August 31, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



417 



exposure to the sun. But this condition docs not seem as fa- 

 vorable as tlie protection oi: a cool fjrecnhouse, where the 

 tuberous Begonias generally find their most satisfactory ipiar- 

 ters in an average season in this latitude. Growers who have 

 had much experience with this section of !5egoni;»s must be 

 convinced that the plants require certain conditions tor their 

 welfare, and sometimes need careful attention, which can best 

 be supplied in this climate of sudden changes when the plants 

 liave a certain measure of protection and are under some 

 control. 



Primula obconica grandiflora is the tempting name under 

 which a French nurserymcm offered, this season, the seed of a 

 now I'rimula, said to be a hybrid between P. obconica and 1^. 

 cortusoides. The claim made for this strain was that the 

 flowers were not only larger, but that they had a wider range 

 of color than in the Obconica type. A large lot of these plants, 

 which are young, but very vigorous, fail to show much niix- 

 tiH-e of foreign blood with P. obconica. Among the plants are 

 a limited number which show larger flowers than the type, 

 say, an inch in diameter, and these somewhat in the way of I^. 

 cortusoides. The colors have about the usual range of 

 mauves. Evidently the strain needs selection, but it is ap- 

 parent that the best of the seedlings are an improvement on 

 this valuable flower. A good admixture of P. cortusoides 

 blood with P. obconica would apparently be a great gain, as it 

 would probably give a touch of grace to the flowers, and might 

 possilily produce a race which would be fairly hardy, and a 

 hardy I^rimula of the free-flowering character of P. obconica 

 would be a great gain. Out-of-doors the peculiar irritating- 

 quality of the leaves would not be so great a drawback to its 

 culture. The strain under notice has these qualities rather 

 more highly developed than in any seedlings previously 

 grown by me, rendering them almost impossible plants to be 

 grown in close quarters by any one who has a sensitive cuticle. 



Aster Candelabra seems to be the most distinct new Aster of 

 the year, and apparently worth cultivating. Usually Aster 

 novelties vary onlyfrom theoldtypesincoloring, with occasion- 

 ally a slight change in form, the latest of which were the beau- 

 tiful Comets introduced a few years since. This strain varies 

 principally in the habit of the plant, it being much branched at 

 the base with long stems in the wayof a candelabra, whence it is 

 happily named. Either for bedding or for cutting, this habit 

 renders it well worth growing, as the plant is less compact than 

 the usual type, and produces not only a less heavy effect, but 

 furnishes more long-stemmed flowers. They are to be had in 

 white, rose and violet, and are with reflexed petals. Asters in 

 this locality are devastated by a large black beetle with an ap- 

 petite many times larger than himself, and it is only by con- 

 stant attention and almost hourly hand-picking that one can 

 secure a crop of flowers. These insects are recent arrivals, ap- 

 pearing first some three years ago, before which the Aster 

 crop was as much a thing of course as it is now uncertain. 



Elizabetli, N.J. J.N.G. 



Deforestation in Russia. 



THE following article appeared in a recent number of 

 the Literary Digest. It was translated from the 

 Preussische Jahrbilcher for July. 



When treating of the Russian famine of- 1891-92 in the April 

 number of this magazine, we remarked that this was not to 

 be regarded as a passing incident, but rather as the inaugura- 

 tion of a chronic condition of afiairs traceable to unsystem- 

 atic farming, to the general withdrawal of capital from the 

 land for investment in manufacturing enterprise, under the 

 aegis of a protective tariff, and to the general deforestation of 

 the country, in great part to provide fuel for railroads and pro- 

 tected enterprises. The fatal consequences of this general 

 deforestation are now generally appreciated, the shrunken 

 state of the once noble rivers of the country, and growing 

 aridity of the climate, affording evidence that can neither be 

 overlooked nor gainsaid. 



The regions of the mighty rivers, the Don, the Volga and the 

 Dneiper, the great arteries of Russia, were formerly fringed 

 with wide-spreading forests, along their whole upper and 

 middle courses, which sheltered their sources and tributaries 

 from evaporation throughout the year. These forests have 

 now for the most part disappeared. Mile after mile the trav- 

 eler sees nothing but low scrubs and melancholy stumps in 

 unbroken succession; the "Mother Volga" grows yearly 

 shallower; the steamers find scarcely seven or eight feet of 

 water in mid-stream ; and the ferries pursue their snake-like 

 course from bank to bank in search of the ever-shifting channel. 

 The Don, with its tributaries, is choked ; the sources of the 



Dneiper creep downward, and its chief tributary, the once 

 noble Worskla, with a flow of some 220 English miles, is now 

 dry from source to mouth. 



The city of Poltawa lies on its banks, and it was at its mouth 

 that the .Swedish army surrendered to Peter the Great. This 

 stream, which fertilized a broad region, supporting a numerous 

 population, exists no more — not temporarily run dry, but with 

 all its springs exhausted, so that in future it may be stricken 

 from the map. The Bitjug, another river in the Don region, 

 the upper course has wholly disappeared — valley and bed are 

 fflled to the banks with sand and earth. As if by magic, wide, 

 fertile lands are buried imder the sands, and whole villages 

 desolated. " There has been," says Wiestnik Jewropy, " an 

 unparalleled revolution of natural conditions, which threatens 

 a great part of the country with the heat and aridity of the 

 Central Asian Steppes. The present condition of our black- 

 earth region is so serious, and its future so dangerous, that 

 it cannot possibly escape the serious attention of the Govern- 

 ment, the scientist and the husbandman, to whom the further 

 development of the situation is perhaps a question of life and 

 death." 



There is perfect imanimity in attributing the threatening 

 catastrophe to the denudation of the forests. Inniunerable 

 factories sprang into existence, and, in the absence of any sys- 

 tematic provision for coal-supply, they were erected in the 

 heart of the forest, and, after having consumed all the available 

 fuel within easy distance, their plant was actually sometimes 

 transferred to fresh fields. Thus originated the system of 

 wholesale destruction, which was liberally furthered by the 

 network of railways built to maintain their communication 

 with the great marts of commerce and provide generally for 

 the transport of produce. For the past forty years thousands 

 of locomotives and factories have been run almost wholly 

 with wood without a thought being given to any provision for 

 reproduction. The extension of the railways afforded an op- 

 portLUiity for extracting colossal fortunes from the " worthless" 

 forests. These were the manufacturers' views also ; so the 

 fate of the Russian forests was sealed. "The machines have 

 devoured the woods." 



The recently passed law for the protection of the forests has 

 come fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years too late to avert the 

 destruction of the agricultural region. 



And the Government and people of Russia had already been 

 warned. Forty-two years ago — that is, shortly after the famine 

 of 1847-49 — ws find the following in a letter from the Char- 

 kowski Government to the Imperial Society of Economics : 

 " There are now living people who remember when the present 

 limitless expanse of sand-waste along the banks of the Donez 

 was covered with almost impenetrable forest, interspersed with 

 lakes, which have since dried up or are fast drying up. Our 

 region is flat, deforested, and exposed to all winds. The fatal 

 east wind finds no impediment, and brings ruin in its train. 

 This wind will perhaps at no distant date prove fatal. The 

 Grecian colonies went under probably from the same cause. 

 Protect the forest ; sow, plant forests, protect them with rigor- 

 ous laws. The Volga and Don and all the rivers of southern 

 Russia will be silted up and disappear unless the forests be 

 protected." 



More fatal even than the drying up of the streams is the ces- 

 sation of the spring and summer rains. This is the immediate 

 cause of last year's harvest failure, and on it even depends the 

 current year's harvest. There have been local rains, but not 

 nearly enough. This reversal of old conditions has been 

 coming on gradually with the denudation of tlie forests; and 

 emphatic warnings, as we have seen, have been uttered. The 

 only result has been the appointment of commissions which 

 have done nothing. Remedial measures on a large scale are 

 now contemplated. Are they too late ? 



Correspondence. 

 The Violet Disease. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The article by Mr. Orpet on Violet disease, on page 

 381, was of considerable interest to me. In view of the rav- 

 ages caused by the Violet disease, in a letter written early last 

 spring to the American Florist, I specially requested speci- 

 mens of diseased plants for study at this station. Two ship- 

 ments were received from a grower in eastern Massachusetts, 

 who supplies the Boston market with Violets, and had in 

 March about five thousand plants in one house. The leaves 

 reached me in good condition, but soon turned brown and 

 wilted away. At times the florist had thought that quite a 



