December 4, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest 



481 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE FOST-OFFICS AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1895. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Edttorial Articles : — Mr. Vanderbilt's Forest 481 



The Disappearance of Western Lakes 482 



Notes on some Arborescent Willows of North America. — V,. , .M. S. Bebb. 482 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W. Watson, /fi-^ 



New or Little-known Plants : — A Yellow-flowered Cosmos. (With figure.) 



Fyofessor J. N. Rose. 484 



Plant Notes 4S4 



Cultural Department: — Eupliorbia (Poinsettia) pulcherrima E. O. Orpet. 486 



The Bertolonias N. J. Rose. 4S6 



Vergennes and Moore's Diamond Grapes L. H. B. 4S7 



Hybrid Perpetual Roses, Japan Anemones T. D. H. 487 



Correspondence : — Notes fi-om Wellesley T. D. H. 487 



Exhibitions:— Flowers at Madison Square Garden 48S 



Recent Publications 4P8 



Notes 489 



Illustration : — Cosmos sulphureus. Fig. 66 485 



Mr. Vanderbilt's Forest. 



THE importance of preserving our forests has, for a 

 long time, been an inviting tlieme for patriotic ora- 

 tors, and ttie necessity of scientific forest management as a 

 factor in our national economy is at last recognized by 

 every tiiougiitful man in the country. But a practical 

 example is always more effective than any amount of 

 preaching, and therefore we have already taken occasion 

 to commend the experiment now in progress in Biltmore, 

 the estate of Mr. George W. Vanderbilt, in North Carolina, 

 as one which must prove of undoubted value to the future 

 of this country. Indeed, it is the first experiment yet 

 undertaken on this continent to restore to a profitable 

 condition a considerable area of what was once forest- 

 land, but from which all the most valuable trees have 

 been cut, while the comparatively worthless ones have 

 been allowed to remain and propagate themselves, where 

 the young growth has been preyed upon for years by 

 browsing cattle, and the very fertility of the soil has been 

 burnt out by frequent fires. It is the first instance, too, 

 where a beginning has been made to manage a fairly good 

 forest on scientific principles, and where an effort will be 

 made to prove, for the first time in this country, that such 

 a forest can be made to yield crops of steadily increasing 

 value, while the land continually grows in productive 

 capacity. 



The Biltmore Forest proper embraces some five thousand 

 acres of woodland, and the primary object of the manage- 

 ment here is to improve the conditions of a forest lying on 

 ridges and slopes which have been grazed and fired. A 

 large part of it, when the operations began, was in as 

 wretched and unpromising a condition as neglect and bad 

 management could make it. The attempt to make it pay 

 has therefore been made subordinate to the idea of improve- 

 ment ; that is, the scheme of work was devised in the first 

 place for increasing the value and prosperity of the forest 

 itself, and, therefore, in many cases the operations may not 

 return more than the expenditure involved, and in some in- 

 stances the returns may even fall short of that amount. Never- 

 theless, the expectation is that the work will be profitable, and 

 if this is accomplished its value as an object-lesson will be 



greatly enhanced. The Biltmore forest exists in the first 

 place as a part of the estate, and, secondarily, as an example 

 of forest management which will undoubtedly be useful, 

 not only in this region, but wherever throughout the United 

 States the results are made known. The conditions of the 

 soil and of the trees where this work is going on are such 

 that if success is gained here where good markets are 

 remote, there is no reason why any and every large area 

 of impoverished second-growth woodland in the country 

 cannot be profitably managed. 



Two years ago Mr. Gifford Pinchot, the forester in charge, 

 gave an account of his treatment of this forest, and the 

 results of the first year's work. We understand that since 

 that time he has encountered no unforeseen discourage- 

 ments, and his faith in the outcome is strengthened. Per- 

 haps the most important result gained so far has been the 

 demonstration that the expense of protecting the young 

 growth in woodland operations is not as serious as Ameri- 

 cans generally suppose. Of course, a healthy young crop of 

 timber is the essential condition of good management, and 

 unless this can be gained at a reasonable outlay there is no 

 hope for future forests. It makes a great difference where 

 a tract of woodland has been cut over whether a desola- 

 tion or a thrifty forest of young trees is left behind ; and 

 Mr. Pinchot estimates that he can secure this vigorous 

 young forest at an expense of not more than two or three 

 per cent, of the total cost of removing the old timber. It 

 seems to be entirely a question of training the wood- 

 choppers, and, if this is true, the fact ought to be more 

 widely known. 



Pisgah Forest, a second part of the general experiment, is 

 nearly contiguous to the Biltmore Forest, and comprises 

 about 92,000 acres, or nearly 150 square miles of land, the 

 greater proportion of which now bears virgin timber. It is 

 good forest as forests average in that region, and some of 

 it may be classed as very good. We have no space to 

 give details of the work now prosecuted here, and, indeed, it 

 would be premature to do so until there are actual figures 

 to show. In a general way it may be stated that here, where 

 there is already a stand of matured timber, the economic 

 side of forest management will be illustrated on a large 

 scale. Extensive operations in lumbering are now being 

 carried on, and they will continue during the winter, and 

 it is expected to prove on a commercial scale that lumber- 

 ing will pay under systematic forest management, while 

 at the same time the forest will steadily increase in value. 

 It ought to be added that this Pisgah Forest, while it is 

 essentially an economic experiment, is also an outing 

 ground and game park of magnificent proportions, and 

 if in all its phases it proves successful it will have a high 

 educational value. 



A third feature of Biltmore is the arboretum, which is 

 expected to contain a collection of the trees and shrubs 

 hardy in Biltmore, gathered from all over the world. Such 

 a collection, even if it is not arranged or managed in the 

 most rigidly scientific way, will be of great importance to 

 all planters who can here see individuals and groups of 

 trees and shrubs which are available for use in the north- 

 eastern United States. The dendrologist will here be 

 enabled to study the entire forest flora of the north tem- 

 perate regions of the earth, and the forester will find 

 information as to the character and growth of important 

 forest trees not elsewhere to be obtained. The usefulness 

 of the arboretum will be greatly aided by the Forest -Acres, a 

 tract of some three hundred acres of land on which some- 

 thing like a hundred of the most valuable forest species 

 which are hardy at Biltmore will be planted in forest form, 

 so as to furnish information about their silvicultural charac- 

 ter and needs, and, in the more important instances, it will 

 show their quality in mixture with other trees. The 

 arboretum as a whole will cover some eight hundred 

 acres, and the collection proper will be distributed along 

 both sides of a road twelve miles in length. 



Taken altogether, this work at Biltmore is an unprece- 

 dented attempt, in this country at least, to gather informa- 



