298 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 387. 



same stem, and this free-fiowcring habit nialves them desira- 

 ble where a brilliant climber for the greenhouse is required. 

 They will stand well in winter in a temperature of fitly de- 

 grees, and require far less heat than was generally supposed 

 necessary by the older cultivators. This may account for the 

 unpopularity of the genus at the present time. We grow them 

 in Fern-root alone. Loamy soil is liable to become sour and 

 inert, and the plants speedily die when this is the case. 



South Lancaster, Mass. E. O. O. 



The Forest. 



The Need of Forest Schools in America. 



THE extract which follows is taken from a paper read 

 before the New York farmers by Mr. Gifford Pinchot, 

 of this city : 



Since the appointment of the first State Forest Commis- 

 sion in 1884 the Adirondacks have attracted a steadily in- 

 creasing share of public attention. The interest of the people 

 in the preservation of the state forest-lands has found expres- 

 sion in various legislative enactments, the last of which is a 

 rather curious commentary on those which have preceded it. 

 I refer to the recent constitutional amendment which prohibits 

 the lease, sale or exchange of state forest-lands, and the sale, 

 removal or destruction of the timber. Translated into terms 

 of the situation, the people of New York, through their enthu- 

 siastic support of this amendment, may be imagined to speak 

 somewhat as follows : " For ten years we have been trying to 

 provide suitable protection and management for the state 

 forest-preserves. At the end of that time we find ourselves 

 reduced to the conclusion that the very best thing we can do 

 is to give up all hope of a sound and profitable management, 

 and simply content ourselves with putting it out of the power 

 of the guardians of the forest to do it any harm." It is as 

 though a man were to let his valuable farm lie fallow because 

 he had not sufficient confidence in his own wisdom, ability 

 and honesty to do anything else. 



In view of the attempt made last March by the Forest Com- 

 mission to turn over many thousand acres of the state lands 

 to the lumbermen, under restrictions which practically inter- 

 fered very little, or not at all, with their usual methods, I am 

 not sure how much the people of the state were to be criticised 

 for the position they took. The trouble was very much more 

 deeply seated. Like so mucli of the dilBculty which has beset 

 government in this state, the cause lay in the attempt to get 

 something done by the appointment of men who did not know 

 how to do it. And in this case the situation seems to have 

 been aggravated by the fact that the appointer was generally 

 as little enlightened as the appointee. In a word, widespread 

 ignorance of the meaning.and object of forestry has been the 

 keynote of the attempt of the Empire State to do something 

 for its forests. The natural result has followed, and the state 

 has made confession of its inability in the weightiest document 

 which it is in its power to frame. 



The situation may be summed up in this way : New York 

 stale owns a great body of forest-land whose preservation is of 

 enormous value to its interests in more ways than I can stop 

 to mention. This property, whose very existence is a blessing, 

 is producing year by year a vast amount of most valual>le ma- 

 terial, the removal and utilization of which under regular 

 forest-management would in no sense impair or even jeopard- 

 ize the passive usefulness of the forest. Let me repeat this 

 statement. Systematic forest-management on the state lands 

 in the Adirondacks neither involves nor implies any reduction 

 of the good inrtuences of the forest in its relation to any of the 

 vital interests of the state which depend upon it. On the con- 

 trary, what it does mean is greater safety, better protection and 

 a more certain usefulness, and all these things obtained not 

 merely without cost to the state, but with a growing revenue 

 thrown in. If these things are so, it becomes natural to ask 

 wliy advantage of them has not been taken. The answer has 

 already been given. As a community we do not know what 

 forestry is able to do, nor do we even realize the subject-mat- 

 ter with which it deals. 



If I say that forestry has nothing v/hatsoever to do with the 

 planting of road-side trees, that parks and gardens are foreign 

 to its nature, that it has no connection with the decoration of 

 country places, that scenery is altogether outside of its prov- 

 ince, and that it is no more possible to learn forestry in an 

 arboretum than to learn surgery in a drug store, I am 

 making a conservative statement witli which every forester 

 will agree. Forestry deals exclusively with forests — a fact 

 which will bear a good deal more publicity than has been 

 accorded to it hitherto. It is connected with arboriculture and 



landscape art only from the fact that it employs to a certain 

 extent the same raw material, if I may use such a figure, but 

 applies it to a wholly different purpose. That the subjects 

 overlap at certain points is therefore true, but so do carpen- 

 try and the manufacture of wood-pulp paper, yet there is no 

 confusion between them. That wise forest-management 

 secures the natural beauty of a region devoted to it is a fortu- 

 nate accident, but none the less an accident, pure and simple. 

 The purpose of forestry is in a totally different sphere. Forestry 

 seeks to discover and apply the principles in accordance with 

 which forests are best managed, and it has to do with trees 

 only as they stand, or are to stand, together on some large 

 area whose principal crop is trees, and so form part of a forest. 

 The ol.ijects of forestry are twofold, because there are two 

 great classes of services which the forest yields to man. On 

 the one hand it has a vital bearing on the water-supply and the 

 prevention of torrents, and an undetermined influence upon 

 the rainfall and climate, and on the other it yields a product 

 which has been so far, and seems likely to remain, indispen- 

 sable to the progress of civilization. This product it is the 

 province of forest-management to harvest in such a way as to 

 insure a second, and usually a greater, crop of at least equally 

 valuable material. Except m rare instances, to do this is the 

 surest way to secure the preservation of the indirect influ- 

 ences of the forest as they regard water and climate. The 

 safety of the forest can ultimately rest on no other foundation 

 than forest-management, for in no other way can it be made 

 to yield its full service to tlie needs of men. 



If we set what is now over against what is easily possible, 

 we find on one side the indirect usefulness of the forest, in so 

 far as the state lands are concerned, more or less perfectly at- 

 tained at the price of a large annual appropriation. On the other 

 is equal, or probably greater, security, and a net revenue. The 

 difference between these two things lies in two words — know- 

 ing how. Knowing how in forestry is best learned at a forest 

 school, and next to an enlightened public opinion and a scien- 

 tific administration of the state lands, a forest school is the first 

 need of forestry in New York. Personally, I believe that we 

 must liave the school before the wise public opinion, and 

 before anything can be done in the Adirondacks, unless by 

 private owners of woodlands. For, in the first place, the 

 repeal of the constitutional amendment on forestry must be 

 the opening move, and nothing but the broadest diffusion of a 

 right conception of forestry will educate the people to that 

 point. Secondly, administration presupposes men trained for 

 the purpose, and such men are not available at present in any- 

 thing like the numbers needed. Thirdly, the lumber com- 

 panies whicli own large tracts in the North Woods are begin- 

 ning to think seriously of the future, and men who could 

 advise and assist them would be able to render conspicuous 

 service to the commonwealth. This becomes apparent when 

 we consider that of the whole Adirondack region the state 

 owns less than a quarter. Whether such a school should be 

 a state institution or a part of one of the great universities, 

 and where it should be located, are matters which do not 

 come within my subject to-night. The one thing I want to do 

 is to set before you the present failure of the state in forest-mat- 

 ters, the reason for it, and one ot tlie remedies. The other is 

 the training of the public judgment through constant agita- 

 tion. Both together are likely to be all too slow in reaching 

 their end. But, whichever is used, it is education which is 

 needed. 



Correspondence. 



Strawberries in Wisconsin. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — One of your correspondents (see p. 257) speaks very 

 highly of Michel's Early, Candy and Parker Earle. This shows 

 how differently plants behave in different localities. With us, 

 Michel gives a few early berries, but is hardly any earlier than 

 Van Deman, Rio or Warfield, and it does not bear enough 

 fruit to pay for picking or planting. Gandy is late in begin- 

 ning to ripen fruit, but does not continue so long as Warfield ; 

 it is a very fine berry, but does not yield freely enough. Par- 

 ker Earle bears too much, unless on very rich soil, well 

 mulched and well watered ; I know of no better late berry for 

 hill or narrow row culture. It does not make plants enough 

 for matted rows ; it is perfect in blossom and will pay with 

 above treatment. 



Soil and location are very important factors in Strawberry 

 culture, but frosts and drought upset the best laid plans. No 

 Strawberry will stand such frosts and drought as we have had 

 this year and give a good crop. The best of fifty kinds fruit- 



