574 



Garden and Forest. 



[November 27, 1889. 



villages here. The dog is a kind of sacred animal with us, and 

 dominates the comniunity. He is the object of a personal 

 aftection, a sentiment of romantic regard, vvhicli rises far above 

 such sordid considerations as the possible profits of sheep rais- 

 ing. Our best people — and some others — keep dogs, and when 

 the instinct of the chase awakens in them and they go forth 

 upon the hills and hunt down the sheep, and have to die them- 

 selves for their frolic, we all mourn their fate. The sheep can 

 be paid for out of the public treasury — there is a tax on dogs — 

 but nobody has any sentinient about sheep. We are in that 

 stage of development in which we grow dogs and delight in 

 them, but not sheep. 



There is considerable land in farms in this state which, if 

 properly managed, would be more profitable for the produc- 

 tion of timber than for any other crop, and which would be 

 worth more than it is to-day if forest-conditions had always 

 been maintained on it. But timber land here needs to be 

 handled with judgment and foresight. It has to be protected 

 against fire and pasturage, of course, and unless the timber, 

 when it has grown, is cut oft" intelligently, forest land is not 

 always a good permanent investment. It is the opinion of 

 many of our intelligent lumbermen that much of our timber- 

 land might be made more profitable by improved methods of 

 management. 



The results of our system of cultivation, as shown in many 

 of the farms in all the older parts of our country which have 

 not been abandoned, and the inclination of so many of our 

 people to seek their fortunes by leaving their early homes, 

 point to the fact that a considerable proportion of our material 

 success has been achieved by the partial exhaustion of our 

 capital in the fertility of the soil. We have amassed wealth by 

 robbing the future, and we are transmitting our impaired and 

 damaged heritage to those who come after us. Whatever may 

 be the fertility of the abandoned farms of this state, the meth- 

 ods of culture widely followed in our country have seriously 

 diminished the productive capacity of the soil, and many farms 

 in other parts of the United States would in time be abandoned 

 if there were still, as formerly, a boundless area of virgin land 

 for our people to appropriate. Perhaps we may in time come 

 to understand that the earth is adapted to yield a living to a 

 considerable number of men if they will wisely till it and hus- 

 band its capacities; but that its resources are not profuse 

 enough to sustain indolent luxury or careless waste, and that 

 toil and scant indulgence are, in the long run, inevitable for 

 the mass of men. Thus far in human history slavery and war 

 have been pretty constant conditions. The forms change, but 

 the essential facts abide hitherto, and perhaps they may still 

 do so. 



In my judgment, existing conditions co-operate to make an 

 opportunity for an important change in the economic and 

 social elements in the life of the state. I think that many of 

 the abandoned farms, and many of the hill farms which have not 

 been abandoned, would be good investments for men of means 

 who live in the cities, and who would like to have summer 

 homes for their families in the country. The climate of our 

 state does not suit everybody, of course. But for those whom 

 it does suit, it would be hard to find anywhere on the planet a 

 more salubrious and delightful region than this is for the time 

 between the first of June and the last of October. No other 

 mountain country that I have seen has such expanses of un- 

 contaminated and vital air. I think that, looking far ahead, as 

 a few men at least should try to do, looking at all condidons 

 and relations comprehensively, the best and wisest thing for 

 all concerned would be a considerable movement of men of 

 wealth from the great cities of our country to the hill farms of 

 this state. They should be men of intelligence, with adequate 

 knowledge and judgment for the management of their wood- 

 lands, so that the growing of timber as a crop would be profit- 

 able. There is no ground of hope for the future prosperity of 

 our people unless forest-conditions are permanently main- 

 tained on a large proportion of the land of the state. At the 

 same time a system of highly concentrated farming should be 

 followed on whatever land is kept in cultivation. The owner- 

 ship of farms here by men from the cities would render such 

 methods of cidture possible, would give profitable employ- 

 ment to many laborers, and would increase the value of land 

 and the amount of business in every part of the state occu- 

 pied by the new summer homes. It would be the establish- 

 ment of better conditions, the beginning of a new order of 

 things which would be permanently favorable to the interests 

 of our entire population. 



I should be glad to stimulate public interest in the investiga- 

 tions which are now in progress under the direction of the 

 government of this state,. and I am sure that the reports of the 

 New Hampshire Commissioner of Agriculture and Immigra- 



tion will deserve the attention of all students of American 

 civilization. y. B. Harrison. 



Franldin Falls, N. H. 



Native Shrubs. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — I was much pleased with your article calling attention 

 to the Viburnum lantanoides and speaking of its great beauty. 

 It may not flourish in the dry, sunny garden of the nursery- 

 man, as you say ; I have found it, however, very easy to trans- 

 plant into places shaded by deciduous trees. Small bushes 

 taken from the neighboring woods in the fall, and even when 

 in flower in the spring, not only survive but grow luxuriously. 

 Some of these thus transplanted are now ten feet high and 

 are very delightful in their striking and beautiful foliage as 

 well as in their blossom. 



The name of Moosewood, given by you as the common 

 nomenclature, is also applied to the Striped Maple {Acer 

 Pennsylvanicuin), though not so commonly as the Viburnum. 

 Tlie Striped Maple is more of a tree, and is very graceful and 

 pleasing, and also easy to transplant. 



There are other of our native shrubs of great merit, which 

 can easily be transplanted. The Ground Cedar or Savin 

 {Jtmiperus communis), with its vigorous, close growing, shin- 

 ing foliage and hardy habit, can be used with good effect in 

 rocky, sterile places where it is difficult to get other shrubs to 

 grow. 



Nothing, however, is finer than the Mountain Laurel {Kalmia 

 latifolia) ; nor is it difficult of cultivation, as many suppose. 

 In preparing places for this plant I have found that it grows 

 and blossoms best in beds made like those used for Rhodo- 

 dendrons, of a depth of about two and a half feet, and filled 

 with one-half peat mud and the other half loam and manure 

 and some sand. The peat I suppose is useful in retaining 

 moisture. The Laurel has many small roots that do not 

 extend a great way from the bush, but permeate every inch of 

 the soil they reach in ground prepared in this way. 



Beverly Farms. ' C. W. L. 



Forest Fires. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — The Nemadji River drains, in Wisconsin and Minne- 

 sota, very little land except deep beds of clay with some layers 

 of fine sand. 



The surface rises, westward from Lake Superior, some 400 

 feet by terraces, and through these the streams have cut deep 

 ravines. The banks of these ravines are now held in place by 

 a dense growth of Dogwood, Hazel, Elm, Poplar and Balm. 



If, with the settlement and clearing which will soon come, 

 these banks are stripped by escaped fires (no thoughtful per- 

 son would clear them), land-slides into the streams will be fre- 

 quent and much earth will be washed into the bay; and thus 

 not only will valuable farming lands be destroyed, but naviga- 

 tion will be obstructed. 



The situation can be indicated by the simple statement that 

 many homesteaders have killed their own standing Pine by set- 

 ting fires they could not control. 



Practically we have no law to restrain any person from 

 setting fire as lie may choose. 



Duluth, Minn. 



H. B. A. 



Recent Publications. 



Die Natilrlichen Pflanzenfamilien, conducted by A. Engler 

 and K. Pranfel, Leipsic, Verlag von Wilhelm Englemann, 

 1889. This book-is indispensable to the library of every work- 

 ing botanist, who will discover in it vast stores of exact in- 

 formation which, thanks to small but clear typography and a 

 system of abbreviation, is compassed in a wonderfully 

 small space. It is copiously and handsomely illustrated 

 with exceedingly well chosen and well executed figures, 

 which display the structure of the different families and genera 

 discussed, as well as their larger aspects, as the species appear 

 growing in their native haunts. The first volume is devoted to 

 CycadacecB by Professor Eichler ; Cordaitacece and Coniferce by 

 the same, the last most carefully and elaborately worked up and 

 admirably illustrated; Professor Eichler has also elaborated 

 the Gnetacece. The AngiospermcE are by Engler, the Potamoge- 

 tonacecE by Ascherson, the Najadacece by Magnus ; the 

 JuncaginacecE by Buchenau and G. Hieronymus, the Gra- 

 ?ninecE by Heckel, the Cyperaceahy Pax, the Palmce by Drude, 

 the AracecB ■2iX\<\ Liliacecehy Engler, the AiHaryUidacece\>j Pax, 

 the OrchidacecB by Pfitzer. This bare enumeration serves to 

 show that several of the largest and certainly some of the 



