March 14, i888.] 



Garden and Forest. 



25 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY IIV 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



[ LIMITED.] 



Ofpice : Tribune Building, New York. 

 Conducted l)v Professor C. S. Sargent. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 18 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles : — The Future of our Forests. Hai-dy Rliododcndrons. Sir 

 Joseph Hooker Tribute to Asa Gray 



Laws alone Cannot Save our Forests J . B. Harrison. 



Landscape Gardcnine, III lilvs. Scliitylcr I 'ait Rensselaer. 



The Suburbs in Marcli Charles Eliot, 



California Christmas Flor^ C. L. Anderson^ M.D. 



Foreign Correspondence :— London Letter U'llliaiii Goltiring. 



Palms for House Decoration Robert Craig. 



A View in Central Park (vyith illustration) ''. . 



Plant Notes : — Lilium Parryi. A New Mornine Glorv. Some Hardy Wild 

 Flowers. ■ Phajus fuberculosus. New Vegeta&les 



Aquilegia longissima (with tigure) Serena IFaison. 



A Weeping Beech (with illustration) 



Cultural Notes : — Chrysanthemums. Asparagus plumosus. Chamaecyperis- 

 sus obtusa. Magnolias. Covering Bulbs 



Streptosolen Jamesonii. Mulching Shrubbery Beds ll'm. Falconer. 



Grapes for Home Use E. IVilliavts. 



The Forest:— The Hardwood Forests of the South Karl Mohr. 



Acacia decurrens 



Rf.cent Publications : — Manuel de rAccliinateur. A Manual of Orchidaceous 



Plants- Handbiich der Coniferen 



Recent Plant Portraits 



Public Works : — A Park for I^isboii 



Flower Market : — New York — Philadelphia — Boston 



Illustrations : — .\ View in Central Park 



Aquilegia longissima, drawn by C. F.. Faxon 



A Weeping Beech 



The Future of Our Forests. 



THE forests of the United States play an important part 

 in the economy of the nation. Their annual pro- 

 duct far exceeds in value any of our great staple crops of 

 the field. The gold and silver mined in the country is 

 insignificant in value compared vv^ith the money value of 

 the forest crop. It is difficult to picture the commercial 

 and agricultural ruin which would follow any general dis- 

 turbance of the productive capacity of our forests. No other 

 country could supply us with the material we should thus 

 lose, and we should lose, too, something more important 

 even than the material they yield. Forests are often much 

 more than storelrouses of growing timber They are essen- 

 tial in some parts of the country to insure the integrity of 

 mountain slopes and the preservation of important rivers : 

 and the destruction of mountain forests is invariably fol- 

 lowed sooner or- later by serious physical calamities. 



The forests of this country are rich, varied and extensive. 

 They still contain vast stores of many valuable timbers. 

 In some of the most important forests serious inroads, to be 

 sure, have already been made, and the practical extermina- 

 tion, from a commercial point of view, of some of our most 

 valuable timber trees, now seems inevitable. Much of our 

 country nevertheless is perfectly suited in soil and climate 

 to rapid and ^'igorous tree-growth. The forests which once 

 extended in an unbrnlien sweep from the Atlantic to be- 

 yond the Mississippi and which still cover the great 

 mountain ranges facing the Pacific, clearly show the ca- 

 pacity of this country to produce forests unequaled in value 

 by those of other parts of the world. It is only in the in- 

 terior portions of the continent, insufficiently supplied with 

 moisture, where the forests are scanty or altogether 

 wanting, that their reproduction and extension offer any seri- 

 ous difficulties. Everywhere outside the dry belt, forests 



can be grown and extended with ease and rapidity if the 

 simplest laws of nature are observed. And there is land 

 enough in the United States suitable in every respect for 

 forest growth, but utterly unfit for agricultural use, to sup- 

 ply with forest products any possible population this coun- 

 try can contain. 



But in spite of these natural advantages, in spite of the 

 variety and value of our forests, all thoughtful persons 

 familiar with their present condition and the dangers 

 which threaten them under existing social conditions, must 

 be filled with apprehension at the almost inevitable de- 

 struction of their productive capacity. 



Americans are still surprisingly ignorant in regard to 

 their forests and the simplest laws which should govern their 

 management. This indifference is astonishing. We cut 

 recklessly and often needlessly ; and often fail to cut 

 when cutting is essential. Fires are allowed to run un- 

 checked year after year through the forest or to sweep over 

 land upon which new forests would naturally appear. 

 Cattle and other domestic animals range at will through 

 the woods, injuring trees and exterminating seedlings. Our 

 civilization and our foresight as shown in the care of our 

 forests, is the civilization and the thrift of France two cen- 

 turies ago. In no other civilized nation of the world are 

 forests so recklessly managed. 



Americans are impatient of any restraint or interfer- 

 ence in the management of their property. And yetunles.s 

 American land-owners, like the land-owners of nearly every 

 other civilized people — Great Britain now being the only 

 important exception — are wiUing to submit to laws, regu- 

 lating under proper official control the cutting of their 

 forests and the use of their land for agriculture or forest, 

 according to its quality, we must not expect to keep up our 

 forest supplies. These supplies are still enormous, but no 

 forests, whatever their extent or richness, are inexhaustible. 

 As one of the wisest observers of all social problems and 

 one familiar, too, with the requirements of the forest has 

 pointed out in another column of this issue, the condition of 

 public sentiment required to make a proper management 

 of our forests possible, will develop slowly. Americans as a 

 nation need instruction in the laws which govern forest 

 growth and forest management. This lesson they will not 

 learn readily or quickly, and it is probable that they will 

 not learn it thoroughly until compelled to by dire necessity. 



Hardy Rhododendrons. 



THE cultivation of hardy Rhododendrons, especially 

 varieties of the race which English gardeners have 

 produced by crossing the American Rhododendroti Cafaw- 

 biense with different Himalayan species with highly colored 

 flowers, like R. arhoreum, has greatly increased in this 

 country of late years. Many Americans, probably, first 

 learned the beauty and value of these plants for orna- 

 mental gardening at the Centennial Exhibition in Phila- 

 delphia, "where an P^lnglish nurseryman displayed under 

 canvas a large and well arranged collection of the best 

 varieties. That we know so much about these plants here, 

 and have learned which can and which cannot be success- 

 fully grown in the United States, is very largely due, how- 

 ever, to the experiments in Rhododendron culture long 

 carried on by Mr. Hunniwell in his beautiful gardens at 

 Wellesle)^ in Massachusetts. 



The cultivation of these Rhododendrons is very simple. 

 They thrive best in deep peaty soil, and when placed so 

 as to escape the stimulating influence of the warm sun ot 

 eady spring. Impatient of drought. Rhododendrons in this 

 country give the best results wdien planted in situations 

 which never become thoroughly dry in summer, like the 

 borders of ponds or swamps, or in which they can be 

 freely and frequently watered ; and in order that they 

 may bloom well they should not be placed under the 

 immediate shade of overhanging trees. No plants are 



