April 3 , 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



157 



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, APRIL 3, 1889. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles: — Can the Nation Defend its Forests. — -Thinning the 

 Plantations in Central Park. — Railroads in the Adirondack Reserva- 

 tion 157 



The Railroad Station at Chestnut Hill (with plan and illustration) 159 



New or Little Known Plants: — Calochortus Obispcensis (with figure)...?. /K. 160 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter IV. Watson. 160 



Cultural Dep.\rtment : — Orchard Notes Professor L. H. Bailey. 162 



Vineyard Notes and Studies A. IV. Pierson. 162 



The Flower Garden £. O. Orpet. 163 



Orchid Notes F. Goldring. 164 



Propagating the Weeping Sophora F. L. Temple. 164 



Plant Notes George Nicholson. 164 



Principles of Physiological Botany. XIV Professor George Lincoln Goodale. 164 



The Forest : — Forestry in California Abbot Kinney. 165 



Periodical Literature 166 



Exhibitions : — Flower Show in Boston 167 



Recent Plant Portraits 167 



Notes 168 



Illustrations : — Plan of the Chestnut Hill Station Grounds 159 



Calochortus Obispoensis, Fig. 102 , 160 



Chestnut Hill Station — Boston and Albany Railroad 163 



Can the Nation Defend its Forests? 



THE Daily Commercial Bulletin of this city says it is 

 incumbent upon Congress to protect the forests on 

 the national domain, but adds that the plan we have pro- 

 posed for their defense ignores limitations upon federal 

 authority that must be maintained. The Bulletin does not 

 say what these limitations are, but it appears to think it 

 would be wrong for the nation to use adequate means for 

 the protection of its own property. We are not aware of 

 the existence of any limitations which forbid the nation to 

 guard its forests from spoliation and destruction, and if 

 the people of the country can be brought intelligently to 

 consider the magnitude of the interests involved, they will, 

 no doubt, find a way, or make one, to protect the forests 

 on the public lands in the Pacific and Central States. 

 There was much solemn argument in this country in i860 

 and 1 86 1 to the effect that the nation could not preserve 

 or defend its own property ; that there were insurmount- 

 able limitations in the way. But since 1865 intelligent 

 men have mostly been of the opinion that the American 

 people can defend their own national property — if they 

 want to. There is nothing whatever to prevent the people 

 of the nation from providing effective means for the pre- 

 servation of the forests on the public lands, except the 

 lack of popular interest, intelligence and foresight regard- 

 ing the relation of these forests to the welfare and civiliza- 

 tion of the country. 



But the timber thieves, of high and low degree, who 

 have grown rich by plundering these forests, the mining 

 and railroad corporations and private individuals who 

 for many years have been appropriating the public prop- 

 erty to their own use and aggrandizement, are all earnestly 

 opposed to the exercise of the power which the people of 

 the country unquestionably possess — the power to defend 

 the nation's forests from systematic and exterminating pil- 

 lage. They would think it very improper, perhaps uncon- 

 stitutional, to employ the army for this purpose, although 

 its officers have been educated at the expense of the na- 

 tion, and the whole force is maintained for the purpose of 

 having a body of trained and competent men always ready 



for the service of the country; and the defense of national 

 property is one of the principal objects for which the na- 

 tional army exists. 



Is it not absurd to insist that although the nation owns 

 these forests, and can dispose of them as it chooses, it can- 

 not provide for the sale of the trees when they need cutting, 

 but must allow mature and valuable timber to go to waste, 

 or be stolen, because it would never do for the "Govern- 

 ment" to sell lumber.^ The Government is already, and 

 always has been, an extensive lumber dealer. It buys 

 lumber in large quantities, while it permits enormous 

 thefts of valuable timber from its own forests. The Gov- 

 ernment sells land, and old iron, and a great many other 

 things. What kind of catastrophe would result if compe- 

 ■ tent officers should be empowered to sell timber from the 

 public lands, under regulations embodying some knowledge 

 of forestry .? The timber of the public forests is constantly 

 sold with the land on which it grows. Of course, if the 

 nation chooses to do so it can sell the timber, while it re- 

 tains possession of the land and protects it so that a new 

 forest-growth will in time be produced. To do this would 

 be a very simple and commonplace business transaction. 



There is not much force in the argument that because the 

 nation does not employ the machinery of the "Govern- 

 ment " to do something which is entirely unnecessary, that 

 is, to manage mines and ranches, therefore it cannot, or 

 must not, employ it to protect its property in the forests on 

 the public lands. If the relation of certain mines and 

 ranches on the public lands to the welfare and civilization 

 of the country were the same as that of the mountain 

 forests in California and Colorado, the nation could assume 

 their management, and it would be entirely proper that it 

 should do so. It could even employ its own soldiers to 

 guard and defend its mines and ranches from plunder and 

 destruction if this became necessary. 



No well-considered objection to the plan for the care of 

 the nation's forests, which was proposed in this journal a 

 few weeks ago, has been brought forward. The unan- 

 swerable argument and sufficient reason for the adoption 

 of that plan is the fact that it presents the only means 

 available for the permanent conservation of forests which 

 are the indispensable guards and regulators of the flow of 

 the rivers which have their sources in them, and that upon 

 these rivers a great area of country must forever depend 

 for the water without which agriculture, and even inhab- 

 itancy, will be impossible. 



These are the essential and intimately related facts in 

 the case : A great region, now nearly uninhabitable on 

 account of extreme desiccation, could be made highly fer- 

 tile and capable of supporting a dense population, by 

 means of irrigation. The water required for this purpose 

 can be obtained only from the rivers which rise in the 

 forest-covered mountain-lands which are still public prop- 

 erty. If the forests are destroyed the water will not be 

 available or controllable for irrigation. The forests are be- 

 ing rapidly destroyed, and under existing methods of gov- 

 ernment control their speedy extinction is certain. They 

 belong to the nation, and could be protected by employing 

 the national army for their defense, until a system for their 

 permanent conservation could be devised and put in 

 operation. 



Tree-planting-. 



TREES are generally planted in this latitude during the 

 month of April or in early May, although certain ad- 

 vantages may be gained by autumn planting. It is best, 

 as a rule, to secure the trees in October, while nurserymen 

 have time to fill orders properly, even if the planting is de- 

 layed until the following spring. As soon as the trees are 

 secured all bruised roots should be carefully cut away with 

 a sharp knife, and if the trees are carefully heeled in, the 

 wounds will have time to form a callus and small rootlets 

 will be made before freezing weather. These feeding 

 roots will help to keep the tree supplied with moisture as 

 it is dried out by the winter winds, and they will be ready 



