310 



Garden and Forest. 



[June 26, 1889. 



to the steady and equable flow of the streams which have their 

 sources in them. If the woods on the mountains become ex- 

 tinct the streams will be destructive torrents in the spring- 

 season, and their channels will be dusty and Wind-swept 

 in sinnmer, so that, as now in the West, tlie course'of a 

 river can be traced from afar by the clouds of dust always ris- 

 ing from its bed in dry weather. The soil will be washed down 

 from the mountains into the streams, the inert clay, sand and 

 gravel will follow, and will bury the fertile lands near the foot- 

 hills. The area of farm land will thus be diminished more 

 and more, and the fertility and productiveness of what is still 

 cultivated will steadily decline. 



It is in every way probable that this is what will, in time, ac- 

 tually occur. If existing conditions and tendencies are con- 

 tinued — that is, if the mountain forests are still burned as now 

 — the time will inevitably come when there will be no trees 

 or verdure on the mountains of Pennsylvania, and no soil. 

 Instead of the noble and satisfying sylvan beauty which is now 

 the pride of the state, there will remain only the wrecks and 

 skeletons of the mountain chains, unsightly mounds and 

 ridges, eroded by the wind (which will fill the air of the low- 

 land regions with dust), seamed and scarred by torrents, and 

 rent by horrid gulfs and chasms ; a blasted and ruined land, 

 the result and monument of man's incapacity. 



To prevent these consequences would require the consent 

 and cooperation 'of conditions and agencies which do not now 

 exist. The processes of forest destruction which are now in 

 use belong to and represent exactly our present stage and de- 

 gree of civilization. The perpetuation and rational treatment 

 of forests would be a feature of a stage and degree of civiliza- 

 tion which we have not attained. The question whether we 

 can save our forests is really the question whether a distinct 

 and specific advance in civilization is now possible for us, and 

 whether it can be made in a very short time. Some of the in- 

 dispensable changes, to be availing, must be provided for by 

 prompt and decisive action. But this is precisely what is least 

 likely to be done. 



Let us use a little analysis, and try thus to distinguish the 

 essential features and conditions of the problem. Prompt, 

 decisive and intelligent action is required, but there is nobody 

 to take such action. The central difficulty lies in the fact that 

 the results of destroying mountain forests become apparent, 

 so slowly, that men are not impressed by them, do not care, 

 are not interested about them. We are not sufficiently intelli- 

 gent or civilized to understand or realize the effect or ultimate 

 results of existing conditions and tendencies. 



The prompt and decisive action which the situation requires 

 is the establishment of a system of preliminary educational 

 work. No efficient or successful system of forest-manage- 

 ment is possible with our present national character and de- 

 gree of intelligence. We have not sufficient thought, fore- 

 sight, patience, or organizing capacity. We need in each state 

 a considerable number of persons possessed of a degree of ac- 

 quaintance and familiarity with the subject of forestry, in all its 

 principal aspects and relations, such as very few of our people 

 have reached. If such a journal as Garden and Forest, with 

 its thorough, coherent and continuous discussion of forestry 

 sul)jects, could be read habitually for some years in every 

 school and institution of learning in this state, and by ten or 

 twenty thousand of its leading citizens, we might then have 

 here such conditions of knowledge and thought as would con- 

 stitute the soil and atmosphere needed to produce a better 

 civilization, and a practical and effective system or method of 

 forest preservation and management might then be evolved. 



y. B. Harrison, 



Snow Shoe, Pa., June joth. Cor. Sec. American Forestry Congress. 



Correspondence. 



The Purple Beech at Throg-g's Neck. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. —In your article of May 8th upon " The Purple Beech " 

 you mention two notable specimens of the variety — the great 

 tree on the Lyman Estate, at Walthani, of which you give an 

 illustration, and the tree spolcen of by Downing as growing on 

 Throgg's Neck, Westchester County, New York, and declared 

 by him to be the finest in the United States. You add the re- 

 mark that this tree, if still alive, is probably much larger than 

 the one at Waltham. 



Thinking that the record should be completed, I have made 

 the necessary inquiries. It appears that the Westchester tree 

 died about six years ago. It grew on what is known as the Van 

 Schaick Place, which was in former years owned by Mr. 

 Thomas Ash, and was a place of resort of the distinguished 



guests of the old Astor House in the palmy days of Stetson. 

 Hence the tree is mentioned, as I am informed, by Dickens in 

 his American Notes. 



Tradition has it that the tree was brought from England 

 about one hundred years ago. It stood in an open field with 

 no other tree near it, and was perfectly symmetrical in form, 

 the lower limbs sweeping the groimd and " spreading about 

 thirty feet on each side." At one foot above the ground it 

 measured four feet eight inches in diameter, and at a height 

 of five feet, four feet three inches. 



It would therefore appear to have been no larger than the 

 Waltham tree in the trunk, and to have had a somewhat less 

 spread of limbs. But the measurement of these old Beeches 

 is a very uncertain matter, from the buttressed, gnarled and 

 embossed nature of their trunks. It is sufficiently evident, 

 however, that these two trees were of about the same age and 

 of substantially the same size, the Westchester tree being of 

 the finer form. 



The cause of the death of the Westchester tree is said to 

 have been an overdose of manure. I am sceptical on this 

 point, chiefiy for the reason that some years ago the Waltham 

 tree also showed ominous signs of failing. It recovered, how- 

 ever, under a course of nutrition at once set on foot by the 

 late G. W. Lyman, which has been continued by his successor. 

 May it not rather have been that the symptoms in the West- 

 chester tree were not soon enough observed ? At all events 

 all lovers of fine trees must mourn its untimely end. I may 

 add that Dr. Asa Gray stated a few years ago that the Waltham 

 tree was the largest he had ever seen, either in this country or 

 in Europe. 

 BfUeport. N. Y. George Theo. Lyman. 



Peter Henderson's Plant Factory. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — No title which now occurs to me would so accurately 

 characterize tlie great establishment on Jersey City Heights as 

 the one I have used as the head-line to this letter. In money 

 value the annual sales from some of the foremost European 

 nurseries would largely exceed, no doubt, the amount realized 

 from the plants annually sold by Mr. Henderson. But it is 

 probably true that the plants raised and sold here, one year 

 with another, exceed in number those produced at any nurs- 

 ery in the world. This means that Mr. Henderson's business 

 is not mainly with rare and costly plants, and that he does not 

 take the time to prepare finely-grown specimens. His plan is 

 rather to produce saleable plants as quickly as possible, and to 

 market them out of the way for another lotas soon as they can 

 be sold. With some of the plants, like Coleus, which root most 

 readily, a crop can be sold every four weeks from the first of 

 January to the middle of June. Such rapid propagation is not 

 possible with all plants, but Mr. Henderson would not con- 

 sider that he was running his establishment up to its ordinary 

 capacity if he did not secure at least three crops a year from 

 his entire space imder glass. 



Here are fifteen acres, four acres of which are under glass, 

 devoted to the raising of plants ; but this space alone can 

 hardly be considered a measure of the productive capacity of 

 the establishment. Every square foot is- worked under high 

 pressure. No device for saving time or labor is neglected. 

 Improved processes are being adopted continually. Mr. Hen- 

 derson is as alert to-day as he was twenty-five years ago to grasp 

 a new idea, and the men in closest contact with him catch some- 

 thing of this spirit, so that a genuine advance in different 

 points of practice is made every year. Under the complete 

 and well-directed organization of the concern everything 

 moves with celerity, smoothness and regularity, like a perfect 

 machine which turns out plants by the million at the minimum 

 cost of production. Thus it comes about that although the 

 volume of business increases largely from year to year, there 

 are actually fewer men on the pay-rolls than there were fif- 

 teen years ago. It should be added that the wages paid the 

 smaller number exceed in total amount what was formerly 

 paid, for many of the men have become so expert in some par- 

 ticular kind of manipulation that their services are worth a 

 great deal more. 



"It looks like slaughter," said Mr. Henderson, "to sell 

 plants at a dollar a hundred, but it is a fact that the actual cost 

 to us of producing these plants is often no more than thirty 

 cents a hundred. Here are the figures : Four men will take 

 off", make and put in the bench 10,000 cuttings a day ; two men 

 and a boy, or say three men, will pot the same when rooted in 

 another day ; three men in a day will knock the plants out of 

 the pots and pack them in boxes. That is, ten days' work has 

 been all that was needed to get 10,000 plants ready for market. 



