398 



Garden and Forest. 



[October 17, 18 



and generally it is harder still for an owner to persuade 

 himself to sacrifice a tree of his own planting, even though, 

 b}' his own confession, it would be far better out of the 

 way. 



In the upper part of the lower Michigan peninsula and 

 in the upper peninsula are numerous sandy, barren plains, 

 sometimes called Jack Pine Plains from the prevalence of 

 the Jack Pine {Pinus Banksiana) upon them. The largest 

 of these barrens occupies several hundred square miles, 

 and there are others nearly as large. It is believed that 

 these barrens are due to the continual burning of the forest, 

 originally, perhaps, first prostrated by tornadoes. The 

 surface is almost entirely destitute of vegetable-m(.)uld ; 

 and often it is nothing but a mass of shifting sand, upon 

 which plants are unable to obtain a foothold. The 

 cheapness of these lands has had the unfortunate effect 

 of inducing many emigrants to settle upon them. Hun- 

 dreds of abandoned homes testify to their worthlessness 

 for agriculture, and stand as witnesses of misdirected labor 

 and disappointed hopes. It is now, however, proposed 

 by the State of Michigan to demonstrate by scientific ex- 

 periment the value or the worthlessness of these Jack Pine 

 lands. The State Board of Agriculture has established an 

 experimental farm upon land given for the purpose by the 

 Michigan Central Railroad corporation near Grayling, in 

 Crawford County, in the heart of the Jack Pine region. 

 The problem to be solved, as stated by Professor R. C. 

 Kedzie in Bulletin No. 37, from the Experiment Station 

 connected with the Agricultural College of Michigan, 

 which is devoted to this subject, is this: " With a light, 

 sandy soil of very porous quality, in a northern climate 

 subject to late frosts m spring and early frosts in autumn, 

 and liable to midsummer drought, with no fertilizers ex- 

 cept marl, salt and plaster, can any methods of tillage or 

 kinds of crops bring these plains into profitable cultivation 

 for ordinary farming, stock-raising, or fruit production t " 

 A thousand years of tree growth, if fires are kept away, 

 may restore some of the lost fertility to these lands, but that 

 any method more rapid in its workings can avail to make 

 them profitably productive, hardly seems probable — a 

 view which more than one settler who has seen his 

 hard-earned savings melt away in an effort to make 

 this land bear fruit, will, we imagine, gladly indorse. 

 It is right, however, to demonstrate by actual experiments, 

 carried on by trained investigators, whether such lands 

 are really worthless, lest the tide of emigration, beguiled 

 by offers of cheap homes, may still continue to press in 

 upon these barren sands. 



The following remarkable statement, which has been 

 going the rounds of several of the special journals devoted 

 to the lumber industry of the country, will give some idea 

 of the popular ignorance in regard to trees in this conntry. 

 The tree referred to is the Virgilia, or Yellow-wood, of 

 which a description and illustration were published in this 

 journal on the i8th of April. The Virgilia is a rare tree 

 in a w^ild state, although it is not confined to the neighbor- 

 hood of Nashville, being foimd more or less abundantl)' 

 from Kentucky to Cherokee County in North Carolina, 

 and it is now one of the most generally planted and 

 best known ornamental trees in the Northern States: 



Within a radius of sixty miles of Nashville, Tenn., tliere is 

 found a tree that is supposed to fie the shittim wood of Bible 

 fame. Celebrated botanists from all over the country have 

 examined the trees and agree that they grow nowhere else on 

 tlie globe. They have decided that it is the shittim wood of 

 which the tabernacle was constructed, mention of which is 

 made several times in (he Bible. The tree is medium-sized, 

 with very dark, smooth bark, and the wood is of a bright gold 

 color. In early spring the trees are laden with long white 

 blossoms, closely resembling great ostrich plumes. There 

 seems to be no doubt about the identity of the trees, and it is 

 remarkable that they are found only in this small area, and so 

 few at that. 



A California Garden. 



^T^RAVELERS who visit the Hotel del Monte, at Mon- 

 _|_ terey, are always interested in the strange garden 

 filled with curious forms of vegetable life, generally 

 spoken of as the "Arizona Garden," which the proprietors 

 of this establishment have caused to be collected there 

 from the extreme scjuthern parts of the State and from 

 Arizona. 



Our illustration of a part of this garden upon page 403. 

 gives an idea how succulent plants can be grouped together 

 harmoniously, and of the value of such plants in a dry 

 climate like that of California, where green turf cannot be 

 mamtained during the summer months without constant 

 watering. The two tall cylindrical plants on the right and 

 left of the picture are young specimens of the tallest of 

 all the Cactus family, Cereus gtganfeus ; between these, in 

 the background, is a plant of the noble desert Palm of 

 scjuthern California, Washingtonia filifera ; and still further 

 in the background may be seen part of the group of 

 Montere)'' Pines {Pi/itis insignis) which surround the hotel 

 — one of the very few natural growths of this tree — which 

 is one of the least widely distributed of American Pines, 

 although it is now, however, very generally cultivated in 

 the Pacific States and in central and southern Europe. 



The Serpent Memnd Park. 



THE traveler who happens to be passing along the excel- 

 lent turnpike from Hillsboro to Locust Grove, in Adams 

 County, Ohio, is likely to be surprised when his attention is 

 called'to a prominently displayed sign-board, near the eastern 

 end of Brush Creek 1)ridge, with the legend; "Entrance to 

 Serpent Moimd Park." One is not prepared for any such 

 announ<;ement. The surrounding country gives no sugges- 

 tion of a park, to one who drives for miles through a succes- 

 sion of thrifty farms, and an occasional, sleepy, cross-roads 

 village. If we accept the implied invitation of the sign-board, 

 and enter the grounds, other notices, conspicuously posted 

 for our guidance, will be observed, and naturally we follow 

 the pointing of one which directs to " The Serpent." A wind- 

 ing road leads to the summit of a broad plateau that, at pres- 

 ent, is anything but park-like, for reasons to be mentioned 

 later, but still every vestige of the former farm surroundings 

 is wanting. The old worm fences, with their wealth of weeds, 

 have been removed, and in their stead many small trees of 

 different species have been recently planted. But the claim of 

 the spot to be considered a park does not rest upon this small 

 showing ; finished pleasure grounds are not lacking, and a 

 grove of oaks and maples, with both a sweet-water and a sul- 

 phur spring, is now availalile for picnic purposes, and, I 

 may add, is well patronized. 



Passing by both these finished and unfinished portions of the 

 park, we proceed to "The Serpent," now lying directly before 

 us. Upon a jutting tongue of level land, that reaches into, 

 and one hundred feet above, the beautiful Brush Creek 

 valley, rests that mysterious earth-work of an unknown 

 people — a serpent, fourteen hundred feet in length, with 

 closely coiled tail, gracefully curved body, and widely gaping 

 jaws. Beautiful as it is in itself, our interest steadily increases 

 as we look upon it, from the fact that it antedates all history. 

 Since its discovery and description by Squier and Davis, in 

 1847, the spot has Iieen often written of, and more theories 

 have been broached concerning its age and origin than fiiere 

 are curves in its tortuous length. This has not been to the 

 advancement of American archseology directly, but it has 

 led to the purchase and preservation of the mound by the 

 Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, of 

 Cambridge ; and now it is not only available for all future 

 students'of ancient America, but its surroundings, some 

 seventv acres, have been set apart as a public park, and so are 

 of intei-est to the readers of Garden and Forest. 



I have spoken of the unpark-like condition of the high 

 jjlateau, through which the main drive passes. The present 

 disturbed condition arises from the fact that every inch of the 

 ground is being carefully explored for traces of the serpent 

 builders, and the results'so far go towards the establishment 

 of the view that the people who erected fiie earth-work were 

 not historic Indians — Cherokee or Shawnee, as has been 

 asserted — but a race akin to, if not identical with, the ancient 

 Mexicans. But I will not further trespass upon the work nor 

 anticipate the conclusions of Professor Putnam, who is 



