146 



Garden and Forest. 



[March 27, 1889. 



complish what you desire, and make your town a credit 

 to its inhabitants and a delight to the stranger within your 

 gates. 



Pruning- Shrubs. 



OUR chmate is so favorable to the growth of hardy 

 deciduous shrubs that these should play an import- 

 ant part in every American garden, especially in the North- 

 ern and Eastern States. A small garden can be made very 

 attractive with a proper selection of shrubs alone from open- 

 ing spring, when the earliest of them are in bloom, until 

 they glow with the rich colors of their autumn foliage, and 

 even later still, for many of them are covered with bright 

 fruit far into the winter. When properly planted in deep, 

 rich soil they demand comparatively little care, although a 

 mulching with coarse litter is a help to many varieties, and 

 an occasional light dressing of decomposed manure, or of 

 bone-dust and ashes will often prove beneficial. 



But how shall they be pruned ? As a rule, the knife 

 should be used with caution — not to " trim them into 

 shape," as the phrase goes, but to encourage their develop- 

 ment into the best typical form. Severe pruning tends 

 to enfeeble either shrub or tree, and the removal of 

 large branches usually interferes with the natural and, 

 therefore, most graceful outlines of either. So far as any 

 general rule can be laid down, it may be said that shrubs 

 will be the most vigorous and in their best form the year 

 through, when no pruning is attempted beyond the thin- 

 ning out of the weaker and overshadowed branches in 

 order to afford the stronger ones a better opportunity for 

 growth. Shrubs have a beauty in winter as well as when 

 they are in full foliage or flower. In the leafless season a 

 mass of shrubbery is enveloped with a haze of delicate 

 color which comes from the melting together of the different 

 tints of the bark of the small branches ; and this color, 

 together with grace of form, that in shrubs which is quite as 

 distinct in winter as in summer, can be destroyed by careless 

 cutting. The shearing of shrubs into formal shapes, such 

 as cones and spheres, or cutting off all the tops at the 

 same level, means, of course, the destruction both of the 

 health and beauty of the plant. 



But when shrubs are used for special purposes they re- 

 quire special treatment. If abundant bloom is the object 

 chiefly aimed at, the time and manner of pruning should 

 be chosen with this end in view. Shrubs which bloom 

 early in the spring, like Thunberg's Spiraea, for example, 

 form their flower-buds on the growth of the previous year. 

 If this growth is cut back in autumn or in early spring, 

 the flower-buds, too, are cut away and the bloom of the 

 year is destroyed. With such shrubs the proper course is 

 to wait till the flowering season is over and then prune 

 away a considerable portion of last year's wood. This 

 will encourage new shoots, which will start at once and 

 begin to make flowering branches for next spring. On 

 the other hand, shrubs which flower late in the season, 

 like the Rose of Sharon, some of the Tamasisks and the 

 Great Panicled Hydrangea, make their flower-buds on the 

 wood that forms during the growing season of the same 

 year. These late-flowering shrubs should be pruned now, 

 before the new growth starts. If the Hydrangea just men- 

 tioned is cut back so as to leave but one or two eyes on 

 each branch of last year's growth, these will put out vigor- 

 ous shoots, each of which will bear at the extremity a 

 large panicle of flowers next fall. 



These directions may be summarized as follows : 



For general purposes, shrubs should never be cut back 

 so far as to impair their vigor, nor be pruned so as to 

 destroy their natural outlines. 



Shrubs which bloom early, on wood of the previous 

 year, should not be pruned in autumn or in early spring 

 when it is desired to secure abundant flowers, but imme- 

 diately after the blooming season. 



Shrubs which bloom late, on wood of the current year, 

 should be pruned after the leaves fall in autumn, or in 

 early spring before they start. 



THERE is no insurmountable difficulty in protecting 

 the forests upon the national domain or those in 

 the Adirondack region of this state, if the Congress of the 

 United States and the Legislature of New York will give to 

 this subject the serious consideration which its importance 

 requires. But popular legislative bodies only reflect popu- 

 lar demands, and if we are to have forest-preservation in 

 this country it will be because the people of the United 

 States, instructed in the -material requirements of their 

 country, insist upon it. The Executive Committee of the 

 Horticultural Society, of Newton, Massachusetts, in recently 

 passing a resolution, which we gladly publish, expressive 

 of intelligent concern for the preservation of the forests 

 and of sympathy with all efforts directed to that end, set 

 an example which might well be followed by other bodies 

 of men, whether they are tillers of the soil or not, who are 

 interested in the future of the United States. If every 

 organized society in the country will pass resolutions upon 

 this subject, if every newspaper will publish and endorse 

 them, and if every man and woman will use his or her 

 influence in bringing the subject of forest-preservation to 

 members of Congress, personally and by petition, sooner 

 or later the country will be saved from those special and 

 particular evils which the extermination of the western 

 forests will bring upon it : 



Resolved: That the Newton Horticultural Society desire to 

 express, through the medium of the public press, their entire 

 satisfaction in the efforts that are now being made to awalcen 

 the people to the great importance of preserving the forests 

 throughout our country. In New England, and especially iri 

 northern New Hampshire, as well as in other regions, the 

 forests are fast disappearing before the axe of the logger. 



Not only are certain districts thus robl)ed of their chief attrac- 

 tion to lovers of natural scenery, but the value of the streams, 

 which take their rise among them, for manufacturing purposes, 

 is seriously impaired, not only by the droughts but by the inun- 

 dations thereby produced. Our countrymen, generally, miifst 

 be educated up to a knowledge of the important truths which 

 so vitally concern them, and we therefore cordially welcome 

 every effort, however hiunble, to bring about so desirable an 

 end. 



Especially do we recognize the value of the weekly diffusion 

 of knowledge on forestry in all its relations to the interest of 

 the people, made by Garden and Forest. Could its articles 

 on this subject be more widely diffused and brought to the 

 notice of the capitalist, the farmer, the contractor, the builder, 

 in fact, every one, the result would be most satisfactory. 



It would be unwise to sit down and close our eyes against 

 matters which so intimately concern oiu'selves as well as com- 

 ing generations ; we, therefore, as members of a society de- 

 signed to foster and promote a love for the beautiful and use- 

 ful in Nature, would entreat our fellow citizens and countrymen 

 to give new and persistent attention to all that concerns the 

 preservation of the forests. 



The Garden (London) recently republished in full the 

 admirable " Hints About Lawns" which Mr. J. C. Olmsted 

 wrote for Garden and Forest ; and an accompanying edito- 

 rial note read as follows : " If landscape-gardening were as" 

 true and clear as the above sketch, that art would not now 

 be the horror it is to sensitive men." In justice to Mr. 

 Olmsted, to his famous father and to other American land- 

 scape-gardeners, it should be explained to our English 

 contemporary that their art, as practiced here, is by no 

 means a horror even to the most sensitive eyes. Horror 

 is excited only when the land-owner himself tries to do an 

 artist's work, or when he mistakes for an artist some one 

 who has no better title to the name than lies in the fact 

 that he can grow plants successfully. 



Some idea of the wonderful growth of trees in the fertile 

 soil of California — a growth which seems almost fabulous 

 to persons living in less favored regions — will be gathered 

 from the following statement printed in a recent issue of 

 the Pacific Rural Press. The trees are in Antelope Valley, 

 in Colusa County, and have not been irrigated. A Fig-tree, 

 planted in 1874, has a top thirty feet high by thirty feet 



