262 



Garden and Forest. 



[July 25, 18 



leaved Pine furnishes merchantable timber of the required 

 standard, that is, logs twenty-four feet long and fifteen inches 

 across the smaller end. Trees furnishing square timber in 

 lengths from thirty-five to fifty feet, with a uniform diameter 

 exceeding fifteen inches, show from 250 to 300 rings of annual 

 growth. 



Under such conditions of growth and under the continually 

 increasing strain to which they are subjected to meet the de- 

 mands for their products, the reproduction of these Pine forests 

 is not keeping pace with their depletion. Considering the 

 ever-increasing drafts upon them under wasteful and de- 

 structive methods of management, considering devastation 

 caused by the tapping of the trees for their resin, and the 

 damage inflicted by recurring forest fires and by live stock in- 

 volving the total destruction of the young growth, the pros- 

 pect of their maintenance seems hopeless and their destruction 

 cannot be long delayed. 



Other causes are contributing to the same result and weaken 

 the chances of the Pine for survival in its struggle with com- 

 peting species during the earlier stages of its life. If the re- 

 moval of the original grow di of Long-leaved Pine liappens to 

 be succeeded by a series of barren years, the soil is overgrown 

 by a stunted growth of deciduous trees which completely 

 shade the ground and e.xclude forever the otfspring of the 

 Long leaved Pine. Towards the northern limits of the Pine 

 belt where the Long-leaved Pine is associated with various 

 deciduous frees, with the Short-leaved and the Loblolly Pine, 

 it invariably succumbs m the struggle to gain a hold on the 

 soil. In the damp flat woods of the coast plain from Georgia 

 to the Mississippi River it is replaced by the Cuban Pine, the 

 Loblolly Pine taking possession of the lands thrown out of cul- 

 tivation. 



According to the returns obtained for the few years at the 

 points of export, the products of the Long-leaved Pine in 

 lumber, square timber, and naval stores shipped annually by 

 water and by rail to foreign ports and distant domestic mar- 

 kets, represent fully twenty million dollars. And this sum 

 wouldbe vastly increased if the value of the same products 

 consumed near the centres of production in charcoal, railroad 

 ties and lumber of inferior quality were estimated. 



Mobile, June ist, 1888. Karl Mohr. 



Correspondence. 



Prospect Park. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — I was delighted to see your recent editorial calling at- 

 tention to the beauties of Prospect Park and the dangers 

 which threaten them. Too few people in Brooklyn, not to 

 speak of New York, realize what a paradise of beauty lies at 

 their doors. The distance which must be traversed, largely 

 over bad pavements and through rather disagreealsle pre- 

 cincts, before a New Yorker is able to reach Prospect 

 Park, is sufficient to explain, perhaps, why a far more 

 beautiful park than the Central Park is so seldom visited by 

 those who throng the drives and walks of the latter. But even 

 the accessibility of such sea-side resorts as Coney Island seems 

 insufficient to account for the indifference of the residents of 

 Brooklyn. I have never visited Prospect Park on Sunday, but I 

 am told that even then it presents a very different appearance 

 from the crowded condition of Central Park, and on a week 

 day its wide roadsalmost empty of vehicles, its immense lawns 

 trodden but by a few scattered children, and its shady out- 

 door restaurant occupied by scarcely half a dozen persons, 

 are in strong contrast to the populous gaiety which one sees 

 not only in the park of New York, but in those of Chicago, 

 Philadelphi;i, and, I fancy, all other great towns but Brooklyn. 

 One cannot help grudgmg Brooklyn the possession of the 

 finest park in the country, and cannot help fearing that it wall 

 suffer at the hands of Commissioners who are so little re- 

 strained in their acts by any strong sentiment or interest on the 

 part of the public. 



It seems, however, as though the injury thus far worked had 

 been more in the way of acts of omission than of acts of com- 

 mission. In every part of the park one sees plantations which 

 loudly cry for thinning — which have already suffered much 

 and in the next few years will suffer very much more, from 

 overcrowding. In some places, moreover, the presence of 

 dead or dying Conifers — chielly Spruces and Pines— conspicu- 

 ously mars the effect of lovely landscapes. But not nearly so 

 many such trees were planted here as in the Central Park, 

 and, consequently, the total injury to their effect which they 

 work is by uo means so grave. 



The present Park Commission, however, as your editorial 

 states, has resolved upon a more vigorous course of action 

 than that pursued by its predecessors, and it is time to keep 

 one's eyes open for faults of commission. It has, indeed, 

 been asserted from more than one quarter that they are already 

 conspicuously apparent — that, for example, the bordering plan- 

 tations of the park have already been so badly treated in some 

 places that a view of the shabby encircling streets is admitted. 

 I doubt whether these charges are just. There are certainly 

 a nimiber ot places to be found where the bordering planta- 

 tions are so thin that they may be said hardly to exist ; but in 

 all those I found during two visits made to the park for the 

 especial purpose of examining into this point, their thinness 

 seems to be due not to the cutting out of vigorous trees, but to 

 the gradual decay of the plantations. The Conifers largely 

 chosen for this particular purpose stand to-day as miserable 

 perishing little trees, hideous in themselves and pervious to 

 the eye in every direction. I^erhaps much cutting has in truth 

 been done in places such as these, but if so, it is probable 

 that it has been merely in the way of removing even worse 

 specimens than those which remain. No soul alive would be 

 so foolish as to cut down flourishing trees and leave such lit- 

 tle forlornities as these. The remedy for the nudity of such 

 spots is not to lie found in the careful preservation of their ex- 

 isting growths, so much as in sweeping them away and plant- 

 ing de novo with trees better fitted to survive and grow into 

 effectual screens. Of course there may be other spots along 

 the borders of the park where flourishing plantations have 

 been massacred, but I failed to find them. 



As regards the abandonment of the original scheme for put- 

 ting a music-stand on the little island near the terrace, I think 

 your words will be re-echoed by all who know Prospect Park. 

 The effect of music heard upon or across the water is pro- 

 verbially beautiful, and the promenades and concourses on 

 and near the terrace lie in such a way that I cannot conceive 

 there would be any bad acoustic results. It should be 

 remembered that the music rendered in such a place as this 

 is not, as a rule, need not be, and, in truth, ought not to be, of 

 that serious and subtile sort which demands for its right un- 

 derstanding the acoustic properties of a well-built, enclosed 

 auditorium. It is heard, generally speaking, by a different 

 class of music-lovers from those who pay for admittance to 

 such auditoriums ; and, whatever the class, it is listened to in 

 a different spirit. Persons who are eating and drinking or 

 walking, driving or rowing out-of-doors, deinand music which 

 is merely a pleasant gay accompaniment to their actions and 

 their conversation — music of a light character, and of a sort 

 which does not demand perfect acoustic conditions any more 

 than it demands close and exclusive attention. Of course even 

 under these circumstances music distresses instead of pleases 

 the ear if it is heard as intermittent puffs of sound broken by 

 lapses of silence or if only its strongest notes are perceived. 

 But except in a strong wind there seems no reason why this 

 effect would be produced by a band playing on the island ; in 

 a strong wind it will be produced in any out-door situation 

 where large masses of foliage exist ; and that such masses 

 shoidd exist is essential for the comfort and pleasure of those 

 who are to listen. The best place, acoustically, for a music- 

 stand, would be in the centre of the largest open lawn that 

 could be found ; but who would care to stand or sit in the sun 

 to enjoy good acoustic properties thus supplied ? 



New York City. George Cumming. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — I have three Sycamore Maples transplanted three 

 years ago, apparently in a thriving condition except that the 

 liark is Jailing off — beginning at the ground, the disease creeps 

 up the trunk. Is there any treatment that will save the trees ? 



Naliant, Mass. A- P- C. 



[The spread of the disease may perhaps be checked by 

 carefully cutting away any decayed matter which may be 

 found where the wood has been exposed by the falling 

 away of the bark and then covering the whole of the ex- 

 posed portion with a coating of coal-tar which can be ob- 

 tained from any gas works. A covering of straw wrapped 

 loosely round the trunks to protect them from the hot 

 summer sun will be heljiful to these trees. Vigorous 

 growth should be stimulated by cultivating at once the 

 ground about the trees, which should then receive a good, 

 thick top-dressing of old, well-rotted manure, which will 

 not only enrich the ground, but will serve as a mulch and 

 check evaporation ; and next winter or in the early spring 



