538 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 246. 



only in small piles as far apart as the length of the straw will 

 admit. 



Coarse stable-manure jjossesses a natural warmth beyond 

 other substances, besides being an excellent fertilizer. Yet it 

 is more apt to smother plants than either of the others, if 

 carelessly applied. But even when very fine, a uniform ap- 

 plication half an inch deep would be safe, and can be left on 

 as a mulch through bearing time, the weeds being kept down 

 by hand. When an inch of pine-needles or grain-straw was 

 used, quite two-thirds should be removed from over the plants 

 in early spring and left between the rows. Should the alleys 

 between the rows be too narrow the surplus straw must be 

 taken off the bed and piled elsewhere. 



Ordinary forest-leaves are often successfully used, weighted 

 down like grain-straw. Even chips or sawdust are better than 

 nothing, provided they are not suffered to accumulate on the 

 bed to tlie detriment of the soil. In a moderate climate, say 

 where the mercury keeps above ten degrees, Fahrenheit, 

 evergreen bushes or boughs would be equal, or possibly su- 

 perior, to pine-straw. 



In short, there are so many things available for this purpose 

 that no gardener, unless he is wofully lacking in energy and 

 ingenuity, need fail to find some of them. Anything that pro- 

 tects without smothering will answer. A safe rule is to apply 

 nothing too deep to prevent a slight freezing of the ground in 

 severest weather. The proper time to apply is as soon as the 

 ground freezes an inch deep. Rake off the surplus before it 

 is time for the plants to start into growth. Here I find that 

 from December ist to March loth to be the best average dates 

 to cover and uncover, respectively. 



There is another very good use to which this straw, etc., 

 may be put. As it lies between the rows after being drawn 

 off the plants in spring, it can easily and quickly be drawn 

 back on them to save the lilooms from frost. In case of pro- 

 tracted cold, it can safely be allowed to remain for three or 

 four days without damage to the plants. Its removal is also a 

 small matter. Even where cold snaps should occur repeatedly 

 the raking on and off the straw would consume only a few 

 minutes each time, and be many times repaid by a crop of 

 fine early berries, which would otherwise be destroyed. 

 Kittrell, N. c. 0. IV. Blackiiall. 



Correspondence. 



Forests in California. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The subject of the preservation of Californian forests is 

 seldom discussed without some reference being made to the 

 injury wrought by roving bands of sheep, and by the fires 

 which follow in their wake. Throughout the high Sierra 

 sheep are pastured only in summer, and find winter feed in 

 the foot-hills and valleys. In the high mountains tfie land be- 

 longs to the Government for the most part, and the sheep are 

 nomadic. Young trees are killed by browsing, while, by acci- 

 dent or design, fires start which sweep over vast areas, killing 

 the young conifers and much large timber as well. 



I only allude to the connection between sheep and forestry 

 in the Sierras to emphasize a curious paradox in another sec- 

 tion. Lying from the sea-coast back for fifty to one hundred 

 miles, and reaching in California from San Bernardino on the 

 south to the Oregon boundary and continuing through Oregon 

 and Washington, the Coast-range is a vast mountain system 

 enclosing numerous valleys. In northern California a belt of 

 coniferous trees, mostly Redwood, lies next to the sea-coast, 

 and in Oregon and Washington the Coast-range is covered 

 with Spruce and Fir. Outside of the Redwood region and the 

 groves of Yellow Pine, of comparatively small area, the Coast- 

 range ni California is a region of Oaks and other deciduous 

 trees, with large tracts of grassy slopes, and equally large 

 areas of low, dense brush, locally called Chemisal and Chap- 

 paral. 



This whole mountainous section is devoted to sheep. The 

 land, or enough to control it, is owned by the sheep-owners 

 in tracts large enough to carry flocks of from 1,000 to 20,000 

 head, which range over the same country throughout the 

 year. Now, it is a matter of common remark throughout 

 this section that the brush is encroaching rapidly upon the 

 open slopes or grazing-land. That it should be so seems 

 strange, flatly contradicting, as it does, our preconceived ideas 

 of what the effect should be. It would seem that in the ages 

 past the timber woifld have covered all suitable areas. To 

 understand why we have this result we must study conditions. 

 Before the white occupation all of these open slopes were 

 covered in summer with a luxuriant growth of grass. Wild 



Oats grew waist-high, and other grasses in proportion. Fires 

 were started I)y natural causes, or by the Indians, who fired 

 the grass to drive game from cover or to open up the brush 

 for future hunting; and these periodical burnings had such a 

 great heat as to kill trees or shrubs of most sorts in the grass- 

 lands and to keep down tiie hardiest sorts. 



When these mountains became private property and sheep 

 were run on them, the luxuriant growth was kept down. 

 Many natural grasses are killed out and replaced by foreign 

 grasses. I have seen the entire range of grass change twice. 

 Sheep-trails and grass eaten to the ground stop the spread of 

 fires, and then, too, there is not such a mass of tinder to 

 make so intense a heat. Grass is the sheepman's capital, and 

 he carefully guards against brush or grass fires. The sheep 

 can by browsing do little injury to the Oaks, and will scarcely 

 touch the Laurel, Manzanita or MadroHa. 



As a result, we not only find the brush and woodland en- 

 croaching on the pasture, but the dense thickets of brush are 

 becoming woodland by shading out the weaker growth. 



Ukiah, Cal. Carl Purdy. 



Late Flowering of Jackman's Clematis. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — Passing along a street in Marblehead, Massachusetts, 

 I was suprised to see this morning (October 29th) a splendid 

 specimen plant of Clematis Jackmani that had been trained 

 above the second story of a house, and which presented a 

 mass of most gorgeous bloom on all its terminal shoots. 

 Without doubt, there were from twenty-five to thirty perfect 

 flowers, and of more than ordinary size individually. That this 

 gorgeous effect would be possible at this date would ordi- 

 narily seem quite incredible, but is illustrative of the unusu- 

 ally late autumn which we are experiencing. 



Reading, Mass. J: Woodward Mantling. 



Periodical Literature. 



Citing as its authority Mr. C. W. Hayes, who not long ago 

 explored the Yukon District of Alaska, the Poptclar Science 

 Monthly for November says that in the interior plateau of the 

 Cordilleran andSt. Elias regions "surface degradation is greatly 

 retarded by the luxuriant growth of moss, which covers prac- 

 tically the entire surface of the country. The annual precipi- 

 tation is largely confined to the winter months, and the water 

 from the melting snow is held by the sponge-like moss, which 

 remains saturated throughout the short but hot and dry sum- 

 mer. Thus, with a rainfall which in lower latitudes would 

 condition an arid region, a large part of the surface is swampy, ■ 

 quite irrespective of slope — that is, wherever the material com- 

 posing it is sufficiently compact to become impervious to 

 water on freezing. On account of this slow and imperfect sur- 

 face drainage, the slopes are not cut into the ravines and 

 arroyas so characteristic of arid regions." 



Last year Mr. Frederick Le Roy Sargent published a note in 

 the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club with regard to a Lin- 

 den which did its best to profit by an injury to its trunk by 

 throwing out adventitious roots to feed upon the decaying 

 wood within. This has called forth accounts of similar in-, 

 stances of abnormal growth from several other observers, and 

 Mr. Sargent now publishes them in the Popular Science 

 Monthly for November in an article called "Economical 

 Trees," in which the foregoing and a number of new exam- 

 ples are brought together in an interesting comparison. Sev- 

 eral good illustrations accompany the paper, the most remark- 

 able of them showing the trunk of an old Mulberry which 

 stands at Thomasville, Georgia. Of this Mulberry, its owner, 

 Dr. T. S. Hopkins, writes : " I have had an intimate acquaint- 

 ance with this old tree for thirty years. I do not know how old 

 it was when I first knew it. Some fifteen years ago it was up- 

 rooted by a storm. I carefully amputated its limbs and re- 

 erected its body. It lived and improved, and to-day furnishes 

 as much shade as it did before its fall, and the surgical opera- 

 tion made necessary by it." Mr. Sargent adds that "in point 

 of size, extent of decay and the number and thickness of its 

 adventitious roots, it would seem to be much the most striking 

 example of an economical tree thus far described. The trunk 

 is now about three feet or more in diameter, and so much de- 

 cayed as to leave merely a shell of no great thickness. The 

 adventitious roots are some of them as thick as a man's arm. 

 They all ramify through the disintegrating heart of the tree, 

 and the longest of them appear to reach the earth. Besides 

 saving from waste the products of decay, these roots must add 

 considerable strength to the weakened trunk. This feature is, 



