442 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 402. 



original Shepley machine was only capable of drying 

 three bushels of apples in ten hours. Now one of the 

 establishments described in this Bulletin will evaporate 

 three hundred bushels of apples a day, and another one 

 has a capacity of five thousand quarts of berries a day. 



It is not our purpose here to describe the various methods 

 of making trays and moving them, or to explain the process 

 of kiln drying, tower drying, steam drying, vacuum 

 drying or air-blast drying with the various elaborate 

 devices prepared to lighten every possible item of 

 labor. We only use this as an illustration to show that it 

 has taken years of experiment and expense to develop this 

 business into its present form, and that even now consid- 

 erable capital is required and great attention must be given 

 to the plans of building, machinery, storage-rooms, etc., if 

 the business is to be made profitable. The sum of the 

 whole matter is this. Bonanza farmers who sow wheat by 

 the square mile can afford to sell grain at a few cents' 

 profit on a bushel, just as a large manufacturer is satisfied 

 with a small margin of profit because of the enormous 

 amount of his production. Under the growing stress of 

 competition ordinary farmers cannot live on staple products 

 at wholesale prices. But the farmer, to make something 

 beyond wholesale prices, must put special intelligence 

 into his work. He cannot live as his father did on in- 

 dustry and frugality alone. He must be prepared to 

 meet some special want with a special crop, or he 

 must add to one profit as a grower, another profit as a 

 manufacturer by turning his grapes into wine and his plums 

 into prunes, or he must in some way use the machinery of 

 his farm so that it will make something to sell besides the 

 raw material which grows on his acres. This means that he 

 must know more and apply his knowledge to better advan- 

 tage. After twenty-five years of study and experience the 

 farmers of Wayne County can make a profit with the most 

 approved appliances after they have secured a good crop, 

 and to secure a good crop constant and intelligent care 

 must be exercised from the time the ground is prepared for 

 the young plants until the manufactured product is put on 

 the market in the most attractive form. The farmers of this 

 country as a class are better husbandmen than their prede- 

 cessors ever were, but they must have a still more thorough 

 education for their work if they are to maintain the com- 

 manding position which the great body of tillers of the 

 soil once held in the political and social economy of the 

 country. 



James Buckman and Plant Variation. 



PROFESSOR BAILEY is in the habit of making five- 

 minute talks before his class in Evolution, and one of 

 his students sends the following transcription from her 

 notes of one of these addresses as worthy of permanent 

 record : 



James Buckman was Professor of Agriculture in the Royal 

 Agricultural College of Cirencester, England. He was born in 

 1816, and died in 1884. In 1863 he left the chair of agriculture 

 in the Royal Agricultural College to go to his farm in the 

 Downs region, where, during the remainder of his life, he was 

 very successful as a farmer, and also wrote a number of books 

 on geology, botany and the like. 



A few years ago, while passing along the streets of Lansing:, 

 Michigan, where I then lived, I was attracted by a pile of old 

 books which a dealer said he had just received from New 

 York City. Upon looking them over I was surprised to find a 

 small record-book which was written full of an essay upon the 

 "Botany of the Cabbage and the Ruta Baga," and signed by 

 James Buckman. Moreover, I found an entry in the front 

 part of the book to the effect that the essay had been awarded 

 the prize upon the 15th of December, 1852. Just what this 

 prize was I do not know, and I am not able to find any record 

 that the essay was published. It is very likely that it was 

 written in competition for one of the prizes which it was the 

 habit of the Royal Agricultural Society to offer. It is strange 

 how the manuscript ever left Professor Buckman's hands, 

 and stranger still that it should have wandered across the 

 ocean and finally reached my own library. 



But there is still greater interest attaching to this essay. I 

 have been telling you for the past few days that Thomas 



Andrew Knight, Alexander Braun and Charles Darwin believed 

 that the chief factor in the variation of plants is the augmenta- 

 tion of food-supply ; and here I find in this manuscript essay of 

 Buckman's another statement of the same belief, showing that 

 still another observer had arrived independently at the same 

 conclusions. The essay, bear in mind, was written before the 

 appearance of any of Darwin's philosophical writings, and the 

 statement lacks the exactness of later philosophical discus- 

 sioris ; yet it is interesting as showing the man's independent 

 belief. The following sentences indicate his philosophy : 



"This laying on of cellular tissue is very analogous to the 

 laying on of fat in animals ; in a state of nature no animal 

 (except the hybernating ones) carries fat. Plethora is, in fact, 

 a disease, and so it may be termed in the case of plants. A 

 climate and soil well sui'ted to their health, with good food in 

 the shape of plentiful manure of the right description, causes 

 them to grow fat, and by selecting those plants that appear to 

 have the inclination to develop this cellular tissue on any par- 

 ticular structure, and using their seed in soil of the same 

 description, the peculiarity is propagated." 



An Interesting Experiment in Tree Culture. 



WHEN in Holland last summer I spent a day in the 

 latter part of July, at the request of Professor Sar- 

 gent, in visiting the Pinetum Schoberianum, or plantations 

 of coniferous trees belonging to Mr. J. H. Schober, on his 

 estate called Schovenhorst, in the town of Putten, some 

 thirty miles north-east of Utrecht. These plantations are 

 very extensive, some six hundred acres, if I remember 

 correctly, being devoted to them, and they contain probably 

 the largest and most complete collection of conifers from 

 all parts of the world, except, of course, the intensely tropical 

 regions, that has ever been brought together. Mr. Edvi'ard 

 Downes, the accomplished United States Consul at Amster- 

 dam, accompanied me, and Mr. Schober himself was there 

 to conduct us through the woods and fields. A more 

 charming and intelligent gentleman it would be difficult 

 to find ; and, although light showers were frequent during 

 the day, according to the summer practice of liolland, and 

 our host was long past seventy, he led us about with a vigor, 

 energy and enthusiasm which formed the envy of the 

 younger men of the party. 



Mr. Schober is a wealthy lawyer of Utrecht, and, like the 

 wise man he is, he has long cherished a passion for the 

 cultivation of trees ; and this passion he has directed 

 toward a most practical and patriotic object. In Holland 

 there is a great extent of land that in former ages formed 

 the seashore ; and in these dunes the soil remains worthless 

 for agricultural purposes. With whatever crop might be 

 attempted, whether grain, grass or vegetables, the expense 

 would be more than the product, and so the land is sub- 

 stantially left without culture ; yet with coniferous trees 

 the case is different. Hence the traveler frequently passes 

 in Holland, as in other parts of Europe, plantations of 

 Scotch or Austrian Pines occupying these sandy lands 

 where nothing else of value could well be made to grow. 

 These plantations cost little, require no care, and by the 

 annual dropping of their needles tend to some improve- 

 ment of the soil ; while at the end of the proper period the 

 firewood they furnish is a substantial thing and always 

 finds a paying market. 



In this situation Mr. Schober has struck out from the 

 common course, and, instead of planting Pinus sylvestris 

 and P. Austriaca, he has started to determine what trees are 

 really best worth planting and cultivating in these sands ; 

 and for this purpose, as I have said, he seems to have 

 ransacked the whole temperate zone in all the continents. 

 But I cannot do better than to give his list as follows : 



Abies amabilis. 

 " magnifica. 

 " balsamea. 

 " brachyphylla. 

 " bracteata. 

 " Cephalonica. 



var. AppoUinis. 

 " " Reginas Amaliae. 

 " Cilicica. 



Abies concolor. 



" firma (bilida). 



" Fraseri. 



" g;randis. 



" Gordoniana. 



" Mariesii. 



" nobilis. 



" Nordmanniana. 



glauca. 



