August 7, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



319 



is likely to forget the importance of the underlying principles 

 and forces which are capable of uplifting the vegetable king- 

 dom. We need a general uplift more than an occasional 

 spasm. We must niake more of the varieties which we have, 

 and by doing so we push forward the progeny year by year in 

 a gradual and enduring evolution. We may not recognize tlie 

 progress from year to year, and may not be able to give varie- 

 tal names as freely as we should like to, but the grand and final 

 result is to be attained thereby. I look upon new varieties as 

 so many new starting-points for still further development, not 

 as final or permanent things in themselves. 



The fact is, that our eyes are dazzled by the reports of crea- 

 tions in plants as they are by new and startling inventions. But 

 one should be suspicious of the genesis of varieties which are 

 said to have been produced outright by any foresight of the 

 operator. Time will discover the merits of all pretensions ; 

 and it will forever enforce the undying principle that the amel- 

 lioration of the vegetable kingdom is a slow unfolding of tlie 

 new out of the old, through the simple and quiet agencies 

 which man employs in cultivation and selection. 



Cornell University. L. H. Bailey. 



Rhododendrons in a Hard Winter. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The excellent article from IMr. H. ff. Hunnewell, on 

 Rhododendrons, in a recent number of Garden and Fores r, 

 adds testimony from valuable experience on the important 

 question regarding failure through supposed lack of hardiness 

 of these beautiful plants. 



There would appear to have been already sufficient expe- 

 rience to demonstrate the fact, which many have heretofore 

 considered a theory, that drought during the summer has as 

 much, or more, to do with the loss of I^hododendrons and 

 other evergreen plants as the cold in winter. 



The Rhododendrons planted at the Washington Bridge, Am- 

 sterdam Avenue, in this city, are a good illustration on tliis 

 point. In those plantations, although in a most exposed situa- 

 tion and without any protection during the past winter, and 

 notwithstanding the severe drying weather early this spring, 

 there is hardly a single plant that does not now appear in per- 

 fect form, health and vigor. 



These plants, I am informed, were supplied with abundant 

 moisture all last season, although not enough to force an ab- 

 normal growth. Had the plants been subject to excessive 

 drought last summer or autumn the loss would undoubtedly 

 have been as severe as in the parks here, in Brooklyn and 

 elsewhere, as already referred to in Garden and Forest. 



The more we learn to appreciate the simple natural require- 

 ments of all hardy plants the better the results that will inva- 

 riably follow. 

 New York. Fred. W. Kehey. 



Recent Publications. 



Forest Management. — II. 



A Manual of Foreslry, by W. Schlich. iii. Forest Man- 

 agement. London : Bradbury, Agnew & Co. 1895. 



The second part of Dr. Schlich's book deals with the 

 financial calculations required in the management of forests 

 so as to determine the best methods of management in 

 view of the return in money. The formulee with which 

 this part of the work is necessarily filled are so frequently 

 interspersed with explanations in words that the reader 

 who does not care to go into any mathematical study of 

 the subject may still find a great deal to interest and in- 

 struct him, but the discrepancy which has already been 

 noted between the economic situation in the United States 

 and in Europe demands a considerable degree of latitude 

 in the application of principles. For example, on page 

 153 it is said that the selling value of the forest is of 

 subordinate importance. Nothing can be truer than this 

 remark when applied to European conditions. With us it 

 is otherwise. In the United States the value of a piece of 

 property to its owner is either its selling value or its pro- 

 ductive value. The first of these is the more important. 

 In many cases it is the only value which is of real moment, 

 the cost value being useful only for comparison. Even 

 where the owner has no intention of selling, he usually esti- 

 mates the value of his land at what it will bring. In gen- 

 eral language the selling value is meant whenever v\'e speak 



of what a piece of land or other property is worth. Only 

 the special circumstances which give one man an advan- 

 tage over others in working a particular piece of forest 

 give the productive value any interest as against the selling 

 value of the property. The basis of estimate, except for 

 very small or otherwise unmerchantable holdings, is uni- 

 formly the selling value. Of this the productive value is 

 often a component factor. 



It should be carefully noted that the value of Dr. Schlich's 

 book for use in this country loses but very little, at least in 

 one direction, by differences such as that just referred to. 

 In all great fundamentals the principles of forestry are 

 essentiall}' the same everywhere. The modifications which 

 are required usually depend on temporary conditions, and 

 will tend eventually to disappear. They are in the nature 

 of exceptions, and should not be understood to invalidate 

 the rules ; at the same time they are often of vital 

 moment where they apply, and they must not be over- 

 looked. 



The use of the discussion of principles in exhibiting the 

 nature of the subject dealt with is very well illustrated in 

 this book, although many of the calculations, operations 

 and methods of work described are as yet inapplicable to 

 this country. Still they all serve to point out the real 

 nature of the forest. On page 200, for example, a discus- 

 sion of the various kinds of rotation begins. Some of them 

 have little or no practical interest in this country at present. 

 Nevertheless, the chapter is one of the most instructive in 

 the whole book because it reveals to the reader in a striking 

 way some of the fundamental characters of the forest. The 

 same remark applies to the discussion of the normal age 

 classes (chapter iii., part II.) and to many other subjects. 



The question of vocabulary which is referred to in the 

 first part of this review is brought up again by Dr. Schlich's 

 use of the term "wood" as indicating a part of a forest 

 arbitrarily separated from the rest for the purposes of 

 management — a distinction which it would be extremely 

 difficult to reconcile with the habitual meaning of the 

 word in this country, where it is generally made to refer 

 to a comparatively small area of woodland surrounded by 

 clearings, or otherwise delimited by natural boundaries. 

 Another instance of the use of technical expressions with 

 which we could hardly agree is afforded by the terms 

 " solid cubic foot'' and "stacked cubic foot, '' the first ap- 

 plied to large timber, the second to cord wood. The use 

 of cord foot, a well-established term in this country, per- 

 mits cubic foot to bear its legitimate meaning, and does 

 away with all danger of confusion, while shortening the 

 terms. The chief disadvantage of forest terms introduced 

 into English from the German, as in the case in point, is 

 the tendency to use a description instead of a name. 



Perhaps the most useful subdivision of the present vol- 

 ume is that which deals with the Brandis method of deter- 

 mining the yield of the forest. It consists, briefly, in ascer- 

 taining, with more or less exactness, according to the cir- 

 cumstances of each case, the number of trees ready for 

 the axe in any given forest, and the number of years which 

 it will take to replace them. By dividing the first of these 

 quantities by the second, the number of trees which may 

 be cut annually with safety to the forest is ascertained in 

 an extremely simple and sufficiently accurate manner. 

 This method was used by Doctor (now Sir Dietrich) Brandis 

 in Burma in 1S56, and lay at the root of his exceedingly 

 successful treatment of the Teak forests of Pegu. Its fitness 

 for use in this country is not open to question, and its ap- 

 plication in very rci^any instances, as for example in the 

 Adirondack Mountains of this state, is greatly to be desired. 



New York. Gifford Puiclwl. 



Notes. 



A correspondent of The Gardeners' Chronicle praises the 

 display made by a dozen plants of Rosa sctigera massed in the 

 collection of Roses at Kew. He adds that the beauty of this 

 species and its other valuable properties are not appreciated 

 as they should be in England. He could have said with 



