472 



Garden and Forest. 



(Number 405- 



one. They are conducted on the most approved lines of 

 university extension. No doubt, both students and in- 

 structors are delighted with the success of the experiment, 

 and it can be safely asserted that the money which is 

 necessary to carry on these schools is wisely e.xpended. 



The California Fan Palm. 



THE universal planting of this tree in all the towns and 

 villages and along the roadsides of south-western 

 California will, in a few years, convert that part of the 

 country into a great Palm grove. One of the rarest of our 

 trees, and found only in a few remote cafions on the desert 

 slopes of the coast ranges in the extreme southern part of 

 the state, the California Palm, has shown itself wonderfully 

 adaptable to cultivation, and specimens nearly as large as 

 any of the wild trees are now found in several California 

 gardens (see Garden and Forest, vol. vi., page 535) as 

 well as in those of the French and Italian Riviera, where 

 this tree has been grown v\'ith great success. 



Those of our readers who know the California Palm only 

 as a cultivated plant will be interested, perhaps, in the illus- 

 tration on page 475 of this issue, which is the reproduction 

 of a photograph of a part of the large grove in the Palm 

 Canon of the San Jacinto Mountains, as it shows the habit 

 and manner of growth of this noble tree and its surround- 

 ings in its mountain fastnesses. 



A Coppice of Pine. 



IN connection with the annual meeting of the New Jersey 

 Forestry Association on November 8th and 9th, a most 

 interesting trip was made into the so-called Plains. 



As the map in the Report on Forestry of the Geological 

 Survey of New Jersey for 1894 shows, the whole region 

 south of Lakewood in a belt of twenty-five to forty miles' 

 width from the seashore is mostl}^ forest of coniferous 

 growth, the larger part Pines, which occupy the sandy 

 plain. Within this extensive forest region, which in earlier 

 times furnished considerable timber, then charcoal, and 

 now mainly smoke during the lire season, there are found 

 two areas comprising about 15,000 acres, which are sepa- 

 rately known as the East Plains and the West Plains, 

 although lying south and north of each other, separated by 

 the east branch of the Wading River, and easily reached in 

 a drive of a few hours from Shamong, now called Chats- 

 worth, a station on the New Jersey Central Railroad. 



The sandy Pine-barrens are covered with a grovi'th of 

 Pitch Pine, Pinus rigida, associated in the better situations 

 with Two-leaved or Short-leaf Pine, P. echinata, the Jersey 

 Scrub Pine, P. Virginiana, with Black Jack and occasion- 

 ally Post Oak and other species of the Black Oak tribe. 

 Here and there a Red Cedar occurs, and where a depres- 

 sion with impermeable subsoil gathers moisture enough. 

 White Cedar swamps, with Magnolia glauca and Red Maple 

 undergrowth and a few towering Pines, add interest to the 

 landscape, and value, too, for the White Cedar is now un- 

 doubtedly the most valuable timber of the south Jersey 

 forest, and the fruit of the Cranberry-bog, associated with 

 it, the most valuable crop. Here gradually, there abruptly, 

 we notice a change in the character of the tree-growth as we 

 approach the region of the Plains. 



This region is a sandy Pine-barren, just like the sur- 

 rounding country — that is to say, it is an undulating plain 

 of almost pure white sand with a poor growth of Pine ; the 

 visible difference between the plains and the surrounding 

 country being mainly the more stunted appearance of the 

 trees. But the great interest lies m the fact that here the 

 student of forest-conditions and tree-growth can have the 

 rare sight of a coppice of Pine, almost the entire growth 

 being sprouts from the stumps of Pinus rigida — She Pines, 

 as the native calls this growth. Mr. John Gifford, who has 

 explored this region for the Geological Survey of New 

 Jersey, informs me that "the age of most second-growth 

 shoots is about twelve years.'' This, of course, does not 



limit the age of sprouts, unless it be shown that after 

 twelve years they succumb naturally and without the use 

 of fire. 



As is well known, conifers, as a rule, and especially 

 Pines, do not sprout from the stump, or if they do the 

 sprouts are usually not of long duration. But here we find' 

 this Pine not only a vigorous sprouter, and persistent, but 

 that under conditions which would discourage any other 

 tree from waging the uneven battle for existence. 



Not only is the condition of the soil unfavorable, a very 

 fine, although compact, sea sand, such as will support only 

 a poor growth at best ; not only is the subsoil more or less 

 impenetrable, or else constituted of such coarse gravel as 

 to predicate a droughty condition (by absence of capillary 

 action), but fires are ravaging, if not yearly, at least at 

 brief periods, this portion of the Pine country without 

 mercy, and sooner or later the trees which have succeeded 

 in establishing themselves and have escaped, perhaps, the 

 fires of several seasons, are finally leveled again. Yet the 

 roots do not give up the struggle, but send forth a large 

 number of sprouts, which at present, two years after the 

 last fire, cover the desolateness with a green bush-like 

 growth, assisted by Scrub Oaks, Black Oaks and Laurel, 

 Kalmia latifolia. Here and there a patch of trees has 

 escaped the fire, stunted in form, but quite vigorous and 

 bedecked with closed cones, although most of them with 

 imperfect seed. Such trees, eight to twelve feet in height 

 and four to five inches in diameter, may be twenty to 

 thirty years old, or else more than one hundred, according 

 to the ills to which they have been exposed. One old root 

 which was pulled up, with a diameter of not more than five 

 inches at the collar, showed two sprouts, both dead, each 

 about two inches in diameter. These had evidently suc- 

 ceeded in weathering all ills for many years, the oldest 

 eaten out by the fire, the younger counting eighty-three 

 rings, pointing to an age of possibly 150 years for the root' 

 itself. 



The gradual process of decadence was seen in some of 

 the older trees, the branches of which had been killed by 

 the last fire, but from the trunk a dense crop of young twigs 

 was produced by dormant buds, for which this species is 

 noted ; at the same time sprouts from the foot of the tree 

 are thrown out. The next fire will probably kill the new 

 grovi'th and the life of the trunk, which, finally weakened 

 at the base, topples over, while the root continues to 

 sprout, again and again replacing the killed progeny, until 

 it, too, is exhausted or a lucky accident allows one or 

 more to develop into trees. 



Much speculation has been indulged in as to the causes 

 of the stunted growth. Tradition holds that there never 

 existed a better growth. There was no time during the 

 hurried trip to determine how far an impenetrable subsoil, 

 which evidently exists here and there, gives rise to such 

 growth, or else a gravelly substratum near the surface, 

 which, while permitting the moisture to percolate, does 

 not retain or pump it up by capillary action, and thereby 

 produces a droughty condition of the upper strata. Nor 

 could an estimate be formed, how far the repeated fires, 

 added to unfavorable physical soil conditions, v^^ere charge- 

 able. In one place a road appeared to have been able to 

 prevent the spread of fire across, and as a consequence the 

 "plains" condition was abruptl)^ changed to the common 

 "barrens" condition, with trees thirty to forty feet in height 

 tolerably thrifty. This would indicate that after all, if the 

 fires were kept out, normal, though poor, tree-growth could 

 maintain itself. 



That the tree-growth in the sandy Pine-barrens does not 

 need to be so uncommonly unthrift)', provided acceptable 

 conditions are maintained and fire kept out, was shown by 

 the remnants of an abandoned nursery, vi^here White Pines, 

 Fir, Norway Spruce and European Larch had been allowed 

 to grow up in the rows for thirty years and presented a 

 grove of trees of quite acceptable sizes, heights of over 

 forty feet and diameters up to eight and ten inches. 



The subject of forest fires naturally formed the principal 



