502 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 408. 



suggest themselves to the people of the city, they ought to 

 be made public. This is a question in which every man, 

 woman and child of New York is deeply interested. The 

 arguments for the Riverside site have been plainly pre- 

 sented, and, so far as the reports of the meeting give any 

 details of the discussion, no attempt was made to contro- 

 vert them. Under the circumstances it is certainly due to 

 the people that the committee should make some state- 

 ment, setting forth their reasons for selecting the Plaza as 

 the site for this memorial. 



The Pepper-tree. 



MUCH of the beauty of the streets and gardens of 

 southern California is due to the presence of this 

 South American and Mexican tree, the Schinus Molle of 

 botanists, which Spanish priests carried to California when 

 they established their first missions in upper California, and 

 is now the most commonly planted shade and ornamental 

 tree in all the region south of the Bay of San Francisco. 



Schinus Molle is an aromatic tree of the family to which 

 our Sumachs belong, with a short stout trunk covered with 

 dark furrowed bark, a low broad head of graceful pendu- 

 lous branches, light bright green persistent leaves, com- 

 posed of twenty or more pairs of small leaflets, minute 

 dioecious yellow-green flowers in large open panicles, and 

 bright red fragrant fruit, the size of small peas, hanging in 

 ample clusters. Our illustration on page 505 of this issue 

 shows one of the clusters of fruit with some leaves of this 

 tree which is now so much at home in California, and is 

 such a conspicuous feature of the southern California land- 

 scape that travelers from the east who are not botanists 

 usually regard it as a native of the soil and the typical 

 California tree — an excusable error, for it has been planted 

 in all the southern towns much more frequently than any 

 of the native trees. 



Schinus Molle is an excellent street-tree for dry arid re- 

 gions, and it seems to flourish without water and to go on 

 producing its bright green foliage and its flowers and fruit 

 without much regard to the seasons. In wet weather the 

 leaves emit a pungent balsamic odor, due to the resin 

 glands with which they abound, and which, when the 

 leaves are placed in water, burst, giving them an ap- 

 parently spontaneous movement. 



In Chili, Molina tells us, in his Saggio sulIa s/on'a naturale 

 de Chili, a kind of red wine of agreeable flavor, but very 

 heating, is prepared from the berries ; and from the bark 

 a dye of the color of burned coffee is obtained, which in 

 his time was used in Valparaiso to stain fish nets. 



Some Notes on Timber-culture. 



DURING the summer and fall of 1895 I was enabled to 

 examine a number of the timber plantings in central 

 Kansas, especially in McPherson County, where a compar- 

 atively large number of timber-claims were taken. A 

 reasonably fair proportion of the land-titles were perfected 

 here under the provisions of the Timber-culture act ; 

 though, as has been noted before, the ratio of titles per- 

 fected to claims filed under this act has been sorrowfully 

 small. At present most of the plantings have attained an 

 age of twenty years or over, and something like a fair 

 judgment of results is possible. 



In one timber-claim of the most recent planting vi'hich I 

 visited, the entire required ten acres are set in Osage Orange ; 

 and although the land is not really good and the location 

 in all respects unfavorable, the stand is almost perfect and 

 the young trees present a decidedly thrifty appearance. 

 Though the average height would certainly be less than 

 eighteen feet, the trees are straight in trunk and uniform 

 throughout. The trees, originally set four feet apart each 

 way, according to the law, are now ready for thinning. 

 Each alternate tree might properly be removed, and each 

 would make a good vineyard stake. Osage Orange also 

 compares very advantageously with adjacent trees of other 



species in anothertimber-claim which I examined, and where 

 the plantings were made longer ago under the old law which 

 required trees to be twelve feet apart each way. Many of 

 the trees here would make moderately good fence-posts, 

 though the trunks are by no means so straight and uniform 

 as in the block planted four feet apart. The advantage of 

 planting close at first is abundantly indicated by a compari- 

 son of these two blocks. 



Black Walnut appeared in considerable quantity in three 

 of the claims examined. In all cases it commends itself to 

 those who yet wish to plant trees in that section. I was 

 able also to compare plantings of this tree made twelve 

 feet apart with others made closer, but, unlike the Osage 

 Orange, the Walnut seems to have done better when widely 

 set. This apparent discrepancy, however, I suspect, is 

 due to the fact that the closer plantings were not duly 

 thinned. In both the cases of thick planting which I noted, 

 the stage at which thinning should have begun has long 

 been passed. I observed a marked decline in vegetative 

 vigor in the crowded trees as compared with those nearby 

 vi'hich had more room. A slight difference of moisture 

 supply and depth of soil occurring within a few feet had 

 also caused a most remarkable difference in growth among 

 the crowded Walnuts, showing how seriously the young 

 trees were exhausting their food-supply. The Walnut-trees 

 in this section of country have withstood the inclemencies 

 of heat and drought and wind in a very creditable fashion ; 

 and the posts and stakes now available from them make 

 them as valuable probably as any other species. It is also 

 worth v^'hile to remark that these trees have been bearing 

 fair crops of nuts since they became about ten years of age. 

 The great numbers of tent-caterpillars' nets in the tree-tops 

 during summer and fall make them often unsightly, and 

 are otherwise a serious matter. 



Cottonwoods were extensively planted all over the sec- 

 tion visited. They probably made a large majority of all 

 the trees set in timber-claims, shelter-belts and plantings of 

 all sorts whatsoever, for the early Kansas planter took little 

 thought for the selection of any variety for any special 

 purpose. A tree vi^as a tree, and the faster it would grow 

 the better he liked it ; and nothing grew faster than the 

 Cottonwood. The showings made on prairie farms in a 

 few years were always surprising, but the time has already 

 been long enough to demonstrate plainly the weak points 

 of the Cottonwood. In all upland plantings the once thrifty 

 trees are already decimated, and the survivors are hurrying 

 to premature decay. In some places where, a few years 

 ago, Cottonwoods monopolized many acres, there is not 

 now a tree, and the land is cultivated annually for wheat 

 or corn. I examined two timber-claims on bottom-ground 

 where Cottonwoods had been chiefl}" planted, and in these 

 the stand was good and the trees large, straight and ap- 

 parently thrifty. Tree beside tree stood forty or fifty feet 

 tall, with straight clean trunk ; but it must be borne in 

 mind that their value for almost any purpose is not to be 

 compared with that of the Osage Orange or Walnut. In both 

 plantings mentioned above a part of the respective blocks 

 ran up onto higher grbund, and here the desolation was as 

 perfect as in upland-tree claims and much more marked 

 from its proximity to the better growth. At Garden City, 

 Finney County, Kansas, where the Cottonwood-trees wet 

 their feet in the irrigating ditches, the growth is enormous 

 and the promise brighter. Those who have seen the older 

 irrigated Cottonwoods at Denver and Greeley, Colorado, 

 and at Salt Lake City will know what magnificent trees 

 may be grown in a decade or two. 



Box-elders, Acer Negundo, were also freely planted in 

 timber-claims and shelter-belts on account of their ease of 

 propagation. But their story is the same as that of the 

 Cottonwood, except that they never did amount to any- 

 thing. They have succumbed by thousands to the recent 

 protracted droughts, and dead and misshapen trees now 

 disfigure the landscape everywhere. Grown on upland 

 the tree never makes either posts, stakes or firewood. 



Catalpa speciosa was extensively planted, but in all 



