December 14, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



589 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1892. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGR. 



Editorial Articles : — Tree Butchers 589 



Forest-Iet^islation 589 



Mushrooms 590 



New Enj2:Iand Parks — The Projected Park System of Providence, Rhode 



Island ' Mrs. J. H. Rohbins. 590 



The Weeping Spruce. (With figure.) Thomas H. Douglas. 591 



Noiih Carolina Notes Professor W. F. Masscy. 592 



New or Little-known Plants : — A Double Morning Glory. (With figure.) 592 



Cultural Department : — How to Grow Cyclamens Kenndh Finlayson. 594 



Diseases of the Carnation Professor Byron D. Halsted. 594 



Late Chrysanthemums T. D. H., IV. K. Harris, Eduiin Lonsdale. 595 



Orchid Notes M. Barker. 596 



House-plants for Shady Windows IV. H Taplin. 596 



Notes from the Harvard Botanic Gardens M. Barker. 597 



Correspondence: — Fructification of the Grape Alex. W.Pearson. 597 



Roses in California Without Irrigation H. G. Pratt. 598 



New Cypripediums fos. Manda, Jr. 598 



Plant Labels ..Max Leicktlin. 598 



The River Garden at Coblenz Charles C. Bhiney. 598 



Recent Publications 599 



Periodical Literature 599 



Notes 600 



I llu.strations : — A Double Morning Glorv, Ipomcea purpurea, Fig. loi 593 



Branchlets of the Weeping Spruce (Picea Breweriana), Fig. 102 595 



Tree Butchers. 



IN one of the cities of New Jersey we saw last week a 

 row of Norway Maples where the professional tree 

 pruner had been at work. These trees had been planted 

 more than twenty years, and had made a good even 

 growth, branching some eight feet above the walk from 

 straight trunks which are now about a foot in diameter. 

 All the large limbs had been sawed off a few feet from the 

 trunk, and from the remnants of these limbs an occasional 

 stub was left projecting, so that practically nothing re- 

 mained of what once was a tree but a mutilated stump. 

 All the trees were literally ruined, and ruined, too, by 

 those who meant to do a friendly act — ruined, through ig- 

 norance, by the very process which was intended to pro-, 

 long their lives and add to their beauty and usefulness. 



The men before whose grounds street-trees are planted 

 usually know nothing about them, and cannot even call 

 them hj name, so that when a pair of these professional 

 trimmers, with their equipment of ladders, saws and axes, 

 appear, the proprietor is likely to be impressed with the 

 superior knowledge of these supposed experts, and when 

 they assert that the trees are all growing out of shape, or 

 that their vigor needs to be re-enforced by some pruning, 

 he surrenders at once, and the amputation begins. What 

 will happen next year is that the tree, in its effort to make 

 good its loss of vital organs, will send out from adventitious 

 buds a profuse growth of slender twigs, and these will carry 

 an abundance of leaves, so that the stump will uphold a 

 globular mass of foliage. These leaves will help to 

 prolong the life of the tree by digesting the food 

 taken up by the roots, and although they will appear 

 rank and vigoi-ous, they are premonitions of death rather 

 than promises of new life. Fungi will attack the raw 

 wounds at the extremities of the amputated limbs, and they 



will begin to rot. The decay will soon eat its way down 

 to the base of the .branches, and these will fall. The trunk 

 itself will then be attacked, and the disfigured tree is 

 doomed to certain and early death. 



Now, street-trees sometimes need pruning. If, however, 

 they have l)een originally well selected, a small knife will 

 be all that is necessary, for a few years, to remove an oc- 

 casional branch that starts out in the wrong place. There 

 is rarely any necessity of cutting off a large limb. If this 

 necessity ever does come, the limb should be cut off close 

 to the trunk and the place smoothed over and painted, so 

 that the wound will be ultimately covered with healthy 

 bark. We have often explained that wherever a stub is 

 left this must inevitably die, and as the trunk grows about 

 it there will be a plug of rotted wood where the branch 

 originally grew, and the disease will eat inward and down- 

 ward as the water soaks in from without. After street- 

 trees have attained mature size, pruning is rarely needed 

 beyond the occasional cutting away of a dead branch or 

 the removal of one which interferes with another. 



In most cities property-owners are not permitted to cut 

 down a tree along the street front of their ovini grounds 

 without the permission of the city authorities. In many of 

 these same cities, however, every owner has a right to 

 prune his trees, and when such an owner listens to the 

 persuasions of the professional triminer, his trees, which 

 have been fortunate enough to survive the attacks of the 

 various corporations which operate wires and chop off 

 branches which seem to be in their way, are menaced with 

 a still greater danger. The truth is that the street-trees 

 of every city and town should be in charge of some officer 

 who is acquainted with their requirements. The superin- 

 tendence should begin before the trees are planted. The 

 officer should see that no species are planted which are not 

 suitable for street-trees, and that only well-grown and healthy 

 individuals of these species are selected. They should then 

 be planted at proper distances and with all due care. They 

 should have constant supervision and protection not only 

 against the attacks of insects and disease and injuries in- 

 flicted through wantonness or carelessness, but against the 

 wounds of ignorant pruners. Better have no street4rees 

 whatever than trees which have been abused until they are 

 objects of pity. 



It lacks soine months yet of being two years since the 

 act was passed which conferred upon the President the 

 authority to proclaim reservations of forest-lands. Six 

 reservations have already been made, and, altogether, 

 4,500,000 acres of timber-land have thus been set apart, 

 while twenty-six other locations are under examination by 

 the General Land Office for the same purpose. This with- 

 drawing of forest-land from sale is the first essential step 

 toward any successful policy for preserving the public 

 timber-lands, but, as vi'e are just reminded by a circular of 

 the American Forestry Association, the true policy is not 

 one of total exclusion from forest-land, but rather of open- 

 ing such land for rational use ; that is, forest-lands must not 

 only be protected from fire and plunder, but provision must 

 be made for cutting the timber under proper supervision and 

 precaution, so that the forests will serve their highest pur- 

 pose in the present without any injury to their future. The 

 eleventh annual meeting of the American Forestry Asso- 

 ciation will be held at Washington on the 20th of the 

 present month, and the aim will be to prepare for some 

 efficient administration of the public tiinber-lands which 

 have been or are to be reserved. The .bill of Senator Pad- 

 dock, which is now on the calendar of t-he Senate, con- 

 tains many good provisions, and is an improvement on all 

 former bills vi'hich have looked tovi^ard a comprehensive 

 adininistration of our forest-domain. The present meet- 

 ing will be largely devoted to a consideration of this bill, 

 with efforts to secure the passage of such of its provisions 

 as seem to be of immediate necessity. Nothing but good 

 can come from a full and public discussion of the merits 

 of the measure now before the Senate, and it is to be hoped 



