382 



Garden and Forest. 



[August 7, 1889. 



the acre, and this scatters the good seed thickly enough. The 

 sowing may be done at any time in August, the latter half be- 

 ing better than the first, and, in the latitude of Virginia, Sep- 

 tember is early enough. Still, unless plenty of maiuu'e or fer- 

 tilizer is used, the crop will not be of the first quality for table 

 use — a quick growth being essential. For late use in winter 

 and towards spring these flat Turnips are not desirable, and 

 if none of the Long White French Turnips were sown early 

 in July, a crop of Robertson's Golden Ball sown the first week 

 in August, in drills, well enriched and carefully thinned and 

 cultivated, will make a good crop of a very superior quality 

 for winter keeping. 



Fall Peas. — It will always pay those who are fond of Green 

 Peas to use a spot otherwise vacant for sowing a crop of Premi- 

 um Gem Peas about the middle of August, with a succession 

 some ten days later. Select, if possible, apiece of land naturally 

 moist, and plow a deep furrow by running the plow twice in 

 a furrow. Scatter the Peas along the bottom of this deep fur- 

 row and cover lightly. This will leave the rows in a depres- 

 sion, which will be gradually filled in cultivation, and the 

 plants will be able to stand an autumn drought better than if 

 sown nearer the surface. The chief trouble will be from mil- 

 dew, and if they escape that, the crop is reasonably sure. It 

 will be worth while to experiment with some of the copper 

 mixtures now used for fungus on Grape-vines, for preventing 

 the mildew on Peas. 



Crozet, Va. W. F. M. 



Correspondence. 

 Forests and Civilization. IV. — The North Woods. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — The boundaries of the original Adirondack forest-re- 

 gion are not very distinctly marked by Nature, and estimates 

 of the extent of its area differ as the lines may be drawn so as 

 to include more or less of the foot-hills, or slopes, connecting 

 the more elevated central region with the plain below. It is, 

 however, probably safe to say that we had here a tract of at least 

 five millions of acres, or nearly eight thousand square miles, 

 all of which was much better adapted to permanent forest growth 

 than to agriculture, and upon vv'hich, therefore, forest condi- 

 tions should have been permanently maintained. It would 

 have yielded a steady revenue forever, as the trees matured 

 and were cut off; the rivers would have been sustained by 

 unfailing springs, and the uncontaminated air of this moun- 

 tain forest-region would have made it the most valuable san- 

 itarium in the world. It would have become a resort for 

 health-seekers from all lands, and the addition to the wealth 

 of the State from this latter use would have been far greater 

 than the value of all the lumber it would have produced. 



The State should never have sold the land or any part of it, 

 but should have trained and equipped some of its young men 

 for the care and management of this inestimable possession. 

 This policy of State ownership and intelligent administration 

 of this forest-region would have aided greatly the develop- 

 ment of all the interests and resources of the State of New 

 York, and would have made it far richer and more highly civ- 

 iUzed than it is to-day. But we ai"e obliged to accept the past, 

 because it is out of our reach and beyond the possibility of 

 change. We can deal only with existing facts and conditions. 

 After a careful examination of nearly every part of the entire 

 region I conclude that more than three-fourths of the original 

 forest has been cut off, and that not more, probably, than about 

 a million acres of virgin forest remains. 



Most of this is in Hamilton County. St. Lawrence County 

 has considerable, Herkimer has less, and Franklin County 

 still less. Clinton County has been nearly all cut over. Essex 

 County has but a small extent of virgin forest. Warren 

 County has very little, and Saratoga none. Lewis and Oneida 

 Counties have none, or next to none. Fulton County is nearly 

 all cut out. The annual cutting increases every year, much 

 more ground having been cut over, or more timber taken out, 

 during the last season than in any one year before. Twenty 

 years ago the Glens Falls lumber people thought that they had 

 cut about as far up into the woods as they could go, and had 

 nearly exhausted the region which was then accessible to 

 them — that is, that they had cut nearly all the timber that 

 could be Hoated down the streams to the mills. (The hard 

 woods will not float.) But soon after that time they began 

 " improving" the smaller streams, straightening and deepening 

 them here and there, building dams, etc., and now they run 

 logs down little threads of streams where a few years ago they 

 never dreamed that they could float timber out profitably. 



A tract of three hundred and eighty thousand acres in Hei'- 



kimer, Lewis and Hamilton Counties, which formerly belonged 

 to the Durant estate, has recently been purchased by a com- 

 pany of capitalists and lumbermen. Two of them are now in 

 the St. Regis Lumber Company, and they will go on at once to 

 begin cutting off the timber of the new purchase. Of this 

 seventy-five thousand or a hundred thousand acres have been 

 pardy denuded of timber ; the i^est is all virgin forest. Most of 

 it is Spruce, then Hemlock and White Pine. They will cut the 

 hard-wood timber where they can get it out, and when it is 

 wanted there will be means for getting it out everywhere. But 

 the first thing thought of is the Spruce, of which between the 

 Lowville region and Lake Ontario there are tens of millions of 

 feet. The Popple is about all cleared out. This is the greatest 

 body of Spruce now remaining in the country, and the plan is 

 to make a Spruce trust. It is expected that the price of Spruce 

 to be used in paper-making will go up, perhaps fifty per cent. 



The Saranac water-shed was cut over long ago, and there is 

 very little first growth now remaining. Upper, Middle and 

 Lower Saranac, and their tributaries, drain a large region, but 

 the cutting here has been light of late years, mostly second 

 growth. The lumbermen have cut down to eight inches 

 or below. It is absurd to cut so small timber, taking out 

 young saplings which would be so much more valuable in a 

 very few years, but in all that region there is very little thought 

 about the future. 



The Morgan Lumber Company bought the Oxbow tract in 

 Hamilton County some fime ago, and are cutting it off, and 

 here they have met the cutting from the west. 



There have been very heavy cuttings in the Grass River 

 country, in St. Lawrence County, during the last year. 



As has already been noted in your journal, the various rail- 

 roads which penetrate the wilderness are being extended, and 

 the destruction of the forest will, in consequence, proceed 

 much more rapidly than heretofore. There has been a great 

 deal of very indefinite writing and talk about the Adirondack 

 forests, some of it misleading, because not based on any con- 

 siderable knowledge of the facts of the actual condition and 

 course of things in the woods. From three-fourths to four- 

 fifths of the original forest has already been cut off, and hun- 

 dreds of square miles — hundreds of thousands of acres — have 

 been utterly denuded and ruined by the burning and washing 

 away of the soil, so that centuries must pass before these vast 

 tracts of bare and sun-scorched rocks can again produce 

 valuable trees. Any rational or fruitful way of thinking of the 

 matter must embrace a recognition of these facts. Whatever 

 we may desire, whatever " might have been " if things had 

 been entirely different, no amount of rhetoric or sentiment 

 will avail to make the facts other than they are. 

 Carthage, N. Y. J- B. Harrisoti, 



Cor. Sec. American Forestry Congress. 



Mountain Meadows. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir. — Your article on "A Mountain Meadow" on page 314 

 reminded me of what are without doubt the most striking 

 mountain meadows in the eastern United States. 



The highest mountains east of the Rockies are on the bor- 

 ders of Tennessee and North Carolina, the loftiest point being 

 Mount Mitchell, 6,717 feet high. The traveler among these 

 mountains will notice as a strange feature, the absence of 

 crags and precipices. As a general rule, from the foothills to 

 the summits of the highest mountains, we find moss and verd- 

 ure. In May I chmbed to the summit of Clingman's Dome, 

 an altitude of 6,660 feet, and all the way to the summit, except- 

 ing in case of two or three short passes, our way led over 

 nothing but rich loamy soil or turf. Just before ascending the 

 Big Balsam mountain, from the west, one traverses the "Silas 

 Meadows," fully 6,000 feet in altitude, a beautiful stretch of as 

 true meadow as can be found in the lowest valleys. Here 

 were ranging about 150 horses and cattle, alone on the summit 

 with no cabin within miles. From this mountain meadow one 

 can look over a grand wilderness, covering hundreds of square 

 miles, where the axe of the wood-chopper has scarcely been 

 heard, a truly virgin wood with magnificent forests of Bal- 

 sams, Beeches, Birches and Tulip-trees extending in all direc- 

 fions. 



On the summit of Thunderhead, made famous in Craddock's 

 dialect stories of the Tennessee mountains, at a height of over 

 6,000 feet, in May, were grazing on a meadow of hundreds of 

 acres, 500 cattle, 200 swine, and a large herd of horses and 

 mules. The turf is fine and compact, and consists of Poas, 

 Panicums, and other grasses. This meadow is not a little 

 cleared patch of a few acres, but is of large area, bare of grow- 

 ing trees. In places on the summit may be found groves of 



