Aprii, II, i8S8.] 



Garden and Forest. 



73 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY liV 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



[ LIMITED.] 



Conducted by 



Officr : Tribune Building, Nlw York. 

 Professor C- S. Sargent. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL ii, 1888. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles : — Arljor Day.— A Daii^ci-ous Measure. — Street Trees. 



— Notes 73 



Landscape Gardening, VII Jili-s. Schuyler J'tiii Rensselaer. 75 



Which is the Belter Way V B. S. Olmstead. 76 



Cemeteries J. C. Olmsted. 76 



A Disease of Certain Japanese Slirubs \Vm. Falconer. 77 



Fruit Growing in Florida A. H, Ctirtiss. 77 



New or Little Known Plants: Yucca filifera {willi two illustrations). ..C .S". S. 78 



Chionophilajainesii (with illustration) Serena li'atson. 79 



Cultural Department : — Pruning Shrubs S. A. 80 



The Cultivation ol Lilies C. L. Allen. Si 



Seedling Rhododendrons II'. Falconer. 81 



Chrysanthemum Notes — Acacia pubescens — Hardy Rhododendrons 8r 



The Forest: — Tree Planting in California Robert Douglas. S2 



Correspondence S3 



Recent Publications S4 



Retail Flower Markets : — New York, Boston, Pliiladelj^hia 84 



Illustrations: — Yucca filifera. Fig. 13 78 



Yuca tilifera, Fig. 14 79 



Chionophilajainesii, Fig. 15 80 



Arbor Day. 



THIS festival, which originated about a dozen years 

 ago in Nebraska, seems already to have won an 

 established place among American holidays, and some 

 thirty of the States will observe the custom this spring. 

 The very existence of such a celebration is proof of an 

 awakened interest in tree planting ; and that it has been 

 made to a certain degree a public-school holiday is en- 

 couraging, because this indicates the direction in which 

 such exercises may be made to have a genuine value. 



Roadside tree planting is not forestry, nor can it in any 

 way serve the purpose of forest planting or of forest pro- 

 tection. It may be worth while, too, to suggest to some 

 enthusiasts that planting rows of trees by every roadside is 

 not commendable, and that planting the wrong kind of 

 trees in any position, or planting suitable kinds badly, in- 

 variably means disappointment and loss. The failure of 

 many plantations along the railroads of some western 

 States, owing to improper selection and worse care, has 

 wrought injury far beyond the mere loss to the companies. 

 It has discouraged others and engendered a belief that all 

 attempts in this direction are hopeless. Nor will the at- 

 tractive exercises of Arbor Day serve any effective purpose 

 unless the trees are intelligently selected and planted. 

 Distorted and sickly growth or early death of the trees will 

 follow to the disheartenment of all who planted them so 

 joyously and hopefully. 



As a people, Americans are not over sentimental. 

 But this sudden awakening to the peril that threatens our 

 forests, may lead to the error of esteeming it something 

 like a crime to lift up an axe against any tree. Mr. Glad- 

 stone has said that the greatest obstacle to a sound forest 

 policy in Great Britain was the superstition that invested 

 trees with a certain sacredness, so that felling one was 

 looked upon as sacrilege. We occasionally observe the same 

 feeling manifested here by worthy people who, in their 

 new-born zeal, are led to speak of all lumbermen as ene- 

 mies of the human race. Of course there can be no sys- 

 tem of forestry without tree-cutting, and the protest, to 



have any value, should be made against wasteful cutting 

 or the stripping of mountains, where the trees serve a higher 

 purpose as a protection to the water courses than they can 

 when made into lumber. It often happens, too, that to 

 secure the highest landscape beauty, trees that are im- 

 properly placed need to be removed, and every one who 

 has had charge of public parks has been rebuked for 

 vandalism when it was necessary to sacrifice a tree or 

 a group of trees. 



Now, the antidote to any extravagance of this sort is a 

 knowledge of trees and their uses ; and the hopeful feature 

 in this Arbor Da)' celebration is that which makes it 

 essentially a school holiday and connects it with the 

 educational system of the State. It will serve no worthy 

 purpose when the Governor of a great State, as a ].iart of the 

 solemnities, plants White Pines to struggle with the smoke 

 and dust of a city square. But if it can be made an object 

 lesson to the young, as the crowning ceremony of a course 

 of instruction on trees and their needs and uses, it may 

 become an educating influence of serious value. Beyond 

 question, the children of our public schools are entitled 

 to some elementary teaching in regard to the abundant 

 tree growth all about them. It is a scandal that they 

 should grow up in ignorance of the very names of the 

 trees they see every day, and that they should know 

 nothing of their uses or of the laws that control their 

 development. Ability to give instruction in this direction 

 should be required as part of the equipment of every 

 teacher And if, in addition to the instruction received, 

 the children are led to plant trees with some holida)' 

 ceremony, they will be likely to watch their growth 

 with a personal interest and note what helps or hinders 

 it. The beautiful custom of planting memorial trees is one 

 against which even the man who delights to stjde himself 

 "practical,'' can offer no objection ; and if a child is in- 

 duced to give closer observation to a tree because it is 

 called by his name, the gain is substantial ; for the cultiva- 

 tion of habits of observation and comparison is of itself an 

 education. 



Arbor Day will exert a beneficent influence if it does any- 

 thing to hasten the time when even the children can give 

 an intelligent reason for choosing a particular tree for a 

 given place or purpose, and when they kno\v how to plant 

 it properly, and to give it the care it needs thereafter. 



A Dangerous Measure. 



A BILL authorizing the Forest Commissioners of this 

 State to lease portions of the forest preserve, not ex- 

 ceeding five acres in extent, and for periods not exceeding 

 five years in length, has already passed the Assembly and 

 awaits the action of the Senate. This bill emanates 

 from the Commissioners, whose duty it is to protect 

 and preserve the State forests, and they recommend and 

 urge its passage. It is a measure fraught with danger 

 to the Adirondack forests, and it ought to be defeated. 



The history of this bill, and the reasons which have in- 

 duced the Commissioners to recommend this remarkable 

 policy, are, as we understand them, briefly these : A large 

 number of persons have, at different times, entered upon 

 the State domain, within what is now the forest preserve, 

 and, without legal authority, have built for themselves 

 summer homes on the land thus occupied. Many of the 

 most beautiful islands in Lake George, and some of the 

 most desirable sites on. the Adirondack lakes, are now held 

 in this way by squatters. Among them are men of wealth, 

 and men of social and political influence. These facts make 

 the position of the Commissioners a delicate and diflicult 

 one. If they allow the squatters to remain, they lay them- 

 selves open to serious charges of malfeasance in the exe- 

 cution of a public trust; if they take steps to have them 

 removed from the State lands they create personal hostility 

 against themselves. They hope, however, by obtaining 

 authority to lease portions of the forest, to legalize this 

 unlawful occupation of State lands, and at the same time 



