502 



Garden and Forest. 



[December 12, 188S. 



Pinus sjlvestris. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — There are several specimens of the Scotch Pine upon 

 the colleg-e campus here, and in most instances tliey are 

 making a good growth. During tlie tliree seasons before the 

 present one the trees have borne cones in abundance. Tliis 

 was strilvingly true for 1887, and tliis spring tlie ti'ees were 

 conspicuously loaded witli the old cones. These same trees — 

 and there are several of them close by — this spring produced 

 an unusually large number of slaminate blossoms, but an ex- 

 tended search failed to reveal any pistillate clusters. We have 

 scores of Scotch Pine trees upon ourornamental grounds, and 

 among them all only one has been found this season bearing- 

 cones of this year's growth, and upon that there were not over 

 a dozen. The strikmg contrast between the thousands upon 

 thousands of cones of last year, and the almost total absence 

 of them this season, lias led to this note, with the hope that 

 some dendrologist may assign the cause. Is it a case of over- 

 bearing in 1887 and recuperation this season ? 



Byron D. Halsted. 



Agricultural College, .\nies, la., November istli, 1888. 



Recent Publications. 



Handbiich der Forstwissenschaft, in Verbindung mit A. 

 Buhler, R. von Dombrowski, W. Exner, H. Ftirst, u. s. w., 

 herausgeben von Tuisko Lorey. In dreien theilen, in 8vo.: 

 630, 614, 576, ss. Tubingen, 1888. 



Dr. Lorey, the learned professor in the University of Tu- 

 bingen, has completed his work upon Forestry, which 

 appears under the title which we have reproduced above. It 

 occupies three stout volumes, and is rather an encyclopedia 

 of forest science than a mere manual, in which different de- 

 partments are fully treated by different specialists, among 

 whom are found tlie names of some of the most distinguished 

 professors in the German and Austrian forest schools. With 

 them h.'ive been associated several practical forest experts in 

 the preparation of this work, in which will be found a pre- 

 sentation of the different branches of science applical>le to the 

 management of the forest and of the methods of sylviculture 

 adopted in the different countries of central Europe. 



The first chapter, from the pen of Professor Weljer, of 

 Munich, is devoted to forest statistics; the distribution of 

 forests in tlie dilferent European countries, and an examination 

 of the historical causes which have developed their actual 

 present condition. To this Dr. Weber adds an exhaustive and 

 most interesting account of the influence of the forest upon 

 climates, the How of rivers and the composition of soils. 



The second chapter, by Dr. Lorey, is devoted to an examina- 

 tion of the question of instruction in forestry in the different 

 countries of the world, including statistical information relat- 

 ing to. schools of forestry and forest experimental stations, with 

 the courses of study and the organization of all such establish- 

 ments. 



Professor Schwappach, of Tubingen, devotes the third 

 chapter to a history of European forests and of European syl- 

 viculture, covering the period from the earliest days of mod- 

 ern civilization to the present time. 



The fourtli chapter is a treatise upon geology, mineralogy 

 and chemistry, as applied to sylviculture, from the pen of 

 Professor Raniann, of Eberswald. 



The fifth chapter is devoted by Professor Luerssen to a 

 forest fiora, in which are described the ligneous plants native 

 of Germany, together with such herbaceous plants as are met 

 with in the forest and all the cryptogamic plants found grow- 

 ing upon trees in Germany, and often the cause of serious 

 diseases among them. 



Professor Lorey, in the sixth cliapter, discusses exhaustively, 

 methods of natural and artificial forest reproduction, to 

 which is joined a study upon the creation of nurseries. 



Furst, Director of the Forest Institute of Aschaffenburg, 

 treats in the seventh chapter those ciuestions which relate to 

 the injuries inflicted upon the forest liy man and by the 

 lesser animals, including insects, by parasitic vegetation, and 

 hy the fall of meteors. A second part of this same chapter is 

 devoted by Forster, Chief Forester at Gmunden, to a discus- 

 sion upon torrents and avalanches — that is to say, upon the 

 art of mountain restoration as it is technically known. 



Professor Exner, of Vienna, examines in an exhausfive man- 

 ner in the eighth chapter the properties of different woods 

 from a purely technical point of view— their color, grain, 

 specific gravity, odor, density and elasticity. In the ninth 

 chapter the head forester at Hildburghausen, Stotzer, dis- 

 cusses the uses to which different woods'and barks are applied, 



methods of sale for forest products, the seasoning of timber, 

 and of the harvesting and preservation of seeds. The second 

 part of this chapter, by Professor Biililer, of Zurich, is devoted 

 to a description of various forest products used in agricul- 

 ture — forage, the bedding for domestic animals and manures. 

 Professor Schuberz, of Carlsruhe, treats of the transportation 

 of forest products ; while the chemical composition of wood, 

 its artificial preservation and the manufacture of paper-pulp, 

 charcoal, wood-acid and resin, form the subject of a fourth 

 division of this chapter, from the pen of Professor Schwack- 

 liofer, of Vienna. 



Hunting and fishing and fisli-culture occupy the ninth 

 chapter. 



Professor Lelir, of Munich, discusses in the tenth chapter 

 capital and the formulas which must be followed in determin- 

 ing the relation of capital invested in forest property to its re- 

 turns, relations which must be known in order that the most 

 advantageous methods of forest management in different cases 

 may be adopted. This is followed in the next chapter by an 

 explanation by Professor Guttenberg, of Vienna, of the theory 

 and practice of the measurements of the contents of timber in 

 a forest, with tables showing the increase of different trees, 

 botli as solitary individuals and in masses. 



The theory of forest management is developed by the di- 

 rector of the Forest Academy at Tharand, Professor Ju- 

 deich, in the twelfth and most interesting chapter of the 

 whole work, in which is explained broadly and clearly the 

 principles upon which modern scientific forestry is based. 



Professor Schwappach explains, in the thirteenth chapter, the 

 organizations for the maintenance, in Germany, of forests be- 

 longing to the State, the Communes, and to individuals, while 

 in the fourteenth and final chapter. Professor Lelir treats of 

 the forest from the point of view of national defence and pub- 

 lic wealth. 



We have described at length the contents of this remarka- 

 ble work, which is certainly' the most comprehensive in scope 

 and the richest in information that has yet appeared concern- 

 ing the forest in its complex relations to modern society. In 

 it are displayed very fully the actual condition of advanced 

 knowledge in regard to the forests of Europe ; and it stands 

 as a worthy monument of the learning, industry and perse- 

 verance of the German officers who have made forest science 

 what it is. The student of forests and forestry will find 

 in it unlimited sources of information, but it is as an en- 

 cyclopajdia and not as a manual, as its title would seem to 

 indicate, that Professor Lorey 's great work must be consid- 

 ered, and like all encycloptedias, it loses something in the ab- 

 sence of unity of treatment and expression — an inevitable fail- 

 ing when a book is written by several authors working inde- 

 pendently. But the book upon forestry is yet to be written, in 

 which a master mind, having gathered all the facts which 

 science has been accumulating during the past two centuries, 

 exposes them in one compact, logical and well-balanced 

 treatise. 



Periodical Literature. 



Attractive descriptions, profusely illustrated, of the environs 

 of Vienna, are published in the October and November num- 

 bers of Westeriiianii' s Monatsheften. Vienna has grown with 

 great rapidity during the past two decades, and the greatest 

 intelligence has been displayed in laying out and planting the 

 new quarters, and utilizing the possibilities which they offered 

 for securing variety as well as beauty to the result. No finer 

 streets exist than the encircling boulevards, laid out along the 

 line of the old fortifications of the town, which are collectively 

 known as the " Ringstrasse ; " and in some of the suburbs 

 villa-architecture, with all that it implies in the way of horti- 

 cultural embellishnient, has been brought to a very high de- 

 gree of perfection. 



In the Atlantic Monthly for October is a pleasant, poetical 

 little pastoral in prose by Sophia Kirk called " Pasture Herb 

 and Meadow Swath " — one of those witnesses to the develop- 

 ment of love for nature and of the literary gift, to which we 

 have referred more than once already as noteworthy proofs 

 in the progress of American culture. In the "Contributor's 

 Club," in tlie same magazine, is a brief but suggestive paper 

 which enforces the fact that the more one knows the world 

 the more pleasure it gives — that, in fact, we do not really en- 

 joy it because we do not really even see it until we have 

 learned for what and how to look. It is hardly needful to 

 remind our readers that Mr. Burroughs has often preached 

 from this important text ; but too many teachers cannot join 

 their voices with his in the effort to persuade people that the 



