May II, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



219 



sincerely pursued, an excellent help toward the develop- 

 ment of a love for nature. If an intelligent yountj girl 

 would spend an hour a day during a single summer faith- 

 fully trying to set down in paint what she sees in nature — 

 now a flower or a branch, now a bit of sunset-sky, a cor- 

 ner of a hedge-row or a little stretch of river-bank — she 

 would find at the end of the season that she had gained 

 new eyes. She would see a thousand things she had never 

 seen before — find beauty in many that before had seemed 

 ugly, and realize the difference between merely "liking" 

 nature and truly appreciating it. It would not matter if all 

 her studies were failures and were torn up in disgust as 

 fast as they were finished. She would have attained a 

 great end, achieved a real success ; for she would have en- 

 larged her own powers of enjoyment in a way that would 

 sweeten and dignify all the rest of her life. A vast amount 

 of amateur sketching is done in this country every summer, 

 but we fear it is not often done in the spirit and manner we 

 have indicated. The aim is to produce pretty pictures, not to 

 cultivate the painter's own intelligence. And while the 

 aim generally remains unattained, intelligence is scarcely 

 increased ; for as the excellence of the sketch has been the 

 ruling motive, a subject has most often been chosen be- 

 cause it was easy to do, not because it was exception- 

 ally interesting in itself. 



Of course, a thorough scientific acquaintance with natu- 

 ral things need not precede a deep and full enjoyment of 

 them. Indeed, great devotion to scientific study occa- 

 sionally seems, as in the self-confessed case of Darwin, to 

 kill the aesthetic sense. But this is not because science 

 and a love of beauty are necessarily at variance. It is 

 simply because the powers of the human mind are limited, 

 and intense absorption in one aspect of nature may leave 

 no room in life for constant consideration of another side. 



To know the names of plants is often thought by the 

 uninstructed to be the aim and end of botanical study. 

 But a mere acquaintance with these names is not knowledge 

 in the true sense. It is only a necessary step in the gather- 

 ing of knowledge. Names of plants are important just as 

 names of persons are. We must discover the name of a 

 stranger if we are to identify him, to understand his place 

 in society and the world at large, to remember his indi- 

 viduality, and gain more information about him by speak- 

 ing of him to others. And so with the name of a plant. 



In studying botany we learn first such facts as we natu- 

 rally know about human beings. We learn what they are, 

 how they live and grow, what is meant by their nearer or- 

 more distant degrees of relationship, how and why they 

 are grouped in what may be called families, clans, com- 

 munities and nations. And as those who have studied 

 them most profoundly have discovered that their relation- 

 ships depend upon their structure, we must study on these 

 lines to gain any knowledge that is satisfying. 



Surprising are the minute and subtile beauties that will 

 reveal themselves when a plant is studied as well as merely 

 contemplated ; and surprising are the interesting facts that 

 will reveal themselves when its special place in the plant- 

 world and its relationship to other plants are understood. 

 This enlargement of knowledge deepens interest, and, if 

 cesthetic susceptibility exists at all, greatly widens the 

 scope of enjoyment. To a person who knows nothing of 

 botany, the trees and flowers which he calls familiar are 

 like attractive faces which we meet da)'' after day in the 

 street but cannot call by name and have not the privilege 

 of speaking to. To one who has some knowledge of it, 

 familiar plants are like friends about whom everything is 

 known, and new ones are like attractive strangers with 

 whom we can instantly make acquaintance. The same 

 distinction is true in regard to the larger and more perma- 

 nent features of a landscape. These features present 

 themselves as one picture to those who know nothing of 

 geological science and quite another and a much more 

 profoundly interesting one to those who have some true 

 idea of the constitution and history of the solid crust of 

 the earth. 



The true lover of nature, said William Blake, can "see a 

 world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower." 

 But such a power of seeing is not given to many persons 

 at their birth. Eyes are of very little use to most of us 

 unless we have learned how to use them. And the best 

 way to learn how to use our eyes is not to cast them about 

 idly, even though we may take pleasure in so doing, but 

 to discover what there is to be seen in the world and then 

 to try to perceive it all. The wise man not only knows 

 nature better than the ignorant man ; he also sees it very 

 differently; and in this difference lies a vast unlikeness in 

 the amount of pleasure that is gathered by their eyes. But 

 to be wise in this sense one need not be learned in the 

 scientific sense. One need only devote a fraction of his 

 time to a careful study of the natural sciences so as to have 

 a rudimentary knowledge as a solid basis for the super- 

 structure which imagination can be trusted to rear. Any 

 person who possesses the rudiments of a love for nature, 

 whose soul is naturally open to the influences of beauty, 

 will surely go on, by means of personal observation, to a 

 stage of development where his appreciation of and affec- 

 tion for natural objects will grow with his ever-increasing 

 knowledge of the laws and processes which are the sub- 

 jects of scientific study. 



The forests of India offer a most instructive object-lesson 

 for Americans. The waste of valuable wood by the axe 

 and by fire was almost as reckless in that country as in our 

 own until the Government began to take measures to pro- 

 tect it. The first efforts did not strike at the root of the 

 trouble, and therefore much time was wasted until Doctor 

 (now Sir Dietrich) Brandis began working in the right 

 direction. The central idea of Sir Dietrich was that the 

 state should manage the forests for the distinct purpose of 

 securing a revenue, and under his administration marked 

 progress was made at once. Our own forests should be pre- 

 served for other reasons than merely to insure a lasting tim- 

 ber-supply ; but, with the example of India before us, where 

 the forests now yield a revenue of 'two million of dollars a 

 year, there seems no reason why our own public forests, 

 if properly managed by the Government, should not pay 

 for their protection. It will be a great gain for this coun- 

 try when we learn that forest-lands can be wisely cut over 

 without destroying the forests. 



These reflections are suggested by the annual report of 

 the Forest Department of the Madras Presidency for the 

 official year, 1890-91, which contains the usual record 

 of work accomplished in' the year. It appears that 

 the area of reserved forest increased 360 square miles 

 during the year, and that the total area of reserved forests 

 and reserved lands in the southern circle amounted to 8,701 

 square miles. Some of the difficulties which the forest-ad- 

 ministration in India has to encounter appear in the fact 

 that it had to bring 3,990 cases of prosecution for trespass 

 and injury to the forest. Most of these were offences for 

 unauthorized felling of wood and for grazing without per- 

 mission. Conviction was secured in eighty per cent, of the 

 cases prosecuted. Fires, as is always the case in Indian 

 forests, did much damage, one area of 2,700 acres alone 

 having been burnt over. The report states that before the 

 inauguration of the forest-system "it is not too much to 

 assert that the more valuable timbers — that is, the Teak and 

 Rosewood — were being exterminated in all the accessible 

 forest-areas in the southern districts — first, for want of pro- 

 tection, and later on by heavy fellings of all mature trees, 

 without any proper system of care for reproduction and 

 insufficient protection " — a state of affairs which may be 

 seen in every park of North America. The revenue de- 

 rived from the working of the forests in Madras during the 

 year was the highest on record, and the authorities believe 

 that it will increase largely in the future as the system be- 

 comes more fully developed and fairly established. 



In the May number of the American Joxinial of Science 

 and Aris Fiofessor William H. Brewer prints an interesting 



