482 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 242. 



barren acres with fruit-trees, witli the Lime, the Chestnut 

 and the Plane ; possibly with the Elm itself, though Dr. 

 Walker thinks that noble tree may have been brought there 

 by a Crusader. And strange fact in the history of man, 

 his triumph is the triumph also of the garden — its seeds 

 and nuts, its grains and flowers springing up in the foot- 

 steps of Alexander and Xerxes, of Crusader and Spanish 

 Don, to flourish and comfort long after. the mailed hand 

 that brought them was dust. 



Thus in the path of the oppressor came a blessing, " out 

 of the strong came forth sweetness." Here again that hu- 

 man touch links us with the old warrior of the past, bring- 

 ing home from Damascus a Rose-slip to gladden the gar- 

 den of his sweetheart, a sprig of vine to commemorate the 

 hills of Palestine on the borders of some English lake. It 

 is pleasant to think how the memory of his own garden 

 made the Macedonian bring home to Greece the flowers 

 that his master wrested from Darius. The Rose from 

 Persia, the Lily of the farther East, are a bond of common 

 interest between the old world and the new ; between the 

 mailed Past and prosperous Present. The Lotus of the 

 Pharaohs is the glory of a Jersey mill-pond, the Pseony of 

 the Hoang Ho is the ornament of a dooryard by the Charles, 

 our very weeds bind us together to fight a common enemy, 

 and thus the love and care of a garden brings man into fel- 

 lowship with all the sons of Adam. 



who understands thoroughly how to handle horses, make 

 an occupation of taking women and children on drives 

 through interesting and pleasant places ? 



It was recently argued in these columns that it would be 

 desirable for women of artistic taste to learn how to em- 

 ploy it in the proper planning and embellishment of the 

 grounds of their homes, as well as the interiors of their 

 dwellings. If women develop capacity in this direction 

 there should be opportunity for their employment in a pro- 

 fessional vi^ay. Some prejudices as to what constitutes a 

 proper occupation for women would need first to be re- 

 moved. We have in mind the case of a young woman 

 whose father was superintendent of the park system, in a 

 flourishing New England city, and who developed such a 

 taste and capacity for the work that she became his most 

 capable assistant. The eminent landscape-architect who 

 had designed the parks of the place recommended, on 

 the death of the superintendent, that his daughter be made 

 his successor. She knew the duties of the position thor- 

 oughly and appeared altogether the most fit and compe- 

 tent person available for the position. The park commis- 

 sioners promised to appoint her but failed to keep their 

 word, giving as a reason that, while they really desired to 

 do so, the local politicians would never sanction the ap- 

 pointment of a woman to an important position like that. 

 Architecture is becoming a pursuit for women, and our 

 leading architectural journal welcomes them to the pro- 

 fession, saying that their knowledge of household require- 

 ments makes them peculiarly valuable in the planning and 

 designing of dwellings. There is no reason why women 

 should not enter callings that bring them into the healthy 

 life of the open air, if no hard manual labor is demanded. 

 Therefore landscape-gardening is a suitable employment 

 for those who are capable in this direction. Women are 

 now giving themselves to horticulture and floriculture 

 to a considerable extent ; in the latter, particularly, their 

 almost universal love of flowers gives them a peculiar fit- 

 ness for such work. Schools for the training of girls in 

 these employments would be admirable institutions. 



In this connection a novel occupation for women, that 

 has just been brought to our attention, is worthy of mention. 

 The park commissioners of Lynn have recently established 

 a carriage service in their noble great pleasure-ground, the 

 Lynn Woods. At present but one carriage is run, and it is 

 driven by the wife of the man to whom the contract was 

 given, she being fond of open-air life. The fact is highly ap- 

 preciated by the women who, with their children, form the 

 great majority of the patrons, for their driver has a very 

 pleasant and friendly way of pointing out the interesting 

 features of the beautiful route. Why should not a woman. 



All persons who are interested in the preservation of our 

 forests will be pleased to see any efforts to secure econom- 

 ical methods in the manufacture of lumber. Of course, 

 there is a large amount of material which goes to waste, in 

 the shape of slabs, edgings, etc. From twelve and a half 

 to twenty-five and a half per cent, of every log is turned 

 into sawdust, and in addition to the other waste not more 

 than fifty or seventy-five per cent, of any log is used. A 

 great many mills make laths and pickets and the like from 

 slabs, but, after all, the amount of waste which is burned is 

 enormous. In an article entitled the "Waste from Pine 

 Forests," the Northwestern Lumberman comments on the 

 large amount of good material that is wasted in such an 

 instructive way that we give in a condensed form a por- 

 tion of the article : 



The examination of any slab pile will show that much of it 

 can be converted into small articles of common use, which 

 only require lumber which is too short to .be used for lath, 

 pickets or similar stock. Staves for pails and tubs, material 

 for cutlery trays, a vast variety of small boxes, material for toys 

 in endless variety, handles of domestic utensils, window-sash, 

 blinds and screens, besides bridging and small stuff in house- 

 building, can all be manufactured out of these waste products. 

 Perhaps it is safe to say that all these articles, which are used 

 within the limits of the north-west Pine states, could be made 

 from the waste of the saw-mills whicl:i at present is destroyed 

 at great expense, and is only a source of annoyance. This is 

 especially true also of the Yellow Pine districts in the Pacific 

 states. Only a small proportion of the articles named are 

 manufactured in Washington, Oregon and California, that is, 

 while these states are spending money to get rid of the waste 

 of their saw-mills they are importing articles which could be 

 made from this same waste. In any given quantity of logs in 

 California, hardly forty per cent, of their cubical contents ever 

 reaches the market in the shape of merchantable lumber, as 

 can be seen by any one who examines the saw-mills amono' 

 the red-wood or pine of the Cascade range or the Sierra Ne- 

 vada foot-hills. The wastage in the Yellow Pine country runs 

 from thirty-seven and a half per cent, to fifty per cent, of the 

 cubical contents of the log, or, in other words, on an average 

 not over fifty-eight per cent, of the log reaches the market. In 

 England and Continental Europe and in the older states of the 

 east almost every saw-mill has in connection with it some 

 shop for working the refuse from the mill proper into mer- 

 chantable articles, and in many cases the saw-mill is an ad- 

 junct of the other department instead of the reverse, so that 

 the loss of the material of the log is reduced to a minimum in 

 Europe. This working up of forest-products does not stop 

 with the saw-mill waste, but takes up the waste in the forest 

 itself during the process of logging. 



In Massachusetts, Vermont andConnecticut, the great num- 

 ber of little mills have no necessity for a fire-pit, and the 

 choicest pieces of waste can be carried away in a basket. No- 

 where in Europe, except in tlie Scandinavian peninsula and in 

 the Balfic provinces, is fimber cut primarily for the sake of 

 what is ordinarily called lumber. In most countries there are 

 government regulations to prevent the loss of forest-material 

 by manufacturers. Such an interference would be resented in 

 this country, but it must come in time. If a man with a mill- 

 ion dollars in paper currency should be found burning it up, 

 the state would interfere to prevent his insane waste in the in- 

 terest of his heirs and in order to prevent him from becomino- 

 a public charge, and the time is rapidly coming when the 

 question of saving the waste of forest-products, together with 

 saving the energy lost in the combustion of costly fuels, will 

 demand the attention of the best brains of the country, if not 

 governmental interference. 



Certainly these are the most brilliant days in the year, 

 especially when ushered in by a frosty morning which bears 

 the same relation to a merely dry or foggy one at this season 

 that a devi^y morning bears to a parched and languid one in 

 summer. The year seems ripened like a fruit by frost, and 

 puts on the splendid tints of maturity but not yet the color of 

 decay. It is not sere and withered as in November. — Thoreau's 

 Journal, Oct. loth, 1857. 



