430 



Garden and Forest, 



[September 4, 1889. 



scqucntly found in Khasya, Sylhct, and other parts of India, 

 where it has Ijeen nearly always found growing' on branches 

 of trees exposed to the sun's rays. About ten years from 

 this date it llowiM^ed for the first time in England in the collec- 

 tion of the Uuke of Northumberland, at Lyon House, opposite 

 the Royal Gardens, Kew, from which this place is divided by 

 the river Thames. Now that the requirements of this species 

 are better understood it is becoming much more popular 

 than in former years, and a specimen of it will now l)e found 

 in nearly every collection. 

 St. Aibiuis. Eugiaud. Johu Weathers. 



Correspondence. 

 An Interesting Wild wood. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. Overlooking part of Lake Superior, the Nemadji Val- 

 ley, the Bay of St. Louis, Fond du Lac and the Dalles of the 

 St. Louis, from the north, are prominent and breezy terraced 

 bluffs (some five hundred feet high), mantled with dense 

 groves of Sugar Maple and Yellow Birch, with an occasional 

 "■iant White Pine. From deep fissures in trap, gabbro and 

 <Tranite many little streams of cold, clear water trickle and 

 fumble over mossy rocks, shaded by Vine Maple, Thimble- 

 berry, Alder, Bircli and Arbor Vitse, through deep glens and 

 park-like openings to the river and bay. 



Shady groves on natural terraces, deep, clear pools with 

 darting trout, or extensive views and fresh lake breezes are 

 here at option within a few minutes ride of Duluth, a city 

 notably barren of trees and shade. 



This could have been said twenty years ago. 



To-day, though not destroyed, this remarkably attractive 

 strip of vvildwood is marred. Pine and other timber have 

 been cut; fires are killing bushes, uncovering streams to the 

 sun, warming them and making them impure, while dead and 

 blackened trees are standing as monuments of the past and 

 warnings for the future. 



During July and August of this year I have learned to value 

 this varied wildness, because it has no equal short of the great 

 mountain chains or some rocky sea coast, and because a 

 quarter of a dollar car-fare and a shoi't walk and scramble will 

 furnish any one a lift out of and above the ruts of hfe. 



Speculators have bought some acres in this region, seeing 

 value in them for parks and pleasure-grounds. On one of 

 these tracts recent cutting was noticed, with Pine-tops and 

 broken hard-wood lying so thick as to kill most, if not all, the 

 Birches and Sugar Maples left if fire should get in. Inquiry 

 developed the fact that the owner, a speculator of Duluth, was 

 holding the land for country residences and a park, yet he per- 

 mitted a contractor who wanted piling to go there and cut as 

 suited him, leaving the tract with anything but a pleasing ap- 

 pearance, and in great danger of being made worthless by fire. 



The lesson I would draw from this is, that, while it may be 

 for the best interest of holders of beaufiful woodlands to keep 

 them as woods, they are often unable to keep them, while 

 many do not know how to keep them if they would. Yet the 

 people should not loose the privilege of the woods, nor have 

 to pay too much for the privilege. If men with capital to buy 

 such tracts, and the knowledge to improve them, do not ap- 

 pear, then it is the duty of the men chosen by the people to 

 lookout for their interests to see that the benefit of such rest- 

 ful resorts are not lost. 



Dulutli, Minn. 



H. B. A. 



Trees Which Shade Dwellings. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — How near a country-house is it safe and desirable to 

 have Elm trees growing ? I have recently purchased a house, 

 the front piazza-steps of which are flanked on either side by a 

 noble Elm about fifty feet high. Both trees have branches 

 overhanging the house, and although it is situated on high 

 ground, and in a location not exposed to dampness, still there 

 is cause for much complaint on that score, and I am inclined 

 to ascribe it to the proximity of the trees. I may add that both 

 trees are sorely afflicted with the Elm-beetle. As a result the 

 lawn is Httered with dead leaves, and the Elms are, to all ap- 

 pearances, dead in midsummer. I saw the remedy for this 

 beetle in Garden and Forest for June 19th, too late to profit 

 by it this season. Being reluctant to cut down two such 

 beautiful trees, even under the above provocation, I respect- 

 fully ask your advice. „ 



Yonkeis, N. Y. -"■ 



[Trees standing near a house, and especially on its 



south side, may obstruct the Hght and check the breeze to 

 an unpleasant and, perhaps, an unwholesome degree, and 

 the lack of sunshine and ventilation would naturally aggra- 

 vate any tendency to dampness in the house. The evil 

 effects of trees in this respect are often exaggerated. This 

 summer has been exceptionally humid, and even unshaded 

 houses have been "damp." The Elm is usually a tree of 

 open habit, so that it would offer, as a rule, comparatively 

 little obstruction to ventilation. If the trees in question 

 have been defoliated by the beetle they can do little harm 

 this year. But, after all, no positive counsel in- a particu- 

 lar case can be given until the premises are examined. If 

 the trees are well placed, so far as the appearance of the 

 "house-scene" is concerned, we should allow them to 

 remain another year at least. — Ed.] 



The Asparagus Beetle. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir. — I observe that you recommend arsenites for destroying 

 this pest, but Paris green has failed with me to check the 

 beetle. I planted this year 3,000 roots, imported from Erfurt, 

 and the beetle has made havoc with the plants in spite of lime, 

 sulphur and other remedies. When Paris green was prepared 

 for spraying the Potatoes I directed my men to spray half a 

 dozen rows of the Asparagus plantation. A strong solution 

 was used, and I expected to see both plants and beetles de- 

 stroyed ; but the plants were uninjured, and beetles and larvae 

 seemed to be enjoying the best of health. 



My children have picked 500 to 600 beetles two or three 

 times a week the whole season through, but the enemy is still 

 here, though I think less numerous. 



New Roclieile. Vv. K. 



[There is the difficulty of making arsenites adhere. We 

 tried London purple this spring in a very fine spray, but most 

 of it dropped off and very little poison remained. Where 

 it did stick, it killed larvas and beetles both. The best way 

 of applying Paris green is to dust it on mixed with plaster 

 or some other vehicle. The work should be done while 

 the plants are wet with dew in the morning. Asparagus is 

 hardy, and there need be little fear that the arsenic will 

 burn it. Contact-killing powders destroy the larvae or 

 slugs, which, after all, do most of the damage and provide 

 for future beetles. Pyrethrum acts very quickly when put 

 on with a bellows, making a cloud of fine dust — but it is 

 expensive ; White Hellebore is good, but it acts more slowly 

 and less certainly ; Tobacco powders act rapidly and cer- 

 tainly, and a cloud of Tobacco dust blown over the plants 

 once a week ought to be useful. It will kill nine out of 

 every ten larvae on the plants and will drive away all the 

 beetles ; the latter will return and lay more eggs, but the 

 enemy can be held in check. The beetles may very easily 

 have been imported with the roots for our correspondent's 

 plantation. The larva pupates in the ground by the roots, 

 and the beetles often creep in there to hibernate. — Ed. J 



Recent Publications. 



Japoneries d' Autoin7ie , by Pierre Loti. Paris : Caiman Levy. 

 1889. 



Nothing is more difficult than to conjure up in words a vivid 

 picture of unfamiliar lands. It can be done by no mere accu- 

 mulation of facts general and particular, of statistics compre- 

 hensive and minute, of features great and small, of prosaic 

 impressions abiding or transitory. How many big, instructive 

 books we have had about Japan, and how litttle we know how 

 the land would appear to us should we go there. Every trav- 

 eler tells the same tale : he starts out equipped with what he 

 thinks an exhaustive knowledge of the country, lands in a spot 

 as strikingly unfamiliar as though he had never heard its name, 

 and the longer he stays grows the more bewildered and sur- 

 prised. Then he comes home and writes a book which shall 

 really open in advance the eyes and ininds of his successors ; 

 and then they follow in his track with an experience just the 

 same as his. 



But all this is because most men are prosateiirs by nature, 

 and merely reveal the fact more plainly when they set their 

 pens to work. If they are intelligent, they learn facts where- 

 ever they go ; if they are stupid, they think they do. But in 



