320 



Garden and Forest. 



[July 3, 1889. 



bloom all summer long. Lonicera Japonica is a widely-dis- 

 tributed plant in Japan, Formosa and in China, from Pekin to 

 Shanghai, and tar into the interior. Its tenderness in this cli- 

 mate seems to point to a somewhat southern origin for the 

 plants how in cultivation ; and it would be an interesting and 

 probably a \'aluable experiment to test plants of this same 

 species raised from seed gathered at Pekin or at some other 

 northern station, where the climate resembles that of our ex- 

 treme northern states. 



Lonicera Elrusca is in flower. It is a very pretty, slender, 

 graceful plant, with twining stems, ovate-obtuse leaves, which 

 are pubescent on the under surface, the lower on short peti- 

 oles, the upper pairs joined together. The flowers are deli- 

 cately fragrant with long, slender corollas, purple without and 

 yellow within. They are arranged in verticillate many- 

 flowered heads, of which there are generally two or three at 

 the end of each branch. It is a native of southern Europe, and 

 although a very pretty plant, less desirable, perhaps, for gen- 

 eral cultivation than the more robust and showier L. Pericly- 

 menum, the Woodbine of English gardens. 



Vibnr7iitin molle is now in flower. It is a southern plant, 

 only just reaching New England on the islands of Nantucket 

 and Naushon. It is a stout shrub very like our common V. 

 dentatuin in habit and general appearance. The young shoots, 

 petioles and cymes are, however, covered with stellular pubes- 

 cence, and the leaves are rather more crenately-toothed and 

 rather longer than those of V. dentatum. Like all our native 

 Viburnums, with the exception of V. lantanoidcs, it takes kindly 

 to cultivation, and like them all, it is a desirable garden-plant. 

 It is only because these beautiful plants are " natives," a word 

 which, when applied to a plant, has come to niean with some 

 people common or homely, or because they are not known 

 at all to persons who plant gardens, that they are not esteemed 

 at their true value. 



The Dwarf Huckleberry {Gaylussacid diiinosd) is an orna- 

 mental plant, which, like many of its relatives, may wisely be 

 transferred to the garden, where it should just now be covered 

 with its pure waxy-white flowers. It is found growing naturally 

 in low situations, generally in sandy soil, and never very far 

 from the Atlantic sea-board. Generally a low plant, it may be 

 seen sometimes four or live feet high. The leaves are green 

 on both svu'faces, thick and rather shining when fully grown, 

 tipped with a point, and covered with the resinous dots 

 peculiar to our deciduous-leaved Huckleberries. The nodding 

 bell-shaped flowers are large — a third of an inch long — pure 

 white and very abundant ; and these are- followed by large, 

 showy black fruit, which has little but its beauty to recommend 

 it, as the flavor is insipid and very inferior to that of the com- 

 mon Black Huckleberry {G. resinosd). The Dangleberry (C7. 

 frondosd) is a handsome garden-plant also. It is taller 

 than the other Huckleberries, being found sometimes five or 

 six feet high, with slender spreading branches. The berries, 

 which are oblong and blunt at the apex, are pale and glaucous 

 on the lower surface. The handsome white globular, bell- 

 shaped flowers hang in loose slender racemes, on rather long 

 drooping pedicels. The fruit is large and showy, dark blue, 

 covered with a white bloom, and sweet and edible. This is 

 the most ornamental of our Huckleberries as a garden-plant ; 

 and like the others not difficult to establish in the garden, if a 

 little care is taken in lifting the plants in the woods. 



Euotiymus radicans, as the climbing Japanese evergreen 

 Euonymus is generally called, is gradually, as its value becomes 

 better known, working its way into popular favor. It is really 

 a valuable plant in this climate, where the Ivy is not hardy, 

 and where no other climbing plant with evergreen foliage can 

 be grown in the open air. Euonymus radicans grows very 

 slowly when it is first planted, but being once well-established 

 it grows, never rampantly, but with some rapidity, and will 

 climb, with the aid of its stem-roots, to a height of twenty or 

 thirty feet. It will cling to masonry, but it seems to prefer to 

 grow over the stumps or trunks of trees (as it does naturally in 

 the forests of Japan), and an old stump covered with its dark 

 green, lustrous foliage is certainly a beautiful object. The 

 leaves are small, but as the plants grow older they increase 

 in size, especially on the young shoots, and are then some- 

 times two inches or more long. There are varieties of this 

 plant in cultivation with white-marked and yellow-marked and 

 blotched leaves, but none of these are as handsome or as vigor- 

 ous as the green-leaved form. Euonymus radicans is believed 

 by botanists to be a form of the evergreen E. Japoniciis, and it 

 is said by I\I. Maximowicz, who has studied these plants, that he 

 has never seen flowers of this variety. This year they have ap- 

 peared in this neighborhood in several different gardens, and 

 a figure of them has been prepared for Garden and Forest. 



June i8th. y. 



The Forest. 



Forest Interests in Pennsylvania. — III. 



AT present very few, even of the friends of forestry or of the 

 people in this country who are more or less active in efforts 

 for forest-conservation, adequately understand the necessity 

 of this preliminary work of the diffusion of knowledge and 

 propagation of just ideas relating to forestry subjects. We 

 need to work on long lines for objects which lie far ahead, but 

 we have not the intellectual quality or temper which would 

 enable us to do this. I am aware tliat it is a question among 

 students of history and civilization, whether such an advance 

 in national character and action as I have here referred to is 

 ever consciously brought about, by men who plan and intend 

 such a result, and organize and direct the action which is 

 necessary to secure it. Some think that all advances in civili- 

 zation come without having been thought about or intelligently 

 aimed at by anybody, but I incline to the opposite opinion, to 

 the view that most of man's steps forward have been taken 

 because somebody foresaw the need for them, and felt an 

 impulse to work to prepare for them and to urge others to 

 do the same. I think that with ten years of work for that 

 object, and the expenditure of one or two hundred thousand 

 dollars, we might bring about such a condition and educa- 

 tion of the public mind in this country as would render possible 

 effective work for the perpetuation and successful manage- 

 ment of oin- forests. 



But we are probably not yet civilized enough for this in 

 in our country. Even the best races of men usually learn 

 very slowly the things which are necessary for national suc- 

 cess and prosperity, and nations acquire wisdom by the severe 

 discipline of suffering and loss. V^ery likely we may not learn 

 in any other way the importance of our forest interests in our 

 national housekeeping. 



Yet there is more of encouragement to hope for the begin- 

 ning of real growth here in Pennsylvania than anywhere else 

 in our country. The public men of the state are becoming 

 much interested in forestry subjects ; the State Forestry As- 

 sociation is doing a useful work, and its organ. Forest Leaves, 

 attracts the attention of many persons who had not before 

 thought of this topic. But the most favorable condition which 

 I have anywhere observed is the superior character of a large 

 proportion of the people of the mountain regions of the state. 

 In some districts most of them are of German origin, and one 

 constantly hears the dialect known as " Pennsylv.ania Dutch." 

 These people constitute one of the most valuable and prom- 

 ising elements of the state's population. I have been much 

 impressed by the frequent evidences of poetic feeling and a 

 real sense of natural beauty among them, such as I have not 

 found among the natives of mountain regions in any other 

 part of the country. They have the old-fashioned virtues of 

 industry, veracity, hospitality and silent verity. I know of no 

 other class of laboring people who work so many hours of the 

 twenty-four as they. Many of their children and young peo- 

 ple have fine natures, and'they are certain to be numerously 

 represented hereafter among the foremost men of the state 

 and of the nation. Thev know a great deal about the w^oods, 

 and think about them-, tod. A writer in Garden and Forest 

 last year made a most sensible suggestion regarding these 

 people which I am glad to quote in tiiis report. " Some plan 

 for taking care of these woods ought to form part of the edu- 

 cation of the people of this part of the country. They are 

 hard-working, sensible men and women, with a great deal of 

 character ; most of them poor. How can they be reached 

 and taught what they need to know and think of and practice' 

 in regard to the forest interests of their region, and the best, 

 ways of managing their own woodlands ? " Some kind of 

 educational work regarding forests and tree-culture should be 

 constantly maintained among them, and among all classes of 

 the people of the state. 



This state should have a Commissioner of Forests and 

 Rivers, who should be not only a well-trained engineer, but 

 a man of superior mind, with what military men call " an eye 

 for country," who cDuld hold the entire river-basin and water- 

 shed system of the state in his brain. He should have super- 

 vision of the location of buildings along the streams of the 

 state, and of the construction of dams and reservoirs. The 

 complex conditions of our modern life require more compre- 

 hensive co-operation and direction in matters pertaining to the 

 general welfare of our densely-populated communities than 

 we have hitherto practiced. Tiie individualism which insists 

 upon the right of every man to build his house where he 

 chooses, and which permits corporations to construct darns 

 and reservoirs without restriction or supervision, is barbaric. 



