March 13, 1S95.] 



Garden and Forest. 



lOI 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



entered as second-class matter at the post-office at new YORK, N. Y, 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 1895. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PACK. 



Editorial Articles: — The Forests of the Wabash Valley. (With figures ) loi 



Lumbermen and Forestry 102 



Notes on the Distribution of the Yellow Pine in NebrasUa. (With figure.) 



Professor Charles E. Bessey. 102 



Troublesome Grasses in Southern New Jersey Mrs. Mary Treat. 103 



Plant Notes 104 



Cultural Department:— Germination of Black Walnuts and Acorns, 



George B. SitdtvortJi. 105 



A Few Annuals. — 11 J, N. Gerard. 106 



Eulbs tor Sprini^ Planting F. H. Nors/ord, 106 



Notes on Violets IV. N. Craig. 107 



New Grapes E. P. P. 107 



Early Flowers J. N. G. 107 



The Columbian Raspberry E, P. P. 107 



Correspondence : — The Gypsy Moth in Massachusetts Walter C. IVrigkt. loS 



The Meeting; ot the American Carnation Society K. A. 108 



The West Coast Spring ." J E. Johnson. loS 



R ECENT Publications 109 



Notes 110 



Illustrations: — Present and jiast distribution of Yellow Pine in Nebraska, 



Fig. 15 103 



Spanish Oalc, Quercus digitata, Ftg. 16 104 



View in the forest on the bottom-lands of White River, Indiana, Fig. 17.. 105 



The Forests of the Wabash Valley. 



THE composition of the remarkable forests which, in 

 spite of the terrible inroads that have been made in 

 them during the last twenty-five years, still cover consid- 

 erable portions of the region in southern Illinois and 

 Indiana watered by the Wabash River and its tributaries, 

 was first made known to the scientific world by a paper 

 published in 1882 in the fifth volume of the Proceedings of 

 the United Slates National Museum, by Dr. Robert Ridgway, 

 the ornithologist of the Smithsonian Institution. 



Dr. Ridgway was born in Mount Carmel, on the banks 

 of the Wabash River, nearly opposite the mouth of White 

 River, and his early work in his chosen field of science 

 brought him into familiar intercourse with the trees of that 

 region, which he has studied faithfully and lovingly when- 

 ever opportunity offered until the present time. By a piece 

 of very great good fortune his investigations have, more- 

 over, been supplemented by those of another naturalist, 

 Dn Jacob Schneck, who for many years has lived in Mount 

 Carmel and has also been specially interested in trees. The 

 result of this fortunate association has been that the forests 

 in the neighborhood of the mouth of White River have been 

 more carefully studied than those in any other spot of 

 equal interest west of the Allegheny Mountains. Other 

 regions with a similar climate and with as good soil can be 

 found in western Kentucky and Tennessee, in south-eastern 

 Missouri, eastern Arkansas, and in the delta of the Yazoo 

 in western Mississippi, and may, perhaps, produce as re- 

 markable individual trees in as great a variety of species, 

 but none of them have been as carefully studied, and, until 

 some other forest containing a greater variety of trees and 

 larger individuals can be found, that of the lower Wabash 

 valley must be considered the most remarkable aggrega- 

 tion of trees in the north temperate zone. On the 

 western slopes of the Big Smoky Mountains, in Tennessee, 

 there are wonderful trees in great variety, and individuals 

 of some species, although not so tall, probably, produce in 

 that forest their largest trunks ; and in climbing about four 

 thousand feet fromthebanks of the little Tennessee, in North 

 Carolina, to the summits of these mountains one can count 

 nearly fifty arborescent species, although individual trees 

 are smaller than on the western flank of these mountains. 



In a second paper on the Wabash Silva, recently pub- 

 lished in the seventeenth volume of the Proceedings 0/ the 

 National Museum, Professor Ridgway shows that the num- 

 ber of indigenous arborescent species in the Wabash valley 

 south of the mouth of White River is one hundred and 

 seven, or more than a quarter of all the arborescent species 

 in North America north of Mexico, and even this number 

 can be slightly increased, as one or two species of Cra- 

 tEegus, overlooked by Professor Ridgway, grow near 

 Mount Carmel. 



Some idea of the surprising richness of the forest-flora in 

 this region can be obtained by an examination of Dr. 

 Ridgvvay's list of trees growing on restricted areas. On a 

 tract of seventy-five acres he found fifty-four species of 

 trees, and another of twenty-two acres contained forty- 

 three species. On a tract of forty acres one mile south- 

 east of Olney, in Richland County, Illinois, what the author 

 modestly calls an imperfect survey of the woods shows 

 thirty-six species. The nearest approach to such a con- 

 centration of tree species in a restricted area is in central 

 Yezo, where Professor Sargent found sixty-two species and 

 varieties of trees growing in the immediate neighborhood 

 of Sapporo at practically one level above the sea. 



The height attained by these Waliash valley trees is as 

 remarkable as the number of species in the forest. In- 

 dividuals of forty-two species reach a height of one hundred 

 feet, and those of twenty-one species grow to the height of 

 one hundred and thirty feet. Individuals one hundred and fifty 

 feet high of thirteen of these species have been measured. 

 A specimen of Quercus Texana, called Quercus coccinea 

 by Dr. Ridgway, the tallest of the Wabash Oaks, and, per- 

 haps, the tallest Oak in North Apaerica, measured one hun- 

 dred and eighty feet, and a Tulip-tree one hundred and 

 ninety feet ; a Pecan, the tallest Hickory, one hundred and 

 seventy-five feet ; a Cottonwood (Populus monolifera), one 

 hundred and seventy feet ; a Bur Oak (Quercus mac- 

 rocarpa) one hundred and sixty-five feet; while, in addi- 

 tion to the trees already mentioned, a Liquidambar and a 

 Black Oak attained a height of one himdred and sixty feet. 

 The size of the trunks of some of these trees, measured at 

 three feet above the surface of the ground, is hardly less 

 remarkable than their height. A Sycamore (Platanus occi- 

 dentalis) girted thirty-three and a third feet ; a Tulip-tree 

 twenty-five feet ; a White Oak twenty-two feet ; a Black 

 Walnut twenty-two feet; a Black Oak twenty feet, and a 

 Texas Oak twenty feet. In comparison with such trees, 

 the inhabitants of eastern forests, where trees one hundred 

 feet tall are extremely rare, appear like pigmies, and per- 

 sons familiar only with forests of the Atlantic seaboard can 

 form no idea of the magnificence of these trees, the last 

 remaining vestiges of the forests which covered the valley 

 of the Mississippi when the white man first floated down its 

 placid waters. 



This region is the home of some of our most beautiful 

 and valuable trees. On the bottom-lands of the rivers the 

 Pecan and the great western Hickory (Hicoria laciniosa) 

 grow with all the Swamp White Oaks, the Pin Oak, the 

 Texas Oak, and that remarkable form of the Spanish Oak, 

 which, usually an upland tree, sends up on these bottom- 

 lands a tall, beautiful shaft covered with pale bark, which 

 might readily be mistaken for the trunk of one of the White 

 Oaks. The illustration on page 104, made from a photo- 

 graph, for which we are indebted to Dr. Schneck. repre- 

 sents one of these trunks. The attention of scientific men 

 is first called to this variety in Professor Ridgway's second 

 paper, although it ha^ long been known to southern lum- 

 bermen. Common in the Yazoo delta and in eastern Ar- 

 kansas, and not rare in northern Alabama and western 

 Plorida, it is valued as a timber-tree, and is said to ]3ro- 

 duce wood equal to that of the White Oak. In the \\'abash 

 valley the southern Cypress (Ta.x'odiuin), the Water Plick- 

 ory, the Water Locust and the Planer-tree, all denizens of 

 the south, find their northern homes, and there the rare 

 Swamp Cottonwood grows to its largest size, and tlie Catalpa 

 displays its greatest beauty. In these lowland forests great 



