io6 



Garden and Forest. 



[April 25, 18 



and even in the construction of the wheels, frame and pole 

 (each six or eight inches thick) of the cumbersome carts of 

 the country. 



Associated with the Cottonwood, one sometimes meets 

 with a few scattered specimens of Sd//'x nigra, the Black 

 Willow, in size and aspect, as well as in species, 

 identical with the common Willow of the United States. 

 Its tough, strong and easily worked wood is used by the 

 Mexicans for making saddle-trees. 



Salix irrorata, a Willow which, among the mountains 

 of Colorado, grows but six or eight feet high, sometimes 

 in Chihuahua follows the streams from mountain caiions 

 down to the plains, and makes in alluvial soil a small 

 tree. 



Salix taxifolia, here, as in Southern Arizona, at home 

 along the gravelly alluviums of streams, makes a small 

 tree with a single straight trunk. 



Fraxinus pistacice folia, the Mexican Ash, often comes 

 out of the mountains in the same way, and in fer- 

 tile, well-watered valleys makes a large and beautiful tree, 

 two to three feet in diameter and fifty or sixty feet in height. 

 Tlierefore it is often planted along with the Cottonwood in 

 towns and about the haciendas of the rich. The (juality of 

 its timber, however, is far inferior to that of the northern 

 Wliite Ash. 



Sambuctis Mexicana, the Mexican Elder, sparsely scat- 

 tered through bottom-lands, attains a diameter of 

 nearly a foot and a height of fifteen to twenty. With its 

 rotund head of dense, deep-green foliage, its white flowers 

 and its edible fruit, it often gains a place about Mexican 

 houses. 



Jughuis rupestris, the Black Walnut of the South- 

 west, frequently leaves mountain cafions, even following 

 down arrqyos dry throughout most of the year. Its average 

 diameter in such situations is twelve to eighteen inches 

 and height twenty to thirty feet. With its low, wide- 

 spreading branches, covered with smooth, light-gray bark, 

 it resembles, when not in leaf, the fig-tree. Its nuts, less 

 than an inch in diameter, when freed from their rind, are 

 too meagre to be much prized even in a country where 

 there are no nut-bearing trees except Oaks and Pines. 



Cel/is occiden/alis, var. re/iculala, the Hackberry in 

 similar situations, a small tree about a foot in diameter 

 at best, is the only remaining arborescent species of the 

 high northern plains worthy of mention. 



C. G. Pringie 



Correspondence. 



Notes on the Norway Pine. 



THIS pine is at home in Minnesota. The young frees have 

 the sturdy appearance of the .Scotch and Austrian pines, 

 and would they not with equal care prove more beautiful ? 

 Cold does not warp the leaves, while the White Pine and the 

 White Cedar have a pinched and frozen appearance with a tem- 

 perature of 40° F. 



The groves of mature trees of Norway Pine form a green 

 roof supported by bronze pillars ; light, open, and breezy ; in 

 marked contrast with the dark and brushy White Pine woods. 

 The Norway cannot rival the queenliness of the mature 

 White Pine, however. Norway pine is the hardiest and most 

 ]iroductive timber produced on the sandy and gravelly ridges 

 and knolls of nortliern Minnesota. Three measvn-ements of 

 Red Pines are as follows : 



Age. 



* No I * 36 years 



"■ I lOI " 



( 36 " 



) lOI 



t No. 2. 



J No. 3.. 



'9 



140 



Diameter in inches 



Feet of kin 



three teet from 



ber, boaitl 



the ground. 



measure. 



12 





19 



360 



ny^ 





23 



640 



9 





20 



5S0 



• Injured by fire during fifteenth year. 



t Near foot of hill, fifty feet from other Norway trees. 



% Average tree. 



"Jack Pine" (Pinus Banksiana) is the natural nurse of Nor- 

 way pine timber in this region. H. Jl. Ayii's. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



I am glad to see that an experienced and learned planter like 

 Mr. Dana condemns in such unmistakable language the Norway 

 .Spruce. No tree (for no other foreign tree has ever been so 

 generally planted) has ever so injured the appearance of our 

 [ilantations. But it is surprising that Mr. Dana, with all his 

 observation and experience, should find any praise for the 

 Austrian Pine. This is certainly one of the poorest trees ever 

 introduced into this countiy. It is only necessary to see the 

 specimens which were planted in the Central Park, in this city, 

 twenty-five or thirty years ago, to be convinced of this. They 

 vie with the Norway Spruces and Scotch Pines in their shabby 

 and disreputalile appearance. These three are the most un- 

 satisfactory trees which have ever been planted in America. 

 The fact that they are very hardy, and grow very fast during a 

 few years, only makes theirsubsequent want of vigor the more 

 disappointing. The Austrian Pine pushes out vigorously 

 when it is young, but even in its best days it appears lumpy and 

 heavy. Asit gets older it grows thinner and thinner, borers attack 

 the trunk, and fi ranches die and fall off. Even in the mountains of 

 southern Austria, where the species flourishes, it is never a 

 large or picturesque tree, and no wise man will ever plant it 

 with the expectation of its lasting more than a few years. Our 

 native Red or Norway Pine is the best substitute for either the 

 Scotch or the Austrian Pine ; just as our native White .Spruce 

 is the best sufistitute for the Norway Spruce. The Red Pine is 

 a graceful tree of agreeable color and rapid growth; it is very 

 hardy and will flourish on poor soil. 



Why does not Mr. Dana mention the Douglas Fir, which 

 now promises to become one of the most valual:ile of all 

 our ornamental Conifers ? It has proved itself to be an ex- 

 ceedingly valuable and attractive tree in England, where there 

 are specimens more than one hundred feet high. It has been 

 cultivated in this part of the United States for a quarter of a 

 century, or since its discovery in Colorado, and there is not one 

 of tlie new Conifers which now promises so much. 



Among the foreign trees which Mr. Dana extols is Abies 

 hi-achyphylla. The color of this plant is a beautiful dark green, 

 and it grows upward with great vigor, but its strength is in the 

 top. The lower branches are weak (and this is true of the 

 nearly related A. Veitchii) and become overshadowed by 

 those above. The result will be that plants of this species by 

 the time they are twenty or twenty-five years old will be bare 

 at the bottom as a specimen of Abies firma, the most un- 

 sightly of Conifers in this climate. But there are other Jap- 

 anese Conifers of the greatest merit and much promise wliich 

 I should like to add to Mr. Dana's list. At the head of these I 

 place Picea AJajieiisis, which in most collections is cultivated 

 imder the erroneously applied name of P. Alcockiana, another 

 and much less desirable species of northern Japan, closely 

 related to, if not identical with, the Siberian P. obovata. Picea 

 Ajancnsis is perhaps the handsomest Spruce which can be 

 grown in this climate, for, unfortunately, we cannot have in 

 perfection the lovely and graceful Himalayan Spruce, P. 

 Siiiithiana. Another Japanese Conifer of great beauty and 

 liromise is Thuya Japonica, improperly called in most gardens 

 Thuvopsis Standishii. Pinus parviflora is a small and grace- 

 ful Wliite Pine which should lind a place in every collection. It 

 is perfectly hardy ; and so too is the Corean Pine, P. Koraiensis, 

 one of the most desirable and attractive of the five-leaved Pines. 

 It is neveralarge tree, liutisa very beautiful one, and is better in 

 color even than our native White Pine, and much denser in ap- 

 pearance, as it retains the leaves on the branches during three or 

 four seasons instead of for a sinsj'le year. The other Japanese 

 Pines, P. Thunheygii and P. densiflora, are very hardy, but they 

 have no ornamental value. There are several other Conifers 

 which should promise well in this climate, such as Pinus Mur- 

 rayana and P. monticola, from the mountains of western 

 America ; Piniis Peiiclie and Picea 0OT<ir/7vj from south-eastern 

 Europe ; Abies Davidiana, from northern China, which will 

 probably turn out to be a second species of Keeileria, and sev- 

 eral others. I hope Mr. Dana will give your readers his expe- 

 rience with these and other plants in his large and interesting 

 collection. Strobiis. 



New Yorli City, .ipril Sth. 



[We are glad of an opportunity to publish the experi- 

 ences of planters with new trees. They should all be 

 planted here and carefully tested. The introduction of one 

 first rate tree will repay a thousand failures. It must be 

 borne in mind, however, that we really know very little 

 )'et about Japanese and many other exotic Conifers, and still 



