266 



Garden and Forest. 



[August i, iSSS. 





can towards originating new and more perfectly adapted 

 varieties of fruits and plants, but also to be on the watch for new 

 and promising forms of chance origin, and to see that each 

 has adequate trial and honest judgment in at least its own bo- 

 tanical region. After due trial and proved worthiness the 

 promising varieties will be propagated by grafts, buds or 

 layers, and disseminated at first in their own botanical re- 

 gions, and afterwards in other regions, if found able to endure 

 the changes. I fear the most of us have very inadequate 

 ideas of the strain put upon the vitality of trees and plants, by 

 transplanting them to different conditions of climate and soil. 

 In a late most admirable report of the State Geologist of Indiana, 

 is tlie statement and proofs of the fact, that there exist within 

 the fioundaries of that one state no less than seven distinct and 

 well defined botanical regions, each marked by a preponderance 

 of certain native plants, and the absence or scarcity of others, as 

 shown by the lists submitted. This should be a lesson to 

 each of our fraternity, teaching him to test the favorites of dis- 

 tant regions with no more than hopeful distrust, and to prove 

 them well before proclaiming them to his friends, his custom- 

 ers, as worthy of confidence and the investment of money. 



By allowing the glamour of a foreign name and the decep- 

 tive haze of distance to cloud their judgment, many honest 

 men have had more prophecies to " take back" than have 

 added to their reputations. Careful and intelligent experimen- 

 tation is the daily duty of the nurseryman. The government 

 experiment stations now provided for m every state, must be 

 aided and largely guided by members of this fraternity in 

 matters horticultural. The task of bringing our promising 

 wild fruits into the realm of civilized usefulness, by change of 

 condition, seedling selection, and cross fertilization with allied 

 forms of native or foreign ancestry, already highly developed, 

 may with especial fitness be vigorously pushed there. It is 

 for our members to furnish the material for experiments and 

 to give freely of their advice and experience as to ways and 

 means most promising of good results. There is no reason 

 to doubt the permanence of these experiment stations nor 

 their generous support by the government, two considerations 

 which entitle them to be used as tlie head centres of horti- 

 cultural experimentation in every state, with the full and gen- 

 erous support and aid of every one interested in this work. 

 The road is long, too long for individuals, Ijut with properly 

 directed effort, so that no steps be lost at these permanent sta- 

 tions, we know that the gains must be substantial and certain 

 from year to year and from generation to generation. 



The Onteora Club and its Chance tor Usefidness. 



NUMBER of capitalists in tliis city have recently ac- 

 quired possession of a tract of land more than i,ooo 

 acres in extent occupying the slopes of tlie mountains near 

 Tannersville, in one of the most picturesque and interest- 

 ing regions of the Catskill country. Their object is to 

 provide for themselves and their friends retired and pleas- 

 ant sylvan homes in connection with a small hotel. There 

 is nothing strange or unusual in this ; it is what has been 

 done a hundred times before in different parts of the coun- 

 try. The fact, however, that the care and development of 

 the forest which still covers their land should form any 

 part of a general scheme for the improvement of the pro- 

 perty, or that the forest should be considered at all under 

 these conditions by business men, is a matter of very con- 

 siderable interest, as indicating the advance made in this 

 country in the education of the public with regard to the 

 forest and the part which it plays in the economy of nature. 

 Ten years ago, a body of capitalists buying a tract of land 

 for the purpose which has led to the formation of the 

 Onteora Club would hardly have entertained the idea that 

 the care and iinprovement of the trees which they hap- 

 pened to find on their purchase was a good business in- 

 vestment, or that such property was valuable in propor- 

 tion as if was permanently covered with vigorous and 

 healthy forests. That they now value the trees, and not 

 only desire to preserve the forest from further encroach- 

 ment, but to improve it, is a sign that the words which have 

 been spoken in this country of late years for the forest and 

 for forest-preservation have not been spoken quite in vain; 

 and that at last business men can realize that there is more 

 money in taking care of trees than there is in allowing 

 them to be destroyed. 



This is only a straw, perhaps, but it is a straw showing 

 that the tide has turned, and that the time will come in 

 America, as it came long ago in every other civilized 

 country, when the value of the forest will be recognized, 

 and the laws upon which the life of the forest depends 

 will be clearly understood and freely obeyed. The 

 leaders in the forest movement iruist not forget, liowever, 

 that their task is only just begun. They may have kin- 

 dled a feeble spark of interest in forest-preservation ; but it 

 is in serious danger of being extinguished, unless they can 

 continue their work with imabated vigor and enthusiasm 

 and with broader and more exact knowledge. They must 

 remember, too, that it rests with them not only to teach 

 the people of this country what forests are and what will 

 be lost in their destruction, but that they must furnish 

 definite instruction as to how these forests are to be pre- 

 served and developed. These are subjects upon which 

 our people are supremely ignorant It is easy to say the 

 forests must be preserved ; it is much less easy to ex- 

 plain how this is to be accomplished, or what practical 

 measures must be applied in any particular case to pro- 

 duce certain results. General laws of forest management, 

 perhaps, are not difhcult to lay down, but special treatment 

 for special cases can only be reached b)' experience based 

 on experiments, carefully conducted through long periods 

 of time. Such experiments are just what the Onteora 

 Club and other associations are in a position to carry 

 on, and they are what this country needs in order that 

 systems of forest management may be devised and proved 

 by the test of time. Such associations certainly have it 

 in their power to perform an important public service in 

 adding to our slender stock of exact knowledge concerning 

 the best methods of forest management for the United 

 States, and while doing this they can at the same time 

 greatly increase the \'alue of their property. 



It is not easy to explain wh}^ certain plant's look dis- 

 tinctly in place in certain situations and why other plants 

 look as distinctly out of place in the same situations. 

 This is a matter which nature perhaps has settled for us. 

 It is certain at any rate that combinations of plants other 

 than those which nature makes or ado'pts, inevitably 

 possess inharmonious elements which no amount of famil- 

 iarity can ever quite reconcile to the educated eye. Ex- 

 amples of what we wish to explain abound in all our 

 public parks, and especially in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, 

 where there is more of nature than in any other great 

 park, and where along the borders of some of the natural 

 woods and in connection with nati^'e shrubbery great 

 masses of garden shrubs, Diervillas, Philadelphus, Deut- 

 zias, Forsyfhias and Lilacs, have been inserted. These are 

 all beautiful plants. They never seem out of place in a 

 garden ; but the moment they are placed in contact with 

 our wild plants growing naturally as they do, fortunately, 

 in the Brooklyn park, they look not only out of place, 

 Init are a positive injury to the scene. It is not that their 

 flowers are too showy or conspicuous for such positions. 

 The flowers of some native shrubs like the Elder, the 

 Flowering Dogwooil and the Viburnums, are as showy as 

 those of any garden shrub. The reason is rather that we 

 have become accustomed to see certain plants adapted 

 by nature to fill certain positions in combination with 

 certain other plants in a given region; and that all attempts 

 to force nature, so to speak, by bringing in alien ele- 

 ments from remote continents tmd climates, must in- 

 evitably produce inharmonious results. Landscape gar- 

 deners have rarely paid much attention to this subject, or 

 sufficiently studied nature with reference to the harmoni- 

 ous combination of plants in the construction of scenery, 

 and especially of scenery intended to produce upon the 

 mind the idea of repose. Nature, nevertheless, is the 

 great teacher to which the artist who would hope to imi- 

 tate her, however crudely, must ever turn for instruction 

 and for inspiration. 



