586 



Garden and Forest. 



[December 4, 1889. 



crop of Howers, the space it fills in small gardens can be more 

 protitably occupied. My plants are curiously unlike the figures 

 in the catalogues, in which 'they appear of a different habit 

 and with a much larger ratio of bloom to the amount of the 

 foliage. 

 Elizabeth, N. J. J. JV. Gerard. 



The Forest. 

 Forestry in Great Britain. 



DR. WILLIAM SOMERVILLE will deliver during 

 the session of 1889-90 a hundred lectures on the 

 Principles and Practice of Scientific Silviculture before the 

 University of Edinburgh. The following extracts from the 

 first of the series, which are talcen from a report published 

 in the Gardeners' Chronicle, are of general interest, and 

 deserve careful reading and wide circulation in this country. 



Dr. Somerville, in opening his lecture, referred to the great 

 attention that was paid to forestry in Germany, India and other 

 countries, and showed how the state forests in these countries 

 were made an important source of revenue, and had a most 

 important bearing on the welfare of the nation. He then pro- 

 ceeded : It is undoubtedly true that we have lost much through 

 the scarcity of our state forests, for had they been present in 

 greater numbers the regretable condition of many of our pri- 

 vate woodlands would not now have existed. Tliis would have 

 been a great gain to the country in general ; but if the same 

 improvements could have been brought about by some other 

 means than the extension of government forests, the gain 

 would have been still greater. 



The experiences of other nations, however, tend to show 

 that no other means have ever had very much effect. It is 

 true that we have always managed to get along fairly well in 

 other departments with the very minimum of state interfer- 

 ence and example, and, undoubtedly, the independent spirit 

 which has thus been developed has stood us in good stead in 

 carrying us over many difficulties. But the peculiar condi- 

 tions and circumstances consequent to tlie ownership of for- 

 ests, all point to the state as being in a more favorable posi- 

 tion to make the best use of land stocked with trees than the 

 private individual can be. It is a great question, and one 

 whose discussion in all its vai'ious ramifications would lead us 

 far beyond our limits of time. Suffice it to say that the expe- 

 rience of nations and the investigations of political econoniists 

 point to the conclusion that, although the state proves a bad 

 farmer, it makes an excellent forester. But apart altogether 

 from the purely economic bearings of the case, many circum- 

 stances may be present to compel a state to interfere with for- 

 est management in order to secure the public welfare. Ex- 

 tensive denudation near the head waters of rivers has often 

 been followed by destructive floods, affecting not the owners 

 of the cleared areas, but the inhabitants of districts situated, it 

 may be, hundreds of miles away. This has been strikingly 

 exemplified in many parts of Austria, where the wholesale 

 removal of trees from large areas in the Tyrol, without any 

 steps being taken to restock them, has resulted in widespread 

 inundations and immense loss of life and property. The 

 cause of these Austrian floods has, within recent years, been 

 made the subject of government inquiry, with the result that 

 the state has purchased large areas of private land in the 

 Tyrolese valleys in order to preserve the existing forests and 

 to restore those which have been spoiled. America can also 

 furnish many cases of flooding following denudation. Besides 

 the dangers of inundation, those arising from avalanches are 

 also increased by denudation, and many valleys in Switzer- 

 land, the Tyrol and the north of Italy are comparatively safe 

 only through the preservation of large masses of wood on the 

 mountain-slopes. In these cases, and in many others which 

 will readily occur to your minds, state interference in the man- 

 agement of forests is entirely justiliable on the grounds of- 

 public safety. None of them, however, apply with much force 

 to our own country. At one time the maintenance of a supply 

 of oak for the navy was a question of great national import- 

 ance, but it is now only historically interesting. It would thus 

 appear that in this country the state might very well refrain 

 from meddling with forestry as an important department of 

 national finance, were it not for the beneficial educational 

 influences which would be started. On this account the state 

 forests which we already possess should be made models of 

 good management, and others should be obtained in import- 

 ant centres — care being taken to select places where the extra 

 work would be a decided benefit to the rural population. 



Dr. Schlich, in his recently published Manual of Forestry, 



directs attention to the fact that Canada is the only British col- 

 ony which supplies us with an appreciable quantity of wood. 

 At any moment, however, these imports may cease, for even 

 now the United States is able to take all the timber which 

 Canada can spare. As a matter of fact, our wood imports 

 from that colony have decreased thirty-two per cent, within 

 the last five years, and, as they may be extinguished before 

 other five years, we will have to depend entirely for our im- 

 ported timber upon countries over whose policy we have no 

 control. Dr. Schlich says that we import ^13,000,000 worth of 

 forest produce which we could grow at home, for which pur- 

 pose the afforesting of 6,000,000 acres would be necessary. 

 This land he believes to be all available in Scotland, and 

 strongly urges the desirability of extended sylvicultural oper- 

 ations. 



We have now touched upon two of the factors which have 

 exerted their influence upon British forestry, namely, scarcity 

 of state forests and our insular position ; a third is to be 

 found in our fortune in possessing such rich and extensive 

 coal-fields. No coLuitry in Europe can approach us in this 

 respect. Whereas wood is sfill the most important article of 

 fuel in wide regions of the continent, it is but little appre- 

 ciated for heating purposes in this country. Had the case 

 been different, we should have been compelled to look to our 

 forests to furni.sh an appreciable supplement to our supplies 

 of coal fuel, and necessity would have forced us to bestow 

 more care upon our forest management. Those who have 

 given their attention to the subject tell us that we are now 

 within measurable distance of the time when we shall have to 

 face a diminishing coal supply, and, finally, exhausted coal- 

 fields. Although it is probable that the question of providing 

 a substitute for coal will not urgently demand a solution in 

 our time, still it is undeniable that, sooner or later, it must be 

 faced. Some enthusiastic foresters press the desirability of 

 more extensive tree planting, so that a store of firewood may 

 be laid up against the evil day. That there is some wisdom 

 m the suggesfion no one will deny ; but Professor Helferich's 

 calculations with regard to the matter do not afford us a large 

 measure of comfort. He says that if we take two and seven- 

 tenths pounds of wood as giving the same quantity of heat as 

 one pound of coal, and one acre planted with Scotch Pine trees 

 as capable of yielding annually eighty-six and one-third cubic 

 feet of wood, equal to twenty-eight hundredweight, without 

 the capital stock of timber on the land being encroached 

 upon ; then, in order to yield the equivalent of the coal out- 

 put of England and Wales, it would take a fully productive 

 forest area more than six times the total extent of these coun- 

 tries, even supposing our present imports of timber to suffer 

 no diminution. From this it is evident that, even with a 

 largely extended area, our forests cannot be expected to fur- 

 nish a complete substitute for coal, although undoubtedly 

 they could assist to a considerable extent. 



Correspondence. 



Chrysanthemum Ada Spaulding. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir : — Referring- to the remarks of your Boston correspond- 

 ent on the appearance of the Chrysanthemum Ada Spaulding 

 at the recent exhibition in that city and to your note upon the 

 same subject, allow me to say that I have no doubts as to the 

 merits of this variety, but consider it one of the very best of 

 the new kinds. 



It is a robust grower, with short-jointed, heavy wood and 

 foliage of the thickest texture. I have yet to. see a single leaf 

 attacked, either by white mildew or black rust. The flowers 

 are of the largest size, distinctly globe shaped — that is, the lower 

 half of the petals recurve to the stem, the upper ones incurv- 

 ing to the centre, thus forming a nearly complete sphere. The 

 lower part of the flower is of a pleasing blush rose, the centre 

 being pure white. 



The flowers shown at Indianapolis were seven and three- 

 fourths inches deep by six and three-fourths inches in diam- 

 eter. It is plainly a mistake to exhibit seedlings or new varie- 

 ties when not in good condition, which was evidently the case 

 with this flower when shown in Boston. First impressions 

 have much to do in determining whether one will ever fancy 

 a new-comer. The flowers of Ada Spaulding which I saw at 

 Orange and Philadelphia were small and not at all character- 

 istic, and therefore they did injustice to a really valuable 

 acquisition. 



If it is the proper work of the National Chrysanthemum So- 

 ciety to determine which plants shall and which shall not be 

 distributed, the task will be a difficult one. To condemn a 



