86 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 209. 



master which has opened to him the door to the whole 

 world of knowledge. 



In our issue for January 20th appeared extracts from an 

 address before the Forestry Convention, in Washington, by 

 Mr. J. D. W. French, in which was advocated the em- 

 ployment of the army to protect the forests of the national 

 domain, and especially the forest-reservations recently 

 created by the President. In connection with this Mr. 

 French suggested a Professorship of Forestry at West Point, 

 and a school in one of the western reservations to teach 

 the soldiers practical forestry. There are few things more 

 depressing than the dull routine of camp-life on the plains, 

 and it is small wonder that so many enlisted men desert 

 from the army. There is a strong movement in favor of 

 increasing the facilities for giving instruction to our soldiers 

 in time of peace, and no doubt a better class of men would 

 enter the service and would remain in it if some plan of 

 wholesome mental discipline was devised. Mr. French's 

 suggestion, that the men should have some instruction in 

 woodcraft, is an admirable one, and it would furnish them 

 with a kind of schooling which does not necessitate con- 

 finement over books. 



We have lately received, through the kindness of Mr. 

 Fernow, a letter which was sent to the Forestry Division 

 by Mr. Abbot Kinney, of California, in which he suggests 

 that these forest-reservations should be at once utilized as 

 schools. It is his opinion that, while we cannot follow 

 the admirable French system of organization, we might 

 devise something which combines the features of the sys- 

 tems used in France and in the Indian Empire ; since a mili- 

 tary or half-military plan would give a basis for discipline, 

 would permit the temporary use of the army as guardians, 

 and would make the service more attractive. On this last 

 point Mr. Kinney makes the following very interesting 

 statements : 



" Lieutenant Wood, in command of the Yosemite Guard, 

 is very enthusiastic over the effects of the patrol work on 

 his men and horses. He says that the work makes better 

 soldiers and better men of his command, and that men and 

 animals are infinitely better prepared for any real military 

 work than they could be by any garrison duty. He speaks 

 also of the greatly improved moral tone of the men." 



It has always been our judgment that the best thing 

 which could happen to the forests on the national domain, 

 after withdrawing them from sale and entry until proper 

 legislation could be had for their management, would be 

 to place them at once in the charge of the army. From 

 another view of the situation, it would seem that the car- 

 rying out of this project would also be the best thing 

 which could happen to the army. 



The Elms of the St. Lawrence Valley. 



GEOGRAPHICALLY, a considerable portion of northern 

 New York and Vermont belongs with Canada ; at least 

 it is in the valley of the St. Lawrence. Indeed, the basin 

 of the St. Lawrence includes the entire Champlain Valley, 

 ascending southward almost to the Massachusetts line ; while 

 in what is known locally as the "Y" of the Green Moun- 

 tains (a tract enclosed on the south by the main range and an 

 eastern branch of it which diverges toward the north-east and 

 reaches almost to the Connecticut River), all the streams flow 

 northward, and become, by the way of Lake Memphremagog 

 and the St. Francis, tributaries of the same river, so that a 

 strictly geographical boundary along the southern rim of the 

 St. Lawrence basin would award two-thirds of Vermont to the 

 Dominion. It is noteworthy that, farther east, the northern 

 boundary of New Hampshire and Maine follows the water- 

 shed. 



It is well known that the geological characters of our por- 

 tion of the great valley (and, in consequence, its soil) are very 

 different from the rest of New England. Limestones, slates 

 and marbles replace the granitic and gneissoid rocks, and al- 

 though the marks of the ice age, with its erratic boulders, are 

 everywhere present, the soil itself very closely resembles that 

 of the Ohio River below Cincinnati. As the coral ledges of 

 the Falls of the Ohio, at Louisville, indicate that the ocean, or 



a great arm of it, once covered all of the region of the lower 

 Ohio, so the discovery of an entire and perfect skeleton of a 

 white whale near the banks of Lake Champlain, in excavating 

 for the track of the Rutland and Burlington Railroad, indicates 

 that New England and the maritime provinces once consti- 

 tuted a great island, separated from the continent by a strait 

 occupying the Champlain and Hudson valleys. 



Soil is a strong factor in determining the arboreal characters 

 of a country, and although there is all the difference due to 

 latitude between the trees of the Hudson and Connecticut val- 

 leys and those of their northward extension through the Cham- 

 plain Valley and the territory embraced by the Green Mountain 

 Y, yet aside from this influence the forest-vegetation con- 

 tinues to be similar, and in marked contrast with that of the 

 granitic soils to the east and south of it, not so much, how- 

 ever, in species (although there is a difference here) as in the 

 vigor and freedom of growth. This is seen in the general 

 aspect of the forests ; but since these have been so extensively 

 removed it shows itself more noticeably in the single trees. 

 All down the Champlain Valley to the Canadian frontier, and 

 thence to the bank of the St. Lawrence, we see no diminution 

 in the size and vigorous spread of the Elms, which make so 

 marked a feature of the river-landscapes below. The Elm is 

 one of our "iron-clad" trees, and it develops itself as freely 

 here, on the highlands around Memphremagog, as in lower 

 New England. The picturesque variety of form which tlie 

 Elm assumes is even more conspicuous, I think, in this region 

 than elsewhere ; and often, in accompanying tourist friends in 

 a sail down the lake, I have listened with pleasure to their ex- 

 clamations at the varied beauty of form and outline against 

 the sky of the long procession of Elms to be seen on the edge 

 of the high land rising from the eastern shore. This is the 

 first step, or bench, referred to by me in a previous article, as 

 a conspicuous feature of the country at this point. At the 

 west shore of Memphremagog the Green Mountain region 

 ends, and, after rising by successive terraces, the land spreads 

 away to the north-east toward the St. Lawrence and upper St. 

 John valleys — one of the finest sections of farming land, and 

 certainly much the largest, in all New England and eastern 

 Canada. 



Not so much care has been taken here to preserve the fine 

 large Elms of the original forest as southward, and the com- 

 paratively recent settlement of the country has not allowed 

 planted trees time to reach a great size. But there is one of 

 the old settlers remaining, that stands on the main street of 

 the village of Derby Line, and is worth going far to see. I 

 have never been able to get its dimensions, but it is evidently 

 a tree of the original forest, quite straight and branchless for 

 half its height, whicli can hardly be less than eighty feet, with 

 a diameter, at a guess, that must be five or six feet, with very 

 little tapering in the first half of its length. The great useful- 

 ness of Elm timber to the early settlers, for the construction 

 of carts, implements, etc., has caused the older growth to be 

 closely culled of all the straighter trunks, and such trees are 

 comparatively rare. But no tree is more perfectly at home 

 here, and none grows more rapidly from the seed. Although 

 our people are not yet much given to setting out road-side 

 trees, yet the readiness with which the Elm springs up in the 

 shelter of the road-side fences is such that it is the most com- 

 mon natural growth in such positions ; and now that our fence 

 laws allow the removal of these fences, the appearance, save 

 for an irregularity of distance, has much the effect of a planted 

 avenue on all of our older highways. Trees that have in this 

 way grown up in my own fences within twenty-five years are 

 eight and ten inches in diameter. The peculiarity of the Elm 

 to assume a great variety of forms is especially seen in these 

 seedling growths, where they have not been crowded. The 

 vase, or wine-glass, the pen or feather, the weeping, the col- 

 umnar, the spreading and various other more or less eccen- 

 tric developments are seen abundantly ; in fact, there is no 

 tree that presents so many varying aspects as the Elm, and for 

 that reason it may be used alone for avenues with far less 

 monotony of effect than any other tree. 



While our White Elms have such a variety of forms, I 

 have not noticed here any examples of the Cork Elm 

 (Ulmus racemosa), which is comparatively abundant in the 

 Champlain valley and westward ; but the Slippery Elm (U. 

 fulva) is quite plenty, and thougli it never becomes a large 

 tree it grows more rapidly even than the White Elm while 

 young, and will thrive well in a drier soil. Trees of this 

 species always attract the notice of observing persons by their 

 darker, thicker and rougher foliage, and in the spring by their 

 large, dark brown buds. It is quite as hardy against climate 

 as the White Elm, and the foliage is less attacked by insects. 



Newport, vt, T. H. Hoskins. 



