October io, i8 



Garden and Forest. 



385 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



I'UBLISHED WEEKLY BV 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Okkice: Triuuke Building, New Yurk. 



Conducted bv 



Professor C. S. Sakgent. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1888. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editokial Aifi'icLES : — Forestry Commisoions. — The Ailanthus 3S5 



Notes from a Naturalist in Mexico H. J. Ehves. 386 



FoKEiGN Correspondence : — London Letter IVni. Goldiiug. 3S7 



New or Little Known Plants : — Tigridia Pringlei (with illustration) 



Screno IVaison. 388 



Cultural Defartment : — The Vegetable Garden Win. Falconer. 389 



The Flower Garden .' G. C. 390 



Silenes — l^ose Cuttings — Gladiolus-flowered Cannas 390 



Plant Notes : — The Weeping Pinus ponderosa {with illustration)... . . .C S. 5. 392 



Origin of the Le Conte i*ear James Hogg: 392 



Tubular Cabbage Leaves {with illustration) Professor L. H. Bailey. 392 



The Forest; — Forestry in California. HI Abbot Kinney. 392 



Correspondence : — Forest Planting in New England — The Habitat of Black 

 Walnut — The Natural Arrangement of Plants — The E-xtrenie Hardi- 

 ness of Ferns 393 



Periodical Literature 394 



Recent Plant Portraits 395 



Exhibition: — The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society 395 



Notes 396 



Illustrations: — Tigridia Pringlei, Fig. 61 - 389 



Pinus ponderosa pendula, at Wodenethe, Fig. 62 391 



Malformed Cabbage Leaf , Fig. 63 .' 392 



Forestry Commissions. 



THE preliminary reports relating to the forest-wealth 

 of the United States, published by the Census Office 

 six or seven years ago, gave rise to a very general discus- 

 sion in the public press upon forests and their complex re- 

 lations to the welfare and development of this country. 

 The most visible outcome of this discussion, perhaps, was 

 the appointinent in a number of states of Forestry Commis- 

 sions for the purpose "of preserving the forests;" and the 

 question has been asked us more than once by members 

 of these coinmissions how they can perform their 

 duties so that the communities which created these com- 

 missions can derive the greatest benefit from these new 

 organizations. In other words, what can Forestry Com- 

 missions in states like New Hampshire or Kentucky or 

 Pennsylvania do to save the forests in those states.? The 

 answer is not an easy one to give. The states in which 

 these Commissions have been appointed own no forest- 

 land whatever, with the exception of New York, where the 

 state holds great bodies of wild and forest-land, and of Cali- 

 fornia, where land has been presented to the Commission 

 in order to enable it to carry out various experiments in 

 silviculture. 



So far as New York is concerned it is evident enough 

 what the Commission ought to do. It controls or can 

 control neai-ly 800,000 acres of forest-land; laws, still in- 

 adequate, certainly, although far in advance of those in any 

 other state, enable them to protect this great property ; and 

 they are freely supplied with money for this purpose. It 

 is within the power of the Commission, therefore, to put 

 into practice some of the well known rules under which 

 forests are protected and developed. If the Adirondack 

 forest — or those portions of it, at least, which the state 

 owns — is allowed to suffer, it will be the Commission and 

 the Executive who appointed it who will be to blame. 



In other states, where there are no state-foi-ests to adinin- 

 ister. and in which the Commissions are aliTiost always 

 left inadequately supplied with money, it is not easy to see 

 how they can exert their influence directly. Administra- 

 tive powers they cannot have, for no state-forests are 



placed under their control ; and the time has not yet come 

 when private owners of forest-property will turn it over to 

 be administered by state-officers. It is evident, therefore, 

 that the field of usefulness for these commissions is lim- 

 ited, and that their work must be advisory and educational. 

 They must become, if they are to justify their existence, 

 the teachers of the people in all that I'elates to the forest. 

 The Pennsylvania Commission, backed by an active 

 society interested in forestry and equipped with a special 

 organ devoted to disseminating information relating to the 

 forest, has already made a beginning in this direction. 

 But its efforts, as is natural in a new organization, lack 

 system ; and this is true of the educational work attempted 

 up to the present time by the Commissions in other states. 

 As our advice has been asked, we shall be permitted, 

 perhaps, to say that the Forest Commissions of the different 

 States and their friends and all others interested in this 

 country in the question of forest-preservation, will ac- 

 complish nothing until they unite together in the adoption 

 of some general scheme for educating the people of the 

 United States in the questions relating to the forest. What 

 is needed in this country now is such a discussion of the 

 forest-question, such an awakening of the intelligence of 

 the American people to the importance of the forest, that 

 it will lie possible to secure (i) legislation from Congress, 

 under which the forests upon the national domain may 

 be administered for the good of the whole people of the 

 United States for all time, and not for rings of contractors 

 and timber thieves whose only interest is to cut every 

 stick of timber, and then, after the forests are utterly ruined, 

 abandon the land to hopeless worthlessness. Such an 

 awakening is needed to secure (2) the enactment of laws 

 in every state, under which forest property may be made 

 secure from depredation and needless fires, and a condition 

 of public intelligence which will inake it possible, in the 

 case of the forest, to subordinate private interest to the 

 general good. But before this time comes the public of 

 the country must learn that the welfare of the public is 

 often dependent on the forest of the individual, and that 

 if the individual is allowed to do with it all he may wish, 

 he endangers the community. The time probably will 

 come when the farmers of the United States will realize 

 that the pasturage of animals in their woods is not only 

 an injury to themselves, personally, but to the whole 

 community, and will consent to forego this privilege ; and 

 they will learn that the clearing of the water-shed of a 

 mountain stream or lake may bring incalculable injury 

 to persons whose names they have never even heard. 

 But the mental development which will make intelligent 

 legislation upon such subjects possible can only come after 

 long years of discussion and education. In inaugurating 

 such discussion and in stimulating such education State 

 Forestry Commissions will find their real and only field 

 of usefulness, and failing in this they will show their 

 unfitness for existence. 



The Ailanthus. 



A WRITER in a recent issue of the Rural New Yorker 

 calls attention to the beauty and value of the much 

 abused Ailanthus tree for planting in city streets. It is in- 

 deed one of the best trees that has ever been tried for this 

 purpose, either in this country or in Europe, and no exotic 

 tree, with the exception, perhaps, of the White Willow, has 

 yet shown such capacity for adapting itself to the peculiari- 

 ties of the American climate. The only possible objection 

 to the Ailanthus is that the flowers of the male plants have 

 an exceedingl)- disagreeable odor to some people, and that 

 the pollen is supposed to produce catan-hal troubles. But, 

 as the writer in the Rural Ne-M Yorker points out, this ob- 

 jection can be very readily obviated by raising plants from 

 root-cuttings taken from the female plants only, and by 

 avoiding the use of seedlings, among which there might 

 be expected to be as many males as females. As the 

 Ailanthus grows rapidly from cuttings, a supply of plants 



