230 



Garden and Forest. 



[May 15, 1889. 



But let us see where Mr. Lyman's thinning of the New 

 Hampshire Pine forests, if it is carried out on any large 

 scale, is going to lead to. It is not probable that a forest 

 of young, self-sown Pines, which generally stand very close 

 together, could be properly thinned for less than five dol- 

 lars an acre. Compound interest at four per cent, will 

 double this five dollars in a little less than eighteen years. 

 In something under 150 years, when the Pine forest should 

 have attained its maximum value, the five dollars will be 

 $144. If the thinning is applied to a hundred thousand 

 acres, as it might well be in New Hampshire, this opera- 

 tion would mean an expenditure upon the crop at the time 

 of maturity of more than fourteen million dollars. 



But who knows whether this expenditure will be justified 

 by larger returns from the soil, or how can Mr. Lyman verify 

 the statement he will probably make in reply to this criti- 

 cism that if the young forest is properly thinned it will reach 

 maturity in half the time that the trees, unassisted by man, 

 would have grown to the same size. Granting that the 

 trees of the thinned forest will be ready for the axe in sev- 

 enty-five years, there will still bean interest account against 

 them of more than forty dollars an acre, and forty dollars 

 an acre for pine-stumpage is a very large price — larger than 

 any one seriously believes that it will be at any time dur- 

 ing the next seventy-five years. The danger, too, of fire 

 and of other accidents is not diminished by thinning. 



Now, we neither acknowledge nor deny the value of thin- 

 ning. It may be a good thing, and it may be a very foolish 

 one from the point of view of economy; and forestry means 

 the economical management of forests. What is needed 

 now in this country are facts upon which to base systems ; 

 and facts of this sort can only be reached by long years of 

 experiments, which only governments or corporate bodies 

 like universities can inaugurate with any hope of that they 

 will be persisted in till sound conclusions are reached. We 

 have had enough of the vague statements, based upon per- 

 sonal opinion or the results of European experiments, 

 which pass muster in this country as profound knowledge 

 of forestry, and the sooner we get down to practical work 

 the better it will be for us. It requires the term spanned 

 by the lives of several generations of men to find out any- 

 thmg really reliable about a tree or about a forest, and, 

 from present appearances, ours will pretty much all have 

 disappeared before we get ready to set about learning what 

 is the best way to take care of them. 



necessity of seciu'ing at once all the park lands we may ever 

 want. ' 



"I tremble," continued Mr. Cleveland, "when I think that 

 tliis great gift, which is put right down before us, may be lost. 

 In the possession of this area no other city could compete with 

 us. In Chicago they would give millions of dollars to get it, 

 and they are now constructing a forty-mile drive at great ex- 

 pense, wliich will gi\'e them access to an area something like it." 



Great interest is felt in Minneapolis in the new park 

 schemes for the improvement of that city ; and the advo- 

 cates of the plans proposed by Mr. Cleveland have suc- 

 ceeded in arousing so much enthusiasm about them that 

 these plans, with some unimportant modifications, are to 

 be realized. Mr. Cleveland, in an address presented to the 

 members of the Board of Trade, cited the benefit derived 

 by the people of this city from the establishment of Central 

 Park as an argument for city parks — an argument so con- 

 vincing that we reproduce it for the benefit of those per- 

 sons in other cities who are trying to impress upon their 

 fellow-citizens the necessity of securing public parks in the 

 midst of all urban populations before the increase in the 

 value of city land makes it impossible to do so : 



"The wliole expenditure," he said, "for the purchase of 

 land, construction of park, interest on bonds and maintenance 

 for twenty-five years was $44,000,000. The amount levied in 

 taxes during the same period was $110,000,000 so far in excess 

 of the average value of city property, that after deducting from 

 it tlie whole cost of the park, together with all the revenue that 

 could have accrued from taxes at the ordinary rates, there re- 

 mained the sum of $17,000,000 to be credited to the park as 

 clear profit. I wish to emphasize tliis statement, and have it 

 clearly understood, for it is a matter of dollars and cents which 

 cannot be gainsaid or evaded by those who raise the cry that 

 we cannot alford to be sentimental. In the language of the 

 gentleman from whose report I gather these figures, ' the most 

 convincing arguments that can be deduced from tlieories are 

 weak and impotent compared with the invaluable logic of 

 these figures. They prove beyond the possibility of cavil the 



Recent Botanical Discoveries in China. — II. 



Rhododendron. — Upwards of sixty species of this genus are 

 enumerated in tlie seventh part of the " Index," which is just 

 passing througli the press, and fifty of them are comparatively 

 recent discoveries. This number is considerably in excess of 

 the total number described in Hooker's "Flora of British 

 India," but it may suffer some reduction when the different 

 forms are better known ; and it includes the section Azalea, 

 which finds its maximum development in eastern Asia. A 

 very large proportion of the true Rhododendrons were dis- 

 covered by the Abb^ Delavay in the mountains of Yun-Nan, 

 but all the mountainous regions of China yet explored have 

 yielded their peculiar species. Taken as a whole, the new 

 Chinese species are by no means so gorgeously beautiful as 

 the Himalayan, though inany of them are highly ornamental. 

 R. aucubcefolium has long, smooth, dark-green leaves and 

 small, snow-white flowers, with very long, exserted stamens. 

 It also resembles the common Aucula in having thick, straight, 

 smooth branches. R. Aiigustinii is a densely-branched shrub, 

 with crooked branches, coriaceous leaves, two to three inches 

 long, lepidote beneath, and white or purple flowers, about the 

 size of those of R. Indicum. R. aiiriculatum is a robust, large- 

 flowered species, having large leaves, rusty-hairy beneath and 

 slightly auricled at the base. R. Bureaui is another very robust 

 species, the thick branches of which, as well as the stout peti- 

 oles, under surface of the leaves and bracts, are clothed with a 

 dense, rusty, felt-like tomentum, and the rosy or purple 

 spotted flowers, of mediimi size, are borne in very crowded 

 clusters. R. decorum has deflexed leaves, and is altogether so 

 like the American R. Catawbiense that if it had been found in 

 America instead of on the mountains of Yun-Nan it would proba- 

 bly have been referred without hesitation to that species. R. 

 Delavayi is one of the showiest of the Yun-Nan species, strongly 

 resembling the Indian R. Campbellia. R. lactewn, a very 

 large-leaved species, has loosely corymbose, milk-white flow- 

 ers of medium size, and the leaves are glossy above, and very 

 thickly covered with rusty scales beneath. R. Faberi is one of 

 the very few Chinese species having a large foliaceous calyx, 

 and R. bidlatum belongs to the same group. The former has 

 flat coriaceous leaves, smooth above, and densely rusty-tomen- 

 tose beneath. R. stamineuui and R. pittosporcEfollinn are closely 

 allied species or varieties of one species, characterized by 

 smooth, deflected leaves and small, narrow-lobed white or 

 pink flowers on long, slender pedicels, and very long exserted 

 stamens and style. 



Beauniontia brevituba. — A handsome species of the small, 

 showv genus Beaumontia, from the island of Hainan, differing 

 from the other species in the manner indicated in the specific 

 name. It is, of course, a warm-house plant. The Rev. B: C. 

 Henry, of the American mission, discovered it, and he de- 

 scribes it as a magnificent vine, climbing over rocks and trees; 

 flowers white and fragrant. Hooker's Icones Plantarum, t. 1582. 



Rehmannia glutinosa, syn. R. Chinensis. — A very hand- 

 some plant, is figured as variety Angulata of this species in 

 Hooker's Icones Plantarum, t. 1589. It differs so materially 

 from the plant figured in the Botanical Register, t. i960, and in 

 the Botanical Magazine, t. 3653, that without connecting links 

 one would regard it as a different species. Dr. Henry col- 

 lected it at Ichang, and describes the flowers as red, with 

 orange and scarlet markings. Commonly cultivated in China, 

 where there are many varieties, recalling in their coloring the 

 American genus Salpiglossis. 



Trapella Sinensis.— ThAS is a highly curious floating aquatic 

 plant, mentioned here on that account only. It is die type of 

 a new genus of anomalous structure, referred to the PedalinecE. 

 In foliage it bears a strong likeness to Trapa, but there the re- 

 semblance ceases. The small flowers have a funnel-shaped 

 corolla, and the narrow seed-vessels are furnished with usually 

 three long, rigid, hooked appendages, something in the way, 

 though very difterent from the appendages to the fruit of Mar- 

 tynia, and other members of the same order. It is figured in 

 Hooker's Icoties Plantarum, t. 1595, and in the Annals of 

 Botany, ii., t. 5 to 8. A native of Ichang and other parts of 

 China and Japan. 



