26 



Garden and Forest. 



[March 14, iSSS, 



more easily transplanted. The cultivation of Rhododen- 

 drons, however, must always be restricted in the United 

 States to a comparatively small area. A limestone soil is 

 fatal to them. All attempts to introduce them west of the 

 Hudson River have failed, therefore, and even along its 

 eastern bank they have never grown satisfactorily. Morthof 

 Massachusetts the ^^• inters are too cold, \\'hile south of 

 Pennsylvania they cannot support the hot, dry summers of 

 the seaboard region. They will probably succeed any- 

 where in Pennsylvania east of the mountains; liut some day 

 it will be found that lliey can be more successfully grown 

 in the mountains of Virginia and the Carolinas, where 

 summer droughts and excessive cold are unknown, than 

 in other parts of the country. Here is the true home in 

 America of broad leaved evergreens, and here sooner nr 

 later will be seen a garden of these hybrid Rhododendrons, 

 only surpassed in splendor by that natural garden where 

 the native Rhododendrons spread in countless thousands 

 over the upper slopes of the noble Roan Mountain. 



The question is often asked. Which varieties of these 

 hybrids are hardy ? The following list embraces the 

 best of those which have for man}' years proved perfectly 

 hardy in the climate of eastern New England ; Everestia- 

 num — with rosy lilac flowers — one of the oldest and 

 freest blooming of the whole race, unequaled in habit 

 and beauty of foliage ; Lady Armstrong, pale rose ; 

 Charles Dickens, dark scarlet ; Album elegans and Album 

 grandiflorum, pale blush ; Charles Bagley, bright red ; 

 Delicatissimum, later in flowering than many of the others 

 — the flowers blush, tinged with pink towards the margin of 

 the petals ; King of the Purples, a free blooming variety 01 

 good habit, with rather dark purple flowers ; H. W. Sargent, 

 a very late bloomer with large trusses of crimson flowers, 

 but rather defective in habit ; Roseum elegans, an old and 

 long tried variety of excellent habit ; Purpureum grandi- 

 florum ; Mrs. Milner, crimson ; Alexander Dancer, the 

 flowers fine and large, rose, with a light centre, but the 

 habit of the plant not good ; Hannibal, a late blooming 

 variety with rose-colored flowers. 



There are other varieties no doubt which are hardy 

 in Pennsylvania, or on Long Island where a great deal 

 of attention has been given to the cultivation of these 

 plants. 



Sir Joseph Hooker, of all his contemporaries, can speak 

 with the greatest authority of the position of Asa Gray, in 

 the hierarchy of botanists. The friendship of these two 

 men, the one English the other American, extended over 

 a period of fifty years. The sympathy which existed 

 between them was ne^■er broken, and to no one else did 

 the American botanist write so constantly or so freely. 

 The following extract, therefore, from a sketch of our 

 associate's life, by his English friend, printed in a recent 

 number of Nature, is of peculiar interest : 



"When the history of the progress of botany during the 

 nineteenth century shall be written, two names will hold high 

 positions— those of Prufessor Augustin Pyrame De Candolle 

 and of Professor Asa Gray. In niany respects the careers of 

 these men were very similar, though they were neither fellow- 

 countrymen nor were they conteiiipora'ries, for the one sank 

 to his rest in the Old World as the other rose to eminence in 

 the New. They were great teachers in great schools, prolific 

 writers, and authors of the best elementary works on botany 

 of their day. Each devoted half a century of unremitting la- 

 liors to the investigation and description of the plants of conti- 

 nental areas, and they founded herbaria and libraries, each in 

 his own country, which have become permanent and quasi- 

 national institutions. Nor were they unlike in personal quali- 

 ties, for they were social and genial men, as active in aiding 

 others as they were indefatigable in their own researches ; and 

 both were admirable correspondents. Lastly, there is much 

 in their lives and works that recalls the career of Linnaeus, of 

 whom they were worthy disciples, in the comprehensiveness 

 of their labors, the excellence of their methods, their judicious 

 conception of the limits of genera and species, the terseness 

 and accuracy of their descriptions, and the clearness of their 

 scientific language." 



Laws Alone Cannot Save Our Forests. 



THE greatest obstacle in the way of a rational and 

 practical treatment of the subjects and interests con- 

 nected with Forestry in this country is the lack of thought 

 among our people. There are reasons for this want of 

 thought, and it is well to understand the facts of Ihe exist- 

 ing condition of things. ]\Iost Americans are busy in 

 making a living, and their energies are entirely applied 

 and absorbed in business pursuits, so that they have no 

 force or energy which remains unemployed, or which can 

 be spared from the occupations which already engage their 

 powers. There are many other persons who ha^ e not 

 been taught or trained to think on any subject. They 

 have no ability to represent to themselves, by the picture- 

 making power of the imagination, any subject which has 

 the least comjjlexity, or any scheme of facts and of their 

 relations to each other. They cannot consider such a sub- 

 ject, cannot compare or classify tacts, or draw inferences 

 from them. This want of the ]iower of thought is one of 

 the chief hindrances to o\\\ advancement in civilization. 



The only constituency to which we can at first directly 

 appeal in the effort for an intelligent treatment qf Forestry 

 subjects, is the class of men and women who have some 

 power of thought, and whose personal force is not already 

 wholly employed in affairs. They have some ability to 

 direct their faculties to new topics, and have enough pub- 

 lic spirit, or regard for the general welfare, to incline them 

 to give attention to whatever can be show n to have vital 

 relations to the interests of the community or of the nation. 

 In order to reach this class of persons there must be a 

 clear, vital, coherent, systematic and cf)ntinuous presenta- 

 tion of the facts and essential relations of the subject in 

 hand, with such variety of illustration, application and re- 

 currence to the original central object and purpose as shall, 

 produce in the minds of readers a \W\A and abiding im- 

 pression and conviction of the true nature and importance 

 of the doctrines which arc to be inculcated, and of the 

 practical objects which such teaching is intended to pro- 

 mote or secure. A vital, intelligent, comprehensive and 

 iterant treatment of the subject of Forestry, and of the in- 

 terests connected with it, is greatly need-ed. 



Such treatment as this topic has hitherto received in this 

 country has been mostly fragmentary, incoherent and 

 vague. As it is usually handled the whole matter is too 

 much "in the air." There is a good deal of hammering 

 upon the importance of the general subject, without suf- 

 ficient observation and comparison of concrete facts and 

 conditions here in America. The study of European 

 methods and results in Forestry by competent men is, of 

 course, highly valuable, but it is not enough. It is not 

 even the most important thing for us. Nothing can be 

 \^ery useful to us which is not based u])on careful study of 

 the facts and conditions which are peculiar to this country. 

 We should have in time a system of American Forestry — 

 we must have it, indeed, if we are to a\-oid serious disas- 

 ters to our national interests and civilization. We cannot 

 import and adopt ready-made European systems or meth- 

 ods. The Forestry of this country must be the product of 

 growth which has, as yet, scarcely begun. It will be de- 

 \-eloped by continued and widespread observation, and by 

 constant comparison of the results of practice. It is neces- 

 sary to remind ourselves that no useful system of Forest 

 management can be originated or created b)' legislative 

 enactment. There must be considerable special knowl- 

 edge, and considerable national good sense regarding the 

 needs of this country, behind Forestry laws, or they will 

 be not only useless but mischievous. 



The work required to effect any considerable actual ad- 

 vance in Forestry in this country must be long and ditifi- 

 cult. Such objects can be attained only by the development 

 of such intelligence, thought and sentiment, in a considera- 

 ble proportion of our population, as shall secure a sensible 

 and practical treatment, in individual and collective action, 

 of the whole matter of the relations of Forests and Trees to 



