August 3, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



369 



chiku is the Black Bamboo (B. nigra in French catalogues) ; 

 Hamchiku is the Spotted Bamboo. Coming from this 

 warm section, which, I believe, has a somewhat humid atmos- 

 phere, the Bamboos seem to require a warmer spring than 

 ours to give them an early start. In my garden, at U.'iist, wliich 

 has a cold, clayey soil, they do not seem quite happy, and be- 

 gin to make growth rather late in the spring. A temperature 

 of sixty degrees and upward seems to be required to malte 

 them move. It is very probable that my plants, wliich have 

 been established about two years, are in loo heavy soil and in 

 too dry a position to do their best, and that with careful iilant- 

 ing and attention they might make a more thrifty growth, but 

 I doubt if, with their late-moving habit, they are likely to prove 

 satisfactory to any but growers who fancy unusual plants. 

 They are the slowest of plants, also, to become established, 

 and are not things to be shifted from one position to another 

 at the pleasure of the grower. 



As pot-plants for conservatory decoration they grow some- 

 what better, the humid atmosphere seeming to suit them, and 

 their peculiar decorative value is useful among tropical plants. 

 Being grown there they also resent moving outside, and 

 quickly show their resentment by withering foliage. As far as 

 my experience goes, I am forced to conclude at present that 

 the Bamboos are in the garden much inferior in value to the 

 other noble Grasses, as Eulalias, Arundos, Erianthus, etc., 

 which so rapidly each season form grand masses of graceful 

 foliage, and require little care or attention. However, as it is 

 the uncommon and difHcult plants which sometimes prove the 

 most interesting, it is to be hoped that further trials of the 

 Bamboos may allow more favorable reports. 

 Elizabeth, N.J. J.N.Uerard. 



Juncus effusus spiralis. — The spiral-leaved Rush is a curious 

 and interesting plant. A typical Rush-leaf is as stiff and straight 

 as possible, but this variety has smooth green leaves which 

 twist into perfect spirals resendjling exactly a wire corkscrew. 

 It is, perhaps, useless to speculate on the conditions which 

 have caused tliis otherwise modest plant to take on such a form. 

 It is a low-growing plant with no climbing tendency, and the 

 spiral has no apparent use beyond e.xcitingcuriosity. Likeother 

 Rushes it is a bog-plant, or one for wet places. Juncus Zebri- 

 nus, the Zebra Rush, is another bog-plant well worth growing, 

 the tall stems being striped green and white, and the plant 

 having the appearance of a lot of porcupine-quills. It grows 

 very thriftily in a pan immersed in water. 



Iris tripetala flowered last week, quite finishing the season of 

 the family. This is a native variety from Florida, seemingly 

 not quite hardy here. The leaves are dwarf and somewhat 

 glaucous. The flowers purple with wide falls. cv a? ^ 



Elizabeth, N.J. jt.N. G. 



The Forest. 



The Forest as modified by Human Agency. — II. 



THE following is a continuation of the extracts pub- 

 lished last week from an introduction to a course of 

 forestry-lectures delivered before the University of Edin- 

 burgh in their session 1891-92 by Colonel Bailey : 



" But although the absence of sufficient home-grown produce 

 has not hitherto caused much inconvenience, there is no doubt 

 that, as time goes on, we shall have to go farther and farther 

 afield for our supplies of timber ; and that, partly owing to in- 

 creased local demand in the foreign countries whence we have 

 been accustomed to draw them, and partly to the productive 

 power of the forests having become impaired by overcutting 

 and other injurious treatment, our importations from several 

 of the most important of those countries are falling olT, and it 

 may be safely predicted that these supplies will, in course of 

 time, considerably decrease, and that the price of imported tim- 

 ber will rise in a corresponding degree. We may, of course, 

 eventually be able to bring to market the produce of even the 

 most inaccessible forests of the Dark Continent to supply our 

 ever-increasing needs ; but it must be said that our future sup- 

 plies are by no means secured, and that the time has arrived 

 at which it has become our duty to take stock of the situation, 

 and to consider what can advantageously be done to increase 

 the timber production of our islands, so that we may be in a 

 better position than we now are to meet, as far as possible, 

 any interruption in the steady current of our importations 

 which might occur owing to a partial failure of our foreign 

 sources of supply, to the outbreak of war or otherwise. 



" Dr. Schlich estimates that we might be able to grow at 

 home ^13,000,000 worth out of the ;/;23,ooo,ooo worth of forest- 

 produce we import annually ; and the forests created with this 



main object would give employment to a very large number 

 of laliorers, and would at the same time serve to protect agri- 

 cultural crops from the effects of injurious winds, and to af- 

 ford shelter to cattle and useful species of birds. 



"The desired increase in the amount of home-grown timber 

 might be obtained by taking measures: (i) To obtain from our 

 existing woodlands the maximum quantity of the best kind of 

 produce that the soil is capable of yielding; and (2) To in- 

 crease the wooded area Ijy planting and sowing up such por- 

 tions of our waste lands as cannot be more profitably utilized. 

 It must be confessed that to accomplish either of these things 

 is not an easy matter in many parts of the kingdom, because, 

 while some existing woods are maintained principally on ac- 

 count of their picturesque beauty, a much larger number are 

 kept up as game-preserves, and their proprietors have no wish 

 that they should be treated with a view to obtain from them 

 their maximum yield of wood. Again, vast areas of ground 

 in Scotland are kept under Heather as grouse-moors and so- 

 called 'deer-forests,' which have hardly a tree upon them, and 

 these are greatly valued for the sport which, in their present 

 condition, they afford, so that their owners do not desire to 

 convert them into forests of trees. But in spite of these disad- 

 vantages the area of woodland now available for systematic 

 treatment is very considerable, and it might certainly be 

 largely increased with great advantage to the proprietors of the 

 land, as well as to the country at large, not only on account of 

 the increased production of forest-produce, but also by reason 

 of the larger employment of labor that would follow a move- 

 ment to extend the forests. The following sentences are taken 

 from a recent article in the Times newspaper on ' Men and 

 Deer in Scotland': 'Deer-forests by no means bring their 

 owners tlie large rentals popularly supposed. The famous 

 Blackmount Forest does not yield, it would appear from the 

 Crown agent's figures, sixpence an acre. The group of forests 

 in Inverness-shire, belonging to Mrs. Chisholm, is let at about 

 threepence an acre. Even one penny an acre is not an un- 

 known rate. In Sutherlandshire sporting rents seem to be, on 

 the whole, higher than elsewhere. But one shilling an acre 

 would appear to be quite unusual ; and we have no reason to 

 think, notwithstanding the popularity of deer-stalking and the 

 growth of wealth, that rents will improve. Many Highland 

 proprietors let their shootings as regularly as they let their 

 farms, and these are not times in which they are likely to turn 

 a deaf ear to people who say, with any show of good sense, 

 "I can tell you how to make more out of your estate than by 

 afforesting it." ' 



" It is not necessary for me to say that ' afforestation,' in the 

 sense in which it is here used, is the exact opposite of the kind 

 of afforestation that we are assembled here to study, and how 

 such a misleading term as 'forest' came to be applied to a 

 tract of land which is devoid, or almost devoid, of trees, and 

 on which it is not intended to promote the growth of trees, I 

 cannot explain.* If the figures given in tlie Times are any- 

 thing like correct, the rate per acre derivable from a deer- 

 forest cannot be called high. The average profit on the whole 

 of the French forests, taken together, was, for the three years 

 immediately preceding 1886, about seven shillings an acre. 

 But, of course, the really important point is the rate of interest 

 on their capital value which shootings and forests respectively 

 yield. Dr. Schlich, basing his calculation on Weise's Yield 

 Tables for the Scots Pine, concludes that land which cannot be 

 let for the raising of field crops, for shooting, or other pur- 

 poses, at a minimum rental of two and a half per cent, on the 

 value of the land, may with advantage be planted up with 

 Scotch Pine or other similarly remunerative tree ; and I fancy 

 that, even after excluding bare upper ranges, which it would 

 not pay to deal with, a good deal of land in Scotland would be 

 found to fall within this definition. 



■■ Forests are not so exhausting to the soil as agricultural 

 crops ; for in the case of the latter the entire plant, except the 

 roots, which are sometimes also taken, is removed ; whereas 

 in the case of a crop of trees, the leaves, flowers and fruit, 

 which are far richer in nutritive elements than the wood, are 

 annually returned to the soil, and thus serve to maintain its 

 productive power, 'as well as, by their protective action, to 

 keep it in a good physical condition. Hence forests can 

 flourish on comparatively poor soil ; some kinds of trees, not- 

 ably most of the conifers, including the Scots Pine, being able 

 to grow on ground that would lie quite incapable of produc- 

 ing a series of remunerative agricultural crops. It is, there- 

 fore, generally speaking, not necessary to select rich fertile 

 soils for the raising of forests, which ought rather to be estab- 

 lished and maintained on ground wdiich cannot be profitably 



*I have since been told that the ground is supposed to carry a 

 antlers I 



■forest" of 



