298 



Garden and Forest. 



[August 15, iS 



Tennessee, and in parts of Ohio, extensive Isodies of the 

 hard woods remain not mucli encroached upon. Still the 

 steadily advancing prices, the greater demand all over the 

 United States and from Europe for inside house-finish, 

 agricultural implements, etc., show that these woods are 

 getting more scarce and valuable. 



North of us in Canada, lumber does not seem to cut the 

 figure it once did. The inexhaustible forests of the dis- 

 tant regions ha\'e shrunk considerably under the more 

 critical examination of timber buyers and their explorers. 

 The Spanish River country, the North shore of Lake Supe- 

 rior, the vast " Limits" of the Lake of the Woods and the 

 Rainy Lake river country, do not materalize in timber as 

 represented by the Canada Company who sold the foreign- 

 ers the '■ Limits." \^'innipeg and the country westward is 

 largely supplied now from the rivers in Minnesota that 

 empty into Rainy Lake and the Lake of the Woods. The 

 lumber is manufactured on the Canada Pacific Rail Road 

 and sent over the road to Winnipeg and beyond. These 

 are facts. 1 have no timber to sell, no reason to under- 

 state amounts, but I simply wish to make a fair statement 

 based upon long study of the present condition of our 

 forests which contain timber of commercial value. 



Having referred in a former letter to European supply, I 

 will add that the countries of Australia, Cliina, Japan and 

 Mexico already draw from us largely for lumber, their 

 native supplies being mainly in almost inaccessible moun- 

 tain regions. IMexico has considerable timber, but it is 

 inaccessible at present, and it must probably remain so for 

 a long time. 



So we may congratulate ourselves here in the Linited 

 States that we still have in our forests a vi'onderful inheri- 

 tance, of a value that if estimated would run into the thou- 

 sands of millions of dollars, and all this not covered up in 

 the ground, but in plain sight and upon its surface. 



Now, being forewarned by the experience of the old 

 world, let us learn something. The Interior Department 

 at Washington tells us, after more than ten years' trial of 

 the Timber Culture Act on the prairies of Minnesota, Da- 

 kota, Kansas and Nebraska, that it is a miserable failure, 

 though it agreed to convey for nothing one hundred and 

 sixty acres of the best soil in the world to every man 

 who could or would succeed in making ten acres of 

 trees of any kind grow upon the land, after eight years' 

 trial. They don't raise the trees. In after years it may 

 be done, but so far the act is a failure, and should be 

 repealed. 



What we should learn is to preserve the forests we have 

 by proper legislation, by educating and appointing foresters 

 of intelligence to care for them, by publishing information 

 on the subject — practical information, such as farmers and 

 timber owners can readily understand and apply. Ameri- 

 can youths should be taught in school and at home that no 

 fires must be allowed to run and that cattle must not run 

 at large among young trees. District and graded schools 

 should be supplied with collections of woods, and pupils 

 should be encouraged to study them. 



We appropriated millions upon millions of dollars' worth 

 of land in 1862 for agricultural colleges. One million acres 

 of this^was taken in Wisconsin alone, and mostly for. the 

 benefit of other states. The Cornell LTniversity of New 

 York took five hundred thousand acres of this Pine timber. 

 Much of this land is to-day worth S50 or more an acre for 

 its timbij^r. The same is true of Michigan and IMinnesota. 

 Henceforth the Government should in justice to these three 

 states give to them outright the proceeds of future sales for 

 the establishment of schools of forestry and to pay trained 

 foresters to care for the forests. The same should be done 

 in the southern timber states. An explorer in Alabama 

 writes me, "lean buy for you in this state very finely- 

 timbered Pine lands at Government price, $1.25 per acre." 

 Why not advance the price, if the Government must have 

 the $1.25 per acre, to $2.50 per acre, and give Alabama the 

 $1.25 taken from the speculator, and let her have a school 

 of forestry.^ All over our land we are losing niiUinus In- 



ignorance and carelessness on the subject of forest fires. 

 The people do not realize it at all, especially in our Western 

 States and Territories. In Oregon, Washington Territory, 

 Montana and Idaho, among the Firs and Yellow Pines, the 

 fires are doing the most damage. I have seen millions of 

 acres made bare by fires that were the result of careless- 

 ness along the railways in Washington Territory and 

 Idaho. The very fact that a Government forester was 

 ranging the forests about Puget Sound, the Columbia and 

 Willamette Rivers would have a good influence in every 

 lumber camp and along every railroad. I have seen one 

 burning started by a gang of railroad workmen in Wash- 

 ington Territory that destroyed over one million dollars' 

 v.'orth of timber. This fire never would have occurred if 

 such carelessness had been made criminal by law, and if 

 an officer of the Government had been within reach to 

 enforce it. 



There is no question but that if $250,000 a year even 

 were properly spent in care of forests and lorest education, 

 it would add millions to future forest values. 



Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I/. C. Pulllani. 



Correspondence. 



To the Editor of G.vrden and Forest : 



Sir. — About thirty years ago a gentleman imported many 

 thousand trees from France and presented them to Dartmouth 

 College. 



They consisted of Norway Spruce, White Spruce, Scotch 

 Pine, Austrian Pine, European Silver Fir, Larch, Linden, Ash, 

 White Birch and Mountain Asli, English Oak, Norway Maple, 

 Honey Locust and English Elm. 



The Norway Spruces are as fine of their age as any I have 

 seen in this country, and give promise of extending their up- 

 ward growth eight or ten years longer. The European 

 Larches are very fine and thrifty, and although they liave not 

 made as rapid growth as in northern Illinois and Wisconsin, 

 on land of the same quality, yet in one essential point they 

 are more promising than any others in the country, /. e., 

 they are perfecting their seeds, and young Larch trees are 

 coming up freely aroimd them. The European Larch trees 

 producing seedlings stand on a cool, steep, northern slope, 

 and from this I interred that they possibly produced perfect 

 seeds further north, and wrote to parties fn Minnesota to 

 whom we had furnished Larch trees many years ago, and 

 learn that trees planted less than twenty years ago have 

 seedlings springing up freely around them, some now over 

 si.x feet higli, while in Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, 

 Iowa and Wisconsin they have never been known to pro- 

 duce perfect seeds. The specimen in the ISartram garden at 

 Philadeli_>hia, over 100 feet high and over 100 years old, was 

 never known to produce a perfect seed. 



Austrian and Scotch Pines are doing as well as I have seen 

 them either east or west of here, but poorly when compared 

 with White Pines in this vicinity. European Silver Fir is an 

 entire failure. Even where well protected, it is not over four 

 feet in height, killing back- every winter. European Linden is 

 hardy here. 



A few English Oaks in well protected situations liave made 

 stems four or five inches in diameter. Where exposed they 

 form a bush six or seven feet high. English Ash and English 

 Elm kill back more or less in winter, according to exposure, 

 and there are no good specimens. Norway Maple stands bet- 

 ter than these, hut does not endure the winter as well as at 

 Milwaukee. European White Birch is quite at home. Euro- 

 pean Mountain Ash has apparently been planted quite freely, 

 and many seedlings liave spriuig up where the original trees 

 stood, but not a specimen now remains of the original planting. 



The Honey Locust stands the winter, and makes a fine free. 

 White Spruce {Picea alba), of whicli there are a great number, 

 were imported with the others. It has been much admired, 

 and has been supposed to be a foreign tree. Every one is a 

 fine specimen, and all are uniform in color, being very glau- 

 cous. I am inclined to think that they belong to a variety 

 known as Crerulea, whicii was propagated extensively in 

 French niu-series thirty years ago. Certainly I ne\T;r saw a 

 hundred White Spruces so uniform in color 'oefore. They all 

 give promise of making dm-able trees. ' 



I have made an examination of the native as well as the 

 imported trees here. I measured an American White Elm, 

 planted in 1790, which is fourteen feet in circumference tour feet 

 from tlie ground. Sugar Maples of unknown age are over nine 



