JUEY 25. 1888.] 



Garden and Forest. 



253 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY ]1Y 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted bv Professor C. S. Sargent. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, iJ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGF. 



Editorial Articles ; — The Arid West and Irrigation. — Trees in Washington. — 



Note 253 



The Gardens of the Alliarnbra C. H. Blackall. ^s: 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter IV. Goldrin^. 25- 



New or Little Known Plants ; — Phlox Stellaria (with illustration), 



Serena ll'atsoit. 256 



A New Station for Lilium Grayi Jokn DonncU SiiiUIi. 256 



Cultural Department : — Vineyard Notes from Southern New Jersey, 



Alej:. M'. Pearson. 256 



The Fruit Garden E. Williauis. 257 



Tlie Vegetable Garden W. F. 1^% 



The Fritillaria J. Douglas. 258 



Cut Flowers in Midsummer William Falconer. 258 



Phlox Stellaria 259 



Plant Notes : — ^Japanese Tris (with illustration) 259 



Notes from tiie Arnold Arboretum J. 260 



The Forest : — The Long-leaved Pine Dr. Karl Mohr. 261 



Correspondence 262 



Periodical Literature 263 



Recent Plant Portr.aits 263 



Notes 264 



Illustrations ; — Phlox Stellaria, Fig. 42 257 



A Bed of Japanese Iris 259 



The Arid West and Irrigation. 



THROUGHOUT the greater part of a region covering 

 something hke one-third of the total area of the United 

 States, not including Alaska, the annual rainfall is so small 

 that, except in spots here and there, the land is not ara- 

 ble unless artificially watered. This region has its west- 

 ern boundary at the Sierra Nevada, and, in some portions, 

 at the Coast Range of the Pacific; it comprises the country 

 from the northern to the southern frontier, including the 

 great basin between the Sierras and the Rocky Mountains, 

 the high plains to the eastward of the latter, and a large 

 portion of western Texas. Until within a comparatively 

 few years the most of this great expanse has been known 

 only in the vaguest way and it was regarded as a hopeless 

 desert, fit only for mining, or, in a limited way, for cat- 

 tle ranges. To be sure, over a generation has passed since 

 the Mormons turned the heart of this region into a rich 

 garden, and for years Utah has possessed a population 

 sufficient for statehood, so far as numbers are concerned. 

 Utah has afforded a practical example of what might be 

 accomplished throughout a large proportion of this 

 region, much of which is even superior to the Salt Lake 

 Valley in natural advantages of climate and water suppl)'. 

 But our people have been slow in applying the experi- 

 ences of one locality to the requirements of another, and 

 the Mormon lesson long went unheeded. 



Now, however, this region is well penetrated by trans- 

 continental railway lines and their branches, and its char- 

 acteristics have become more widely known. The most 

 of the lands of the national domain that are arable under 

 natural conditions are now occupied ; the crowding im- 

 migration has pressed its front ranks well forward into the 

 arid belts, and called attention to the capabilities of the 

 land there. The next chapter of the greatest migratory 

 movement of modern times, the settlement of the Ameri- 

 can republic, will be the more complete occupation of the 

 Pacific slope and the filling up of these great inland arid 

 regions that recent investigations show to have been well 

 inhabited by a sedentary aboriginal population. The de- 

 velopment of the resources of a third part of our national 



territory, suddenly found to be of great value instead of 

 substantially worthless, is therefore a matter of vital im- 

 portance and demands careful consideration as to the 

 most efficient means of carrying it out. Even though but 

 a fractional proportion of the entire area should prove fit 

 for cultivation, it would still very considerably extend the 

 immigration-sustaining capacity of our country, for history 

 and prehistory both show us that irrigated lands sustain 

 the densest of populations. 



Although irrigation has accompanied the tilling of the 

 ground from time immemorial, and probably, indeed, 

 gave birth to agriculture, and therewith civilization itself, 

 and while vast regions of our own continent were in pre- 

 Columbian times made fertile thereby, still it has been 

 comparatively unknown to the American husbandman 

 until very lately. Now, however, its advantages are be- 

 ginning to be perceived even beyond the confines of the 

 arid districts. In the extensive market gardens about 

 Boston, for instance, it is becoming universal, and in the 

 east we may expect to see it applied with profit not only 

 to many branches of horticulture, but the enormous aug- 

 mentation of grass-growth which it produces will proba- 

 bly cause it to be introduced wherever practicable on the 

 hay farms that constitute the chief agricultural interests in 

 some of our Northern States, just as it has long been prac- 

 ticed for the same purpose in Germany and other por- 

 tions of Europe under conditions of precipitation similar to 

 ours. 



Within the past few years irrigation has made enor- 

 mous advances in all quarters of the great arid region of 

 the west, and it is estimated that there are now over 14,000 

 miles of main canals, with over 200,000 miles of lateral, or 

 supply ditches, representing an outlay of many millions 

 of dollars, and bringing thousands of square miles under 

 cultivation. Great enterprises have been carried out, and 

 others are in execution, or have been conceived, in Colo- 

 rado, Kansas, Montana, Idaho, Utah, California, New 

 Mexico and Arizona, and the transformation in the aspect 

 of extensive tracts in these states and territories has been 

 magical. There is no better field for capitalists to-day, 

 insuring large and certain profits, than in the carrying out 

 of irrigating works in those parts of the United States. 

 Unlike railways, the operating expense is slight. The 

 development of the arid districts would undoubtedly be 

 much more rapid were it not for the fact that the con- 

 struction of canals, dams, etc., except where the natural 

 opportunities are exceptionally easy to be availed of, re- 

 quires an original outlay far beyond the reach of the 

 average settler, and can only be effected either by the aid 

 of capital, or through co-operative work, which is rarely 

 practicable among settlers, except in the case of colo- 

 nies, as illustrated by the admirable examples set by the 

 Mormons in this respect. 



The greater portion of the arid west is fortunately 

 adapted, in its physical conformation, to the making ara- 

 ble, through irrigation, of a large and widely distributed 

 proportion of its entire surface, consisting, as it does, of 

 alternations of mountains and valleys. New Mexico 

 and Arizona, particularly, are characterized by detached 

 groups of mountains rising from broad valleys, forming 

 great and uniformly sloping plains. These mountains 

 cause precipitation and distribute the rainfall over the 

 plains below, where it normally runs to waste in the 

 great gullies it has worn in the land. Were it possible 

 to store up all the rain that now flows away, every inch 

 of these regions might be made productive, ^^'hile that is 

 impracticable, much more can be done in this way than 

 is now hardly dreamed of It is safe to assert that in all 

 this region there is hardly a mountain chain or group 

 where, in the neighboring plains, irrigation may not be 

 practiced to a greater or less extent. It even seems by 

 no means visionary to look for the day when, through 

 various means available to modern ingenuity, the arid 

 west vi'ill be made as proportionately productive as is the 

 Atlantic slope, the dry uplands of the former utilized for 



