March 2, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



97 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY 1!Y 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribunb Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 1892. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



EniTORiAL Articles :— Spruces and Firs on the Maine Coast. (With figure.) 97 



The Yellowstone Park Company 98 



Meeting of the New York Carnation Society 98 



Notes on Nomenclature George B. Sudworth. 98 



New England Parks Mrs. J. //. Robbins. 99 



Spring in West Virginia Mrs. Danske Dandridge. 100 



Plant Notes ; — Some Recent Portraits 100 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter. W. Watson. 102 



Cultural Department : — The Hardiness of the Satsuma Orange, 



Professor IV. F. Massey. 103 



Pvrethrums E. O. Orpet. 103 



Covering Greenhouse Walls IV. H. Taplin. 104 



Two Good Climbers IVm. Tricker. 104 



Veltheimia viridifolia, Saxifraga cuscutasformis, Saxifraga Camposii, 



J. N. G. 104 



The Forest : — Forestry for the Farmer Gifford Pinchoi. 104 



Correspondence ; — A Japanese Flower Party Sidney Hyde. 105 



Carnations, New and Old T. D. Hatfield. 106 



California Horticultural Aifairs Charles H. Shinn. 106 



Trees and City Officials Charles C. Binney. 107 



Recent Publications 107 



Notes 107 



1 llustration : — A Spruce Forest on the Coast of Maine, Fig. 17 101 



Spruces and Firs on the Maine Coast. 



AS the traveler passes the boundary of the state of 

 _/^ Maine, on his way northward, he is conscious of a 

 change in the silhouette of the forest against the sky. The 

 dome-like outline, the great rounded masses begin to dis- 

 appear, and in their place arise the serried lances of Spruces 

 and Firs, which, fine as they are in detail, are the despair of 

 the painter from the rigidity of the serrated line which 

 they present Italian artists, accustomed as they are to 

 swelling slopes, maintain that Switzerland is unpaintable 

 because the forms of the mountains lack grace of curve, 

 and are sternly defiant and hard in outline, and one is 

 conscious of this same artistic defect as he contemplates 

 the Maine landscape, with the sharp tips of its evergreens 

 standing out against the clear distant sky. 



The farther north one goes along the coast the more 

 exclusive becomes the Conifer. The native Larch, or 

 Hackmatack, mingles its feathery branches with those of 

 its more rigid neighbors, its cones showing dark among 

 the soft green tufts of leaves, and only the light-foliaged 

 Birch diversifies the sombre groups of Firs with its shining 

 stems, like a white-robed woman at a funeral. 



As the traveler turns from the shore to the interior, de- 

 ciduous trees of the hardier varieties become more numer- 

 ous, but the prevailing character of the coast landscape 

 is such as is portrayed in the illustration on page loi, 

 which is from a photograph taken at Southwest Harbor, 

 Mount Desert, Maine. 



In the cool moist atmosphere which suits their develop- 

 ment, Spruces and Firs grow with surprising rapidity, 

 apparently without regard to nourishment from the soil. 

 The rockiest hill-sides clothe themselves suddenly with 

 tiny green forms which shoot up in twenty years into an 

 impenetrable forest. Granite ledges seem no obstacle to 

 their growth; the sprout splits the rock in twain and 

 pushes up bravely to the light and air among its taller 

 brethren. On stony ground the roots of Spruces run 



along the very surface of the soil, drawing sustenance 

 from dead mosses and the thin stratum of earth formed 

 by decaying vegetation, and fertilized by bits of the fish 

 dro])ped by the birds which roost in the tall tops. One 

 of the features of a sea-side wood is the shells of sea- 

 urchins one is sure to find among the cones which sprin- 

 kle the mossy carpet. 



When a great gale comes the Spruces tip over, having 

 no tap-roots, and they will go on flourishing for some years 

 after they have fallen, with only the dirt that clings to their 

 straggling roots to preserve the vitality of the tree. In a 

 hurricane the Firs snap off, or their trunks are twisted and 

 torn from their base by the whirling of a cyclone, but the 

 Spruces are bowled over like a lot of nine-pins, and lie in 

 winrows like a giant crop mown by some Cyclopean hand. 



Very beautiful are these growing forests in their youth. 

 The roots of the pre-existent trees, either cut or fallen, 

 leave soft mounds clothed with the loveliest mosses, with 

 gay white caps or scarlet bonnets or brown hoods for 

 blossoms. Here early spring-flowers bloom and wild 

 vines clamber, and the paths are glossy with the leaves of 

 Wintergreen and Pipsissewa. The young trees are sym- 

 metrical masses of foliage from root to point, and natural 

 paths wind between them in intricate mazes, with fairy 

 rings of open ground between the conifers. Sometimes a 

 brook tumbles along among the shadows, which is crossed 

 by stepping-stones, that lead into still more mysterious 

 depths of this miniature wood, in its perfection of indi- 

 vidual beauty when the trees are about twelve or fifteen 

 years old. 



After that the stronger trees begin to shoot up and wres- 

 tle for precedence — the space becomes crowded, the lower 

 limbs, lacking light and room enough, begin to lose their 

 foliage, twigs and dead branches strew the ground. The 

 wood takes on a more sombre character ; blossoms disap- 

 pear ; the thickets grow more difficult to penetrate ; the 

 cheerful garden gives place to the forest, with its solemn 

 dignity, its church-like stillness and gloom, its heavy pano- 

 plies of gray pendent mosses. 



Only the osprey and the crow frequent these solitudes. 

 Heavily the sea-eagle flaps his mighty wings, as laden with 

 his prey he slowly svi'eeps to his ragged nest upon the 

 summit of some lightning-blasted Fir, whence come the 

 screams of his hungry brood. In the openings of the forest 

 grave circles of crows hold their parliament with loud dis- 

 course and surly wrangling. 



Now and then a solitary raven flies low along the edge 

 of the wood, uttering a hoarse and melancholy croak ; 

 through the tall trunks can be discerned the black waters 

 of a sullen sea, and the monotone of its utterance as it 

 breaks against the crags below mingles with the unceas- 

 ing murmur of the forest. A furled white sail makes a 

 spot of light amid the stretch of restless water, where a 

 wave at intervals breaks into foam, but it disappears in 

 the distance, and only the great Spruces creak and groan 

 in the rising wind, and answer the challenge of the sea 

 with mutterings of defiance. On the edge of the cliff 

 the little red-cheeked cranberries glow amid their glossy 

 leaves, and down below, in its rocky clefts, hung all sum- 

 mer with Hare-bells, the clean outline of the Rock Poly- 

 pod is visible against the crumbling granite wall. Now 

 and then a fragment of this crashes into the gnawing sea 

 at its base, which ever scourges and tears at its founda- 

 tions like an avenging Fury. 



Lonely and terrible are the old woods on the wind- 

 torn coast Beside the light-houses that comfort the 

 mariner are seen the bare scathed trunks of dead trees, 

 all blown one way like sign-posts of destruction. The 

 leaping waves seem ever striving to reach them, and these 

 gaunt wraiths of trees take on eldritch forms, and seem to 

 wave defiant arms at their watery enemies. But still the 

 young Spruces and Firs grow and thrive upon the ruins 

 of their ancestors, clothing the crags with verdure, and re- 

 newing daily the youth of the eternal forest, which braces 

 itself afresh to the unending combat with the elements. 



