332 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 391. 



sun-cured hay. The most critical period for Corn is after 

 the tassels and silks appear, but before the grain is set. 

 Animals and human beings suffer from the fever heat, the 

 parched skin refusing to perspire. The bark of trees is so 

 burned that they do not easily resist the attacks of insects 

 or the drying winds of the following winter. 



Severe damage from the hot winds of the Great Plains is 

 not usually widespread, parts of each farm and sometimes 

 whole neighborhoods being uninjured. Sheltered fields 

 yield fair crops, and some of the corn-stalks bear good ears, 

 while the rest are useful for fodder. The winds generally 

 blow but a few hours, and never longer than three days at 

 a time, though three such periods have followed each 

 other in a single fortnight. If science is correct in its 

 belief that the hot winds are a feature of the climate of the 

 eastern slope of the Rockies, they cannot be expected to 

 disapjiear or even to become less frequent. They were 

 noticed by the earliest travelers, and they have prevailed in 

 ten summers during the last tvi'enty-five years, causing 

 widespread damage to the crops of five seasons, besides 

 the harm they have already done this summer. They are 

 apparently not becoming more frequent, and there is not 

 any reasonable ground for believing that they will increase 

 in the future. 



The blasting effects of hot winds may be somewhat over- 

 come by sheltering the fields with wind-breaks of trees, but 

 the e.xperience of farmers and of those who have planted 

 timber-claims has abundantly demonstrated the costliness 

 and uncertain success of tree-planting in dry climates, 

 especially where irrigation is not available. These very 

 hot winds render the planted groves of the prairies short- 

 lived. Thus, the drought of 1893 destroyed nearly one- 

 tenth of the area of artificial forest in Kansas and seriously 

 injured much of that nc)W standing. A quarter of a century 

 of persistent effort has shown that the Great Plains cannot 

 be kept covered with trees unless the latter be either culti- 

 vated or irrigated every year. 



The arid region of North America reaches fronr the Cali- 

 fornian Sierras to the eastern foot-hills of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. Its scanty rainfall does not admit of profitable 

 farming except in the narrow fertile valleys which may be 

 irrigated from the never-failing, snow-fed mountain streams. 

 That there are recurring cycles of drier years when these 

 desert conditions sweep eastward as far as the meridian of 

 100 degrees west longitude, has been the bitter experience 

 of the settlers of the semi-arid portions of the Great Plains. 

 In those famine years the prairie streams run dry, and the 

 few long mountain rivers are thinned to rivulets. Irrigation 

 is then practically impossible. Farm crops and tame pastures 

 fail. The rain-maker becomes once more the medicine 

 man of the Dakotas. The range of wild grasses is so closely 

 grazed on both slopes of the Rocky Mountains that the 

 desert features of central Asia and northern Africa are 

 closely simulated. It is well to remember that such close 

 grazing is believed to have rendered unprofitable even the 

 irrigation which was formerly practiced in the river valleys 

 of those foreign lands. The inhabitant of the semi-arid 

 or " rain-belt " portion of the Great Plains has already pre- 

 pared himself for a desert life, and is thankful when an 

 occasional rainy year blesses him with an abundant harvest. 



The effects of drought may be overcome by irrigation, 

 but this is always costly, and there is not water enough in 

 the prairie streams for all the cultivated land, especially 

 during the droughts, when it is most needed. Hot winds 

 may be resisted by keeping the ground mellow and moist by 

 constant cultivation. By planting varieties which blossom 

 at different times some may escape. But there are seasons 

 when no precautions will avail, and it seems necessary for 

 the prairie farmer, in the years of good crops which are 

 certain to come to this granary of America, to store against 

 the years of failure. Thus, the recent rains throughout the 

 west give promise of good hay and Corn crops. A part of 

 each farm should always be growing drought-resisting 

 crops. The agricultural experiment stations should con- 

 tinue their experiments with the adaptation of varieties 



and species of useful plants to dry climates, and cooperate 

 with the national weather bureau in the attempted solu- 

 tion of the problems of the occasional hot winds and scanty 

 rainfall of the Great Plains. 



The Cedar of Algeria. 



OF the true Cedars of the genus Cedrus there are two or 

 three species. The type of the genus, the Cedar of 

 Lebanon, grows on the mountains of Asia Minor. A second 

 species, the Deodar, is Himalayan ; and the third, Cedrus 

 Atlantica, which is, perhaps, only a geographical variety 

 of the Cedar of Lebanon, is common on the Atlas and other 

 mountain ranges of northern Africa, upon which it often 

 forms great forests. This last tree has proved to be rather 

 more hardy in the eastern United States than the ^ other 

 Cedars, and a blue-leaved form of it is beginning to attract 

 a good deal of attention among the lovers of coniferous 

 plants, who believe that it will prove hardy in the northern 

 states. The climate, however, of the region where this 

 tree grows naturally is so different from that of our Atlantic 

 seaboard that it is not probable that any one will ever 

 see a large or old Cedar-tree in the United States north of 

 Pennsylvania — a fact, if our prophecy proves true, which 

 is much to be regretted, for the African Cedar is, in its 

 prime, one of the most beautiful of conifers, as it is one of 

 the most picturesque in old age. Some idea of this pictur- 

 esqueness is shown in the illustration on page 335 of this 

 issue, which represents an Algerian Cedar forest with old 

 trees in the foreground. 



In Algeria the Cedar occurs at altitudes of from four to 

 six thousand feet above the level of the sea in the Aures 

 Mountains ; in the Belezma, near Batna ; at Ben Thaleb, in 

 Babor and Ta B'abort, in which locality it is associated with 

 another conifer peculiar to Algeria, the Atlantic Pinsapo, 

 Abies Pinsapo, var. Baborensis. In the Department of 

 Algiers it is found in the Djurdjura range ; on the hills 

 above Blida ; in the Ouaransenis, and at Teniet-el-Ahd. 

 The forests of Teniet-el-Ahd, being easily accessible, were 

 badly injured by the French army in the early years of the 

 French occupation, but now the Algerian Government, 

 recognizing the value of these forests, protects them care- 

 fully, and is doing everything in its power to restore them 

 to their original condition. This forest has an area of 2,325 

 acres, and contains some enormous trees of incomparable 

 beauty and incalculable artistic value. The forest is a 

 favorite resort of travelers, who visit it in great numbers, 

 and, quite apart from the timber it contains, its preservation 

 is believed to be a good investment. In a paper on Les 

 Forets de Ccdre, recently published by order of the Gov- 

 ernor-General of Algeria, it is said that cedar wood is less 

 enduring and elastic than pine from the north of Europe. 

 The heart-wood is generally employed for railway-ties, and 

 the outer portions of the trunk in construction. Railway- 

 ties of Algerian cedar have been found to last from eight to 

 ten years, and the wood has been successfully employed 

 in paving streets and for shingles. It is, however, in cabi- 

 net-making and decorative work that cedar wood is most 

 valuable, large quantities being now employed for this pur- 

 pose in Algeria and France. 



A Remarkable Group of Pines. 



TT is seldom that the mutilation of trees adds to their 

 impressiveness, but a cemetery in St. Stephen, New 

 Brunswick, contains some hundreds of White Pines of 

 unusual size and singular beauty which show the curious 

 spectacle of branching, some three feet from the ground, 

 into numerous great limbs sometimes as much as seven feet 

 in circumference. A hundred or so of these trees have 

 attained large size, the most massive of them being sev- 

 enty-five feet high and eleven feet and more in circumfer- 

 ence ; and the aspect of the huge horizontal or perpendicu- 

 lar branches laden with heavy foliage, and the rugged 

 knotty boles from which they spring, is striking in charac- 



