20 



Garden and Forest. 



I Number 203. 



only the segments of G. Octobrensis are a little narrower than 

 those of G. Corcyrensis ; the principal difference is in their 

 time of flowering-, the latter being always four weeks later. 

 -We cannot force G. nivalis ; but when these autumnal sorts 

 have become more plentiful we shall have Snowdrops in 

 bloom from September to April, and as people are always fond 

 oi popular flowers at an uncommon time they will find a ready 

 market. Twelve bulbs in a comparatively small pot will make 

 a beautiful group. I may add that by proper treatment and 

 careful selection of seed, they will, in time, improve in form and 

 size, so that the flowers of my best seedlings have segments 

 of over an inch in length. 



Baden-Baden. Max Lcichtlm. 



The Forest. 



Management of the National Forestreservations. 



AT the late meeting of the American Forestry Associa- 

 tion, Mr. B. E. Fernow, chief of the Forestry Divi- 

 sion, Department of Agriculture, read a paper on this sub- 

 ject, from which we make the following extracts : 



The objects for which National Forest-reservations can 

 reasonably be asked are mainly of an economic and not 

 of an zesthetic nature. 



The situation briefly is this : The major part of the public 

 domain, which was wooded, has been disposed of without re- 

 gard to the value of the forest, either as marketable material 

 or as a protective cover. A large part has been and is being 

 wantonly wasted and destroyed by fire every year. Now 

 it is proposed to change this policy. Instead of holding this 

 property in the hands of the Government for eventual dis- 

 posal, it is intended to withdraw at least parts of it from entry 

 and to keep it in permanent possession and control of the 

 Government, with proper recognition of its special value as 

 being wooded. 



The law of March 3d, 1891, authorizes the President to re- 

 serve wood-lands, and by public proclamation to declare their 

 establishment and fix their limits. 



As far as the law goes, the object of the proposed reserva- 

 tions is left undefined, as well as their number or e.xtent. I 

 may, therefore, only define the objects for which at present 

 they are probably authorized and what the aim and the methods 

 of their management, separate from that of other public 

 lands, should be. 



While in the minds of some, inspired with a general love of 

 the woods, the whole forestry problem is more or less a sen- 

 timental matter, and the uppermost idea is, that to stop van- 

 dalism by the axe and tire, to preserve natural scenery and 

 to create parks for recreation and hunting-grounds, is the aim 

 of the forestry movement, and of these reservations in particu- 

 lar, I must protest against placing these ideas in the fore- 

 ground. It is perfectly legitimate for a civilized nation to set aside 

 and preserve as national monuments such areas as the Yosem- 

 ite Valley, the Big Tree groves and the wonders of the Yel- 

 lowstone Park; but to withdraw large areas of land from pri- 

 vate occupancy will be warranted only when well-substan- 

 tiated, economic reasons for such withdrawal exist, and objects 

 of a more important communal interest are thereby to be ob- 

 tained. 



These objects I consider to be twofold. First, to assure the 

 communities growing up with wonderful rapidity in our west- 

 ern country of a continuous supply of wood material ; second, 

 to assure a continuous forest-cover of the soil on hill and 

 mountain-slope for the purpose of stable soil — conditions and 

 equable water-flow. Just as the first of these economic ob- 

 jects can be attained without frustrating the last, just as the 

 forest can be made to yield continuous supplies without de- 

 stroying it, just so may the aesthetic and sanitary objects be* 

 satisfied by the way without need of curtailing the economic 

 ones. These economic objects, namely, continuous supply of 

 timber and such forest-conditions as will secure favorable 

 water-conditions, can alone be considered as the objects of 

 management to be discussed here. 



The difficulties which stand in the way of a management 

 that is to secure these objects are of two kinds, namely, those 

 opposed by nature and those opposed by man. 



Excepting on the western slopes of the Pacific mountain- 

 ranges, the climate of the largest part of the territory con- 

 cerned is such as to render forest-management for reproduc- 

 tion and reforestation difficult ; this difficulty has been in- 

 creased by the action of man in baring slopes and burning 

 the fertile leaf-mold, thus reducing the chances of germinat- 

 ing seeds and young seedlings. Difficulties of this nature can 

 be removed only after careful study and experiment in the 



field. We will, therefore, have to .start with a simple, com- 

 mon-sense management, and will have to leave the develop- 

 ment of better forestry methods to future years, providing 

 only the opportunity of gaining necessary knowledge and ex- 

 perience for the best results. 



The main difficulties to be met for the present are those op- 

 posed by man. 



The social and economic conditions of our western moun- 

 tain states are peculiar, but they are easily understood and 

 explained when we realize that upon their 1,000,000 square 

 miles not quite 3,000,000 inhabitants are to be found, or only 

 three to the square mile, and if we deduct the population of 

 the cities, a little more than three to every two square miles. 

 This scarcity of population, together with the spirit of inde- 

 pendence and self-reliance born and remaining from the 

 pioneer days, when each having single-handed to stake out 

 and defend his own homestead, and to provide for himself and 

 family in the wilderness, was under the necessity of using 

 natural resources, accounts for the prejudice against the curtail- 

 ment of accustomed and at one time necessary privileges. 

 A feeling of freedom is created in him who finds but little 

 friction with neighbors ; he becomes a law unto himself, and 

 government, with which he has but little touch, and which 

 does not understand him or benefit him, appears to him often 

 an unnecessary restriction, and he places the laws of necessity, 

 as he conceives them, readily above the laws of the land. 



If this spirit exists in the bona fide settler and citizen, it ex- 

 ists to a still greater degree, bordering on absolute lawlessness, 

 in the irresponsible class of adventurers which a new country 

 always attracts, especially when the laws are either incompati- 

 ble with existing conditions or are poorly and unsatisfactorily 

 administered for lack of discretion on the part of officers or 

 for lack of proper machinery. We cannot deny that there has 

 been much incompetency shown in the administration of the 

 land, and especially the timber question, by the United States 

 Government, so as to lead western communities to chafe un- 

 der improper restrictions and to believe a change for the bet- 

 ter impossible or impracticable. 



To make more intelligible the difficulties arising from this 

 state of things, a brief extract from the paper by Mr. Bowers, 

 presented at the last meeting of this association on the Condi- 

 tions of Forests on the Public Domains, may be of service. 



He says : " Under the act of June 3d, 1878, applying to Colo- 

 rado and the territories, settlers and others were permitted to 

 cut timber for mining and agricultural purposes from mineral 

 land. Before cutting timber for local use the settler can hardly 

 be expected to sink a shaft or hire a chemist to determine 

 whether the land is in fact mineral or not. He cuts where 

 most convenient for him, without knowing what the character 

 of the land is, and takes the chance of being prosecuted. Not 

 one acre in thousands throughout the region to which this act 

 applies is known to contain minerals, but it is tlie only act un- 

 der which timber may be taken Ijy settlers and miners in this 

 great region. Consequently this whole population is forced to 

 steal one of the necessaries of life. To the miner and settler 

 of that region the use of timber from local supplies is as abso- 

 lutely necessary as the use of the water that flows by him, or 

 of the air that surrounds him, and no plan of management 

 which fails to recognize this can ever hope to be successful. 

 The settler, after taking a piece of Government land in the 

 vicinity of the mountains, finds immediate use for timber for 

 the construction of his buildings and fences, and he naturally 

 helps himself. The prospector and miner and the great 

 mining companies have the right to cut timber growing on the 

 mineral lands about them ; the railroad supplies itself from the 

 adjacent timber, and the settler can hardly be blamed for do- 

 ing the same. Oftentnnes, as a community of settlers becomes 

 sufficiently large to support it, a small saw-mill springs into- 

 being, and the wants of this little community are supplied by 

 the local mill, drawing its timber from the Government land 

 without any authority whatever. Both of these classes, the 

 settler and the local mill man, are then criminals under the 

 law, and are also liable in a civil action for damages, but be- 

 fore a local jury prosecutions almost invariably fail. 



"The sympathies of the entire community are always with 

 these depredators of the public timber, and quite often the 

 jurors themselves have been freely using such timber. In- 

 deed, it is a matter of the greatest difficulty to induce a grand 

 jury to indict persons who have confessedly been cutting Gov- 

 ernment timber for years to supply their saw-mills, the product 

 of which is used quite likely by the very members of the grand 

 jury." 



One striking difficulty in establishing the reservations them- 

 selves is that much of the land that should be reserved is as 

 yet unsurveyed, other parts are subject to prior rights or are 



