil consequent 

 upon burning has more to do with the inability of this 

 tree to reproduce itself upon ground recently cleared of a 

 forest of Pines, than the exposure to light which follows 

 clean cutting. The nature of the Pine and the Oak being 

 understood, it is not difficult to see whj^ under the 

 methods of forest-mismanagement which exist in this 

 country, the latter is gradually taking the place of the 

 former. An acorn may be carried by animals into the 



