4o6 



Garden and Forest. 



[August 21, li 



with one exception, I see no difference in their usual behav- 

 ior. This difference is that all the varieties seem to be per- 

 fecting their fruit earlier than usual. Clapp's Favorite, for in- 

 stance, 1 have been accustomed to gather about August loth, 

 ripening them about the isth. Tliis year there was not an un- 

 ripened fruit by the sth of the month. Brandywine behaved 

 in the same way. The Bartletts on the tree spoken of are 

 changing color perceptibly, and Howells, an October Pear 

 here, is in much more forward condition than usual, while 

 Sheldon, Beurre Superfin, Lawrence and Kieffer are all ripen- 

 ing in their fruit with similar speed. Of course this early 

 ripening shows the trees to be less healthy than they should 

 be, but no other symptom of any lack of vigor is manifest. 

 Fruit and foliage are perfect, so that I hardly fear any serious 

 or permanent evil to the trees from the earth about their base. 



Planting Deciduous Trees in September. — I read with interest 

 Mr. W. C. Strong's article on transplanting evergreens in 

 August. It is undoubtedly one of the best months in the year 

 for the purpose, and, let me add, that deciduous trees can be 

 planted to advantage much earlier than they usually are in 

 autumn. There is no need of waiting for the fall of the leaf. 

 If transplanted in September such trees would not only do well, 

 but, in very many cases, they would do better than if removed 

 later. A transplanted tree bears some analogy to a cutting. 

 The propagator, in a green-house, knows, when he puts in a 

 cutting, tliat the sand in which he inserts it should be warmer 

 than the air, and so he gives bottom heat. When a decidu- 

 ous tree is transplanted in September, the earth and air are in 

 much the same relative condition as is desired for the green- 

 house cuttings. The warm ground forces out fibres at once, 

 and when cold weather sets in the tree is well established, 

 having an abundance of roots to help it through the winter. 

 This is not a matter of conjecture, but something that I have 

 tested many times. If any reader, for experiment's sake, will 

 transplant a small tree in early September, and dig it up again 

 in October, the number of new fibres which have been formed 

 will probably surprise him. If trees are planted before the 

 leaves have fallen, these should be pulled or cut off. 

 Germantown, Pa. Joseph Meelian. 



Fruits and Vegetables for Forcing. — Peach-trees in pots or 

 boxes, intended for early forcing, should now be in a good 

 sunny position out-of-doors, and where the growth is com- 

 pleted and the fruit-buds have plumped up, water should be 

 gradually withheld, but not so long at a time as to allow the 

 leaves to wilt so that the wood will shrivel. If the growth is 

 weakly and not matured, give a few applications of liquid 

 manure for a week or ten days. The best varieties for very 

 early forcing are Alexander, Amsden, Hale's Early, and John 

 Haas, the last a very finely-colored, good-flavored, new Peach. 

 Tomatoes for winter-fruiting will now need strict attention. 

 They should be in five-inch pots, and each plant must stand 

 free and have room to strengthen. As to varieties, the Loril- 

 lard, Livingston's Perfection and Volunteer are all good. I 

 had great success last year with cutfings taken from Volunteer 

 as late as the first week in September. These cuttings were 

 from plants that had set fruit very freely in the open ground. 

 They were fully six inches long, and were put separately in 

 thumb-pots placed in a shady green-house. They were 

 rooted in a few days, and were then shifted into five-inch pots 

 and treated the same as those raised from seed. 



Preparing for Flowers. — Good Primulas, Cyclamens, Cinerarias 

 and Calceolarias are very satisfactory, but when inferior, this 

 is a group of plants which one does not care to see. It 

 is at this season when all these plants must have attenfion. 

 Seedling Primulas and Cinerarias should now be nicely estab- 

 lished in two-and-a-half-inch pots, and kept in a frame shaded 

 from the hot sun during the day, with the sashes removed 

 entirely at night when the weather is fine. A syringing twice a 

 week wuth weak tobacco-water prevents the white thrip from 

 destroying or crippling the young growths. Calceolarias should 

 be pricked out as soon cis large enough in pots or pans half an 

 inch apart, in soil that is shallow, sandy and friable, and when 

 large enough they must be potted singly. All these plants 

 should be grown quickly and never checked, and then they will 

 prove among the most beautiful of our winter and spring 

 flowers. John Thorpe. 



Pearl River, N. Y. 



Kale is one of two or three vegetables I always sow broad- 

 cast. I prepare the ground first as for sowing Flat Turnips, 

 by putting a heavy coat of manure on a freshly-plowed sur- 

 face and harrowing it in lightly. The seed is then sown much 

 more thickly than Turnip-seed, using about six poiu^ds of 

 good seed per acre. The green curled Scotch is the best in 



quality and comes in use earlier in spring, but it becomes 

 worthless much sooner than the Siberian, and a sowing of 

 both should be made soon. M. 



Crozet, Va. 



Correspondence. 



Forests and Civilization. V. — The North Woods. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — The Adirondack region, as a place of resort for summer 

 rest and recreation for those who love the wildness and free- 

 dom of the woods, is coming to an end. Not many persons 

 see this now. Many never perceive that anything is coming 

 till a good while after it has come. I know a man who is still 

 lecturing against slavery, and especially against the sin of the 

 churches in upholding the peculiar institution. He complained 

 to me a few months ago that the great mass of our people are 

 still indifferent in regard to this gigantic wrong. He has not 

 learned that slavery is dead. If he had been a soldier on either 

 side in the Civil War he might have found it out. The time 

 is coming when the people who live in, by, and from the 

 North Woods will awaken and find that their occupation is 

 gone. Not many will believe this now. Some are even glad 

 of the changes that put great tracts of the forest here into the 

 hands of rich men, clubs, syndicates, and corporations, glad 

 that, "if the state will do nothing, the woods will still be saved 

 by private owners." 



But a few of the great hotel men of the Wilderness begin to 

 have a sense of something in the air which bodes no good to 

 them. The effect of maintaining forest conditions over large 

 tracts will, of course, be equally salutary in the retention and 

 distribution of the water which falls upon them, whether the 

 land is owned by the state, by individual citizens, or by clubs 

 and corporations. This function of mountain forests, as natu- 

 ral storage reservoirs for water, is, perhaps, the most impor- 

 tant of all their uses. But the Adirondack forest is valuable 

 to the people of the state and of the country in several dif- 

 ferent ways. It should have been forever the source of ines- 

 timable benefits as a niountain summer resort, a region of 

 infinite sylvan variety, beauty, and peace. 



Let us use a little analysis here. In the early times of our 

 country's history, when we had but a sparse population, which 

 nearly all lived on farms or in small towns, summer vacations 

 and excursions for rest, recreation, and the restoration of 

 wasted energies were not needed as they are now. But, as 

 our country has filled up, and inillions of our people have 

 crowded into cities to live, there has arisen an absolute neces- 

 sity for a change of conditions and methods of life in the hot 

 season of the year for a great proporfion of our whole popu- 

 lation. People must get out of doors. They must lay aside 

 business and put off the burden of daily care. It is a most 

 practical matter, a matter of the wisest and most necessary 

 economy — of the economy of life itself and of its highest forces. 



Without such a pause in work, such a period of contact with 

 nature and the out-of-door world, as a means for the restora- 

 tion of exhausted vitality, neither physical nor mental health 

 can long be maintained. Life will not continue to be sane 

 and efficient without an occasional visit to the sources of 

 healing and strength in Nature's great sanitarium — the open 

 air. It is true that there are midtitudes of persons, especially 

 of women, in our country who never have such a vacation, for 

 whom there never arrives "a lull in the hot race," to use Mr. 

 Arnold's expressive phrase, but they need it all the same, and 

 it is a calamity, not only to them but to all who are near them, 

 that the hard conditions of their lives forbid their ever yield- 

 ing to the imperative need for out-of-door rest and enjoyment. 



Now, the people who have been coming year -after year to 

 this great interior country of woods and lakes and shaded, 

 winding waterways, may as well take down their maps and 

 mark this region of their unrestrained wandering and delight 

 all over with big black letters, " No trespassing here." This 

 woodland heritage of the people is passing from them. No 

 matter who has owned these forest lands hitherto, everybody 

 has been free to wander over them. A man could go where 

 he pleased, and this freedom to go where he pleases is one of 

 tlie chief sources of enjoyment in the woods for a man with a 

 healthy nature. It is the wandering, the exploring, the going 

 on to "fresh woods and pastures new" which inspires the 

 "vital feelings of delight" in a true lover of the woods. 

 Wordsworth's wonderful expression describes perfectly the 

 experience of many thousands of weary men and women in 

 these abodes of beauty and freedom and peace in former days. 



" No trespassing here." Everywhere, as I pass through the 

 country, I am told that the land is passing into the hands of 

 capitalists, clubs, and companies. 'They have a perfect right 



