370 



Garden and Forest 



[July 31, 1889. 



hand-in-hand with appreciation of value and quality, as it 

 would with broad-leaved trees. But our methods of utilizing 

 wood material seem destined to undergo a rapid change by 

 the introduction of processes which allow the utilization of 

 inferior products (paper-pulp, indurated fibre, etc.) and the use 

 of substitutes for the better qualities of timber (iron, stone, etc.). 

 Thus, it may become a question whether it is not more proiit- 

 able to produce the greatest possible quantity of wood per 

 acre in the shortest time than with slower development to se- 

 cure better quality. Let us now suppose that we are working 

 our Pine growth simply for box-boards, where quantity and 

 not quality, within reasonable limits, is to be sought for, and 

 what may be the financial result of this thinning? 



I have cited in the Report of the Forestry Division for 1887 

 a number of experiments on thinning, with their results, which 

 will show the quantitative appreciation of the thinned growth. 

 In making inferences from these results upon possible results 

 with the White Pine, it may be expected with confidence that 

 in regard to the effects of thinning, the White Pine compares 

 more nearly with the Norway Spruce than with the Scotch Pine, 

 that is to say, the effect of thinning would be at a greater ratio 

 on the White Pine than on the Scotch. To these notes, from 

 which it will appear that the rate of accretion can be acceler- 

 ated by thinning three to four times, allow me to add the fol- 

 lowing as bearing upon the question : 



Since thinning means reduction of the number of plants per 

 acre, those experiments are here applicable which show us the 

 result which a difference in the number of original plants per 

 acre makes in amount of wood production. In 1862 there 

 were eight fields sown and planted with Scotch Pine for exper- 

 imental purposes in Saxony. The planfing was done in the 

 fall, the sowing in the spring; the field planted in squares at 4.7 

 feet distance showed the maximum producfion. In 1886, after 

 twenty-five years, the results obtained from the field which 

 was planted at three and a half feet distance each way com- 

 pared with those obtained from a sowing in drills three and a 

 half feet apart, after both had been moderately thinned of 

 inferior material, showed the following : 



Planting. 

 Sowingf. . 



No. of trees 

 per acre. 



1,447 

 1,464 



cross-sections 

 of stems, sq. ft. 



I37-0 

 102.6 



Average 



Height, 



feet. 



36.3 

 31.0 



Amount 



of w^ood, 



cu. ft. 



3,117 

 2,073 



The planting, or less crowded position, then had produced 

 ^^''^=i2g.S cubic feet yearly average ; the sowing, or dense 

 position, only 2073=82.9 cubic feet. There were 1,044 cubic 

 feet difference in favor of the former, or an advantage of over 

 32 per cent, in material, and besides, with almost the same 

 number of plants, better proportions. 



Allow — for the sake of a comparison, which is not unfair— 

 these condifions to hold to a New England White Pine-forest, 

 and let us assume this growth to be cut for box-boards. The 

 Scotch Pine, to be sure, would not yet have reached suitable 

 dimensions, but I-believe the White Pine does reach workable 

 dimensions for box-boards at the age of twenty-five years; other- 

 wise It would be reasonable to assume that the differenfial ad- 

 vantage between the two growths gained at this age would be 

 at least maintained for the next five or ten years, where the 

 trees may have attained such dimensions. We may allow sixty 

 per cent, of the material useful for the purpose of box-boards 

 in both cases, although, in fact, the planted growths would show 

 less waste. 



The more openly-grown part would have produced, if box- 

 boards bring the present price of $12.00 per 1,000 feet B. M., 

 $90.19 more than the denser growth. If, then, it should have 

 cost $5.00 to thin out the natural growth when six years old, 

 and another $10.00 when fifteen years old, this expenditure, 

 with four per cent, interest at the age of twenty-five years] 

 would have been equal to about $25.00, and the balance 

 in favor, $67.19 per acre. And even if we had to wait ten 

 years longer before ufilizing the crop and paying interest on 

 the expenditure for thinning, the balance in favor of thinning 

 would be $52.00. In this case the sowed part started under 

 more favorable conditions than most of our natural growths, 

 in which the dense position increases the struggle for exist- 

 ence unduly. 



When we admit that the "finest Pines grew without any 

 assistance from man," we must also admit that fime was no 

 object to Nature, and that if we apply strict financial calcula-. 

 tion— figurmg interest on the value of land— these giants of 

 Nature's forest would be immensely dearer than the price we 

 now pay for the lumber furnished by them. 



I do not mean by this to. underestimate the value of forestry 



experiments to be undertaken in this country — which I have 

 strongly urged in my report — but I do believe that the knowl- 

 edge of such experiences as those cited above can only en- 

 courage and induce an early beginning of similar experiments 

 here, and that nothing is gained by disregarding and discred- 

 iting, in a general way, the experiences of Europeans in the 

 art of forestry. 



Washington, D. C. S. E. FemOW. 



Rosa humilis, Marsh., var. plena. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Humphrey Marshall, in the " Arbustum Americanum," 

 1785, enumerates and, in part, describesfour species of Roses as 

 being indigenous to Pennsylvania, among which is Rosa Penn- 

 sylvajiica plena, ditfering from his Rosa humilis in no impor- 

 tant respects save in its having double fiowers. Ehrhart, in 

 Beitrage ziir Naturkunde, 1789, describes, from bushes taken 

 from this country and cultivated in the gardens at Hanover, 

 Rosa parviflora. This Rose, likewise, had double flowers, 

 which, however, were attributed to the stimulus of cultiva- 

 tion. Marshall's Rose could not be thus accounted for. 



These three Roses are regarded by botanists as being one 

 and the same, in name, Rosa hiunilis having priority. It 

 would seem strange that a flower so markedly disposed to be- 

 come doubled under cultivation should not now and then 

 exhibit the same tendency in its wild state, yet, so far as I 

 know, there is no recorded instance of the kind from Marshall's 

 time to the present. Rosa Pomsylvanica plena has been a 

 standing puzzle among rhodologists. Dr. Watson, in speaking 

 of Rosa humilis says : " It is not easy to account for the double- 

 flowered form of this," and Dr. Porter, who has collected ex- 

 tensively in almost every part of Pennsylvania, says he never 

 saw it. It is, therefore, evident that the Rose in question is 

 rare, or rarely observed — perhaps the latter. 



On the 12th of June, about three miles from Rosemont, New 

 Jersey, growing by the road-side, I found a large patch, fifty 

 bushes or more, of the double-flowered form of Rosa humilis. 

 On either side, the ordinary single-flowered form grew in 

 profusion, but not a bush of that kind among these ; all 

 were doubled, having from fifteen to thirty petals, much 

 smaller, however, than usual. This, in all probability, ac- 

 counts for Ehrhart's name, Rosa parviflora, snaall-flowered 

 Rose, a name very inappropriate when it is remembered that 

 this Rose is two or three inches in diameter in full bloom. 



The historical associations make this a very interesting find. 

 The influences of cultivation, I think, can be eliminated with- 

 out a doubt ; I never saw it culfivated. While I do not think 

 it possesses characters sufficiently distinct to separate it from 

 Rosa humilis, yet it has a cachet that marks it as different from 

 the ordinary forms of this variable species. I suggest that it 

 be known as Rosa humilis, Marshall, var. plena, n. v. 



Rosemont, N. J. G. N. Best. 



Flower-beds in Chicago Parks. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Allow rne to express my safisfaction at Herr Jaeger's 

 denouncement of the "lunacy" of the flower-bed decorations 

 of the South Park of Chicago. 



I speak feelingly on the subject, not only because I have 

 been held responsible for them, but what is sdll more aggra- 

 vating, because I have been complimented upon them — and 

 that by educated people — oftener than for any portion of what 

 really constituted my design for the park. Only last summer 

 a gentleman from New England, and a graduate of Harvard, 

 to whom I chanced to be introduced, asked if the South 

 Park was not my work, and immediately launched into an en- 

 thusiastic description of a life-size floral representation of three 

 men rowing a boat ! 



My hope has been that men of sufficiently cultivated taste 

 to appreciate jusfly the floral eccentricities that have distin- 

 guished that city for years (camels, elephants, baseball players, 

 etc.), would equally appreciate the anomalous position of a 

 landscape-gardener in the mind of the average Park Commis- 

 sioner, and not hold him responsible for outrages he is pow- 

 erless to prevent. But the number who have spoken to me 

 of this form of monstrosity in terms of admiration is so large 

 in comparison with those who have treated it as it deserves, 

 that at times I have felt disheartened and ready to despair of 

 ever finding a more elevated standard of public taste. 



Minneapolis. H. W. S. Cleveland. 



The Bermuda Lily. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — A note in Garden and Forest recently spoke of im- 

 ported flowers of this Lily as inferior to home-grown flowers 



