346 



Garden and Forest. 



[July 17, iS 



the early settlers of those counties, especially of those endured 

 by the women of those times. The hardships continue with 

 little mitii;ation, but as few people are interested in contem- 

 porary history, there is no record or observation of tiiese 

 miseries. 



The region was meant to be let alone. It has no natural 

 fitness for agriculture. It is pitiful to see the scanty growth of 

 vegetation which the farmer's toil produces here cut otT by frosts 

 in both spring and autumn, and, in many places, even in the mid- 

 dle of summer, while in the southern States of this country there 

 are millions of acres of fertile soil lying untilled beneath most 

 genial skies. The effort to farm these inliospi table lands has 

 also been the soiu^ce of a large proportion of the fires which 

 have destroyed so much of the remaining forest. Land is 

 cleared by being l)urned over, and in a dry time the fire ex- 

 tends from the fallow to the woods, despite the best efforts to 

 keep it within boimds, and it is a common saying in the woods 

 that such a conflagration is often a convenient accident for 

 the farmer, as he plants corn the next spring in the burned 

 woods without any clearing whatever, and raises a crop in the 

 ashes. A great deal of the " farming land" here has been brought 

 into cultivation in this way. It is all, from beginning to end, a 

 most wasteful and suicidal process, and the inevitable end, 

 the ruin and disappearance of the soil itself, is speedily reached. 

 Man has no power to create a new world. He has not yet 

 learned how to take care of the one which he inherits, but his 

 ability to wreck and exhaust it is very great. The accumula- 

 tion of the soil of the planet, out of whicli must come every- 

 thing that supports human life, civilization and happiness, has 

 been the slow, patient process of vast and unimaginable pe- 

 riods of time, and it has been chiefly the work of vegetation. 

 While the forests stand on these mountains, the soil out of 

 which they spring grows perpetually richer, and it would con- 

 tinue to do so forever if man had yet become a rational being. 

 Each year's leafage as it grows and falls wins and deposits for 

 us a little more of the precious material out of which all things 

 human are fashioned, lifts anotiier slight increment from the 

 dark province where all is inert and lifeless, up into the light, 

 and starts it on its shining way to the realm where it shall take 

 its part in the play of consciousness. The stones are thus 

 changed to bread. But since man began his work in tliese 

 regions he has blotted out, over great areas, the results of 

 millions of years of Nature's patient toil, and has brought back 

 and re-established here the hard and forbidding conditions 

 under which she began her processes of vegetable growth, 

 and it will require great cycles of time again to redeem and 

 recover these vast tracts of scorched and desolate stone. 



Moira, New York, May, 1889. J. B. HarriSOll. 



Roadside Adornment. 

 To the Etlitor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — A striking feature may be added to roadside adorn- 

 ment by sowing the seeds of wild flowers where grass does 

 not readily take root, there being many plants that thrive 

 where it does not. For instance, if a road is cut through a 

 knoll of sand and gravel, as frequently occurs, the rugged sur- 

 faces give little encouragement to grass, while tlie LujDin finds 

 tiiem altogether congenial. Beside giving a mass of purple 

 bloom in May, the pretty foliage of this plant covers the ground 

 throughout the summer. No other sowing than the first is 

 needed, as Nature has provided for the dissemination of the 

 seed by the bursting of the pods. 



The owner of a sandy wayside has obtained very satisfactory 

 results by gathering seeds from the great variety of flowers 

 bordering the railroad track (that bounds his farm on one side) 

 and scattering them broadcast beside the highway. Among 

 these Lupin predominates, hui Lithospermuin hirtu7n. Vetch, 

 Wild Pea of several varieties. Cone-flower, Butterfly-weed, 

 Painted Cup {Castillcgia ror(:/«^a), Golden-rods in great variety, 

 and tlie persistent iittle Harebell, all follow along in their 

 season. A, troublesome wash-out along this roadway that was 

 filled with brush and other unsightly material, to prevent 

 farther encroachments of the water, has, by skilful planting, 

 been changed into a place of beauty. 



Basket Willows screen it from the road on the lower side, and 

 higher up along tlie slopes are set Purple Lilac, Red Cedar, 

 Bladder Nut, Scarlet Maple, Whitewood and Osage Orange ; 

 Sassafras springing up of itself. 



Any surplus of the flower-garden was transferred there. 

 Yards of crimson Boursault and yellow Roses trail over the 

 brush and flower in their season, and in the vicinity low Scotch 

 and native Roses flourish. The Lemon Lily and Iris add, too, 

 their brightness to the scene ; and all these trees and plants 

 thrive without care or attention. 



This spot is a favorite nesting-place for birds, and I am in- 



clined to think the Roses, owe their freedom from the pests 

 that infest the gardens to the presence of these acdve neigh- 



Kluiger Lake, Mich. Dorcas E. ColUns. 



The Newtown Pippin. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Referring to the note of Mr. J. J. Thomas in your issue 

 of May 26th I would state that the Newtown Pippin — by which he 

 means, I suppose, the Newtown Pippin of his " Fruit Culturist" 

 and the Green Newtown Pippin of Downing's Treatise — is one 

 of the most obscure Apples in California, while the Yellow 

 Newtown is generally considered our best winter Apple. In 

 several hundred reports from Apple-growers, which I have 

 secured as a basis for tabulation of varieties in "California 

 Fruits, and How to Grow Them," which I now have in press, 

 the Green Newtown Pippin was approved by a single grower 

 in a single county, while the Yellow Newtown is reported 

 favorably from every county from which I secured reports, 

 and nearly all counties have been heard from. The data pre- 

 sented in this work of the popularity of dilTerent varieties here 

 are interesting for comparison with the tables of the American 

 Horticultural and other societies representing eastern ex- 

 perience. 



College o£ Agriculture, Berkeley, Cal. E. /. WlCkS07l. 



The American Beech. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Poorest : 



Sir. — I have never seen a more noble or beautiful tree than 

 an American Beech growing on the Luce Farm, in the town 

 of Riverhead, and within a quarter of a mile of Long Island 

 Sound. 



Soon after the Revolutionary War the entire head was cut 

 from this tree to make a brush-harrow. Not discouraged by 

 this rude treatment it threw out seven branches, equi-distant, 

 in various directions, foi^ming a beautiful and symmetrical 

 head. Its trunk, two feet from the ground, is ten feet in cir- 

 cumference ; its height to the branches, eight feet ; the circum- 

 ference of four of the larger branches is respectively, six, six, 

 five and a half and five feet, and they extend from thirty-six to 

 thirty-eight on either side, giving the head a diameter of seventy- 

 four feet. The ends of the Ijranches nearly touch the ground and 

 turn up with a graceful curve. The outline of the top is regular 

 and massive and beneath tlie branches is a beautiful camping- 

 ground, where a party of one hundred or more would be per- 

 fectly protected against sun or shower. C. L. Allen. 



Floral Park, N. Y. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — I have often heard complaints that the Crown Imperial 

 does not flower well, and perhaps the method that has 

 given me fine blooms for the last fifteen years may interest 

 some of your readers. 



When the stem-leaves fade I cut the stalk to within six 

 inches of the ground, and when convenient (some time in 

 July) dig up all the bulf)S with the earth about them, and put in 

 its place rich mould from a frame or old hot-bed. I plant 

 the bulbs again immediately in a layer of this mould, covering 

 with the same, and treading it down firmly. In December I 

 cover the bed with some litter, and good flo^vers are sure to 

 come in spring. The place where these Crown Imperials 

 grow is well open to the sun iii early spring, but later in the 

 year is heavily shaded by a spreading Ash tree. 



Cambridge, Maes. 'J. M. 



Dosoris. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — It would be difficult to find a more desiralile situation 

 for country homes than the north shore of Long Island, with 

 its frequent bays cutting deeply in between well-wooded hills, 

 behind which fertile farm-lands roll away in endless variety 

 of surface. Every bluff is breezy with coolness from the 

 Sound, and on either .hand is a diversity of pleasing prospect 

 across green fields or glittering waters. Along this shore, 

 close to the mainland and hardly twenty miles from the City 

 Hall in a right line, lies the Island of Dosoris, a portion of an 

 old estate which has borne that name for nearly two hundred 

 years. The original title was derived from the Matinecock 

 tribe of Indians, and in 1668, imder a patent granted by Sir 

 Richard Nicolls, the first English Governor of the province, it 

 passed into private hands, and in 1693 " it was owned," says 

 the record, "by John Taylor, who died seized thereof, leaving 

 his surviving daughter and heir-at-law, Abigail, who subse- 

 quently intermarried with the Reverend Benjamin Woolsey, 

 and the title was therefore, by deed of lease and release, con- 

 veyed to him, and the trust from that circumstance acquired 



