August 3, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



361 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tkibune Building, New York. 



Coiiducled by Pioressor C. S. Sahgent. 



KNTHKED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1892. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articlfs :— Foes to Country Road-sides 361 



Botanical Nomenclatnre 362 



Tlic New Jeiscy Ruildinp: at ttie Columbian Fair. (Willi figure.) 362 



Water-plants in Southern New Jersey Mrs. Mary Treat. 363 



Notes on the Flora of Smytlie County, Virginia. — I Anna Murray Vail. 36.1 



New or Little-known Plants : — Richea pandanifolia. (With figure.) 



11^. Watson. 364 



Foreign Correspondence ; — London I-'arks V. C. 366 



Cultural Department :— August in the Vegetable-garden, 



Professor jy. F. Massey. 366 



The Raspb.erry Crop ' E. P. Powell. 367 



Notes on Shrubs J. G. Jach. 367 



Rose Notes /K //. Tajilin. 368 



Some Japanese Bamboos 'y. N. Gerard. 368 



Juncus effusus spiralis. Iris tripetala J. N. G. 369 



The Forest : — The Forest as modified by Human Agency. — II. . . Colonel Bailey. 369 



Correspondence :— Orchard Spraying T. PI. Hoskins, M.D. 370 



Recent Publications 



Notes ^ 



Illustrations ;— Richea pandanifolia. Fig. 61 



Washington Headquarters, at Morristown, New Jersey, Fig. 62 



371 

 372 



365 

 367 



Foes to Country Road-sides. 



AMONG the enemies from whom the country highway 

 needs protection the road commissioner and the 

 electric agent are the most dangerous. The former has 

 town authority for his vandalism, but the other marauder 

 commits his depredations in defiance of law, and, conse- 

 quently, ought to be met by organized opposition. Stat- 

 utes declare that a proprietor is master of the land that 

 abuts upon his boundaries so far as the middle of the high- 

 way, and that he has a right to its grass, its fruit, and to 

 its possession in case the road should ever be discontinued. 

 The town has a right to take what is necessary for the 

 highway, and no more, to which end it may cut down 

 trees and shrubs, plow up grass, and take other liberties 

 at its discretion. The authorities are very apt to stretch a 

 point in this matter, for instances are known where whole 

 rows of stately trees have been sacrificed for the sake of 

 a prospective road which was afterward abandoned, while 

 all entreaties of the owners are disregarded as interfering 

 with the town's right of eminent domain. 



Another depredation is permitted also to that foe of 

 natural grace and beauty, the road-commissioner, whose 

 mistaken zeal is allowed annually to remove the grass 

 which seeks to soften the dusty outline of the road along 

 its untrodden borders and gutters. This is an expensive 

 process and wholly unnecessary, since adding to the dust- 

 capacity of the street is the only service it accomplishes, 

 the short, thick turf affording no obstruction to carriage- 

 wheels. This is called " cleaning-up " the street, when, as 

 a matter of fact, it only adds to its dirt. But a worse 

 phase of the cleaning-up mania is apparent when the zeal- 

 ous commissioner proceeds to remove from the banks of 

 the highway what he terms weeds — namely, the graceful 

 mantle of vegetation with which nature ever seeks to con- 

 ceal the wounds which man has made. It is interesting 



to watch the process by which the devastations of the 

 road-cutter are tempered to the eye by the beautiful natural 

 screen of vines and herbage, which, if let alone, will soon 

 cover the rough unsightly places with a drapery of ver- 

 dure when the reckless workman has left behind him a 

 shorn and barren vi'aste. After his inroads, banks of sand 

 or gravel are left on either side of the wide road, from which 

 every spear of grass has been banished, the fences stand 

 up stiff and stark, the rocks protrude from the soil, the 

 trees which cannot be felled have their lower branches 

 rudely cut away, so that their trunks are gaunt and un- 

 sightly ; stumps are left along the edges of the fields, and 

 the soft turf is replaced by sandy slopes to be gullied by 

 the rain. Without wasting air hour Nature begins her 

 gentle but tireless work of transforming these ruins into 

 beauty. What can be more pleasing than the unmolested 

 edge of an old road, where Hazel and Elder hang out their 

 fruit for the birds, where the fragrant Clethra blossoms, 

 where the wild Grape-vine and the glossy Bramble climb 

 from tree to tree, and wild Roses and Morning-glories 

 brighten the shadows with their smiles. Here in the spring 

 the Trientalis and Anemone make the ground beautiful 

 with their white blossoms, while the Shad-bush waves a 

 welcome to the passer-by. As summer comes the sky- 

 blue Chicory clusters there, the Milkweed and the Epi- 

 lobium show pink and purple amid the foliage, the Mullein 

 lifts its stately yellow blossom from its furry leaves, while 

 the Barberry shows first its arcs of yellow bloom and later 

 its coral clusters of fruit, that contrast well with the great 

 Golden-rod and the splendid purple of the wild Aster in the 

 fall. 



The leafage is dense and varied. Sweet Fern and Bay- 

 berry add to its fragrance with their aromatic odois ; the 

 Alder waves its tassels ; the Swamp Willow lifts its lance- 

 shaped leaves after the catkins are gone ; now and then 

 there is a whiff of fragrance from an Azalea which gladdens 

 the hot breezes of July from a neighboring swamp ; Ferns 

 and young Pines struggle together in their infancy, and 

 here and there a feathery Hemlock rises under the pro- 

 tecting shade of other trees, where it loves to hide from the 

 sunlight. 



The panorama, as you drive or walk, perpetually changes, 

 reveals new charms, hidden beauties, in a wealth that a 

 gardener might envy. Everything, from a Buttercup to an 

 Orchid, may be found along the highway border, while 

 the thrushes and the song sparrow call among the bushes, 

 and the saucy squirrel scolds from the bending boughs 

 above. 



All this is scorned by the thrifty farmer as a nursery of 

 weeds and disease for his crops, and nominally in his in- 

 terest the mower walks abroad with his brush-hook and 

 makes havoc of this charming scene which we enjoy. But 

 who shall excuse the hireling who, in the interests of elec- 

 tric-lights, climbs our trees with spiked shoes that tear holes 

 in the bark, hews away great limbs, leaving the stumps to 

 absorb moisture and decay into the very heart of the old 

 Elm or Maple, or, worse still, places his wire so carelessly 

 that it is found burning the boughs away, so that they fall 

 with a crash, to the peril of the incautious foot-passenger. 



From such depredations as these it seems as if there 

 must be some legal defense. It is useless to remonstrate 

 with the men with anything gentler than a shot-gun, and 

 it seems sometimes as if its use upon such wanton tres- 

 passers would be almost justifiable, so insolent and un- 

 heeding do they become in their irresponsible onslaughts 

 upon private property. 



Sooner or later there must be some legal issue made 

 upon this matter if we are to preserve from mutilation and 

 destruction our fine avenues of trees which now suffer at 

 the hands of these electric depredators, who certainly 

 have no authority for wholesale damage to the trees 

 which may interfere with their lines. It would be well 

 enough if they and the Road Commission would show 

 their zeal in the destruction of such trees as are breeding- 

 places of black-knot and other diseases, or which harbor 



