December 19, 1888.] 



Garden and Forest. 



505 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Conducted by 



Office : Tribune Building. New York. 

 Professor C. S. Sargent. 



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



NEW YORK, WHDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, iS 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles: — Forests and Civilization. — Christmas Green. — The 

 Value of a Plan in Works of a Rural Character. — Horticultural Col- 

 lege in Swanley. — The Manufacture of Spools 505 



The Story of Shoitia (with illustration) C. S. S. 506 



Plan of Ine Leland Stanford, Jr., University {with illustration) 507 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter IK ll^atsou. 509 



Tlic Washinj^ton Oak at Fislilcill (with illustration) 511 



Cultural Department: — New Chrysanthemums H. P. IValcott. 511 



Japanese Chrysanthemum, Lilian B. Bird (with illustration), 



Arthur H. Fe7vkes. 513 



The Vegetable Garden ]l'm. Falconer. 513 



Rose Notes W. H. Taplin. 513 



Orchid Notes A. D. 513 



Correspondence: — Improvement of North American Fruits. .. CAar/tfj A^iziw/iM. 514 



Recent Publications 514 



Periodical Literature 515 



Meetings OF Societies ; — The Forestry Congress at Atlanta 515 



Notes 5i6 



Illustrations : — Plan of the Leland Stanford, Jr., University, Fig. 79 508 



Shortia galacitolia. Fig. 80 509 



The Washington Oak at Fishkill, Fig. 81 510 



Chrysantheiiium, Lilian B. Bird, Fig. 82 512 



Forests and Civilization. 



THE essential facts, principles and ideas of the sub- 

 ject of Forestry have not yet become a part of the 

 mental possessions of the people of this country. It takes 

 time for any new subject to obtain a real place in the 

 mind and consciousness of a nation. Just and practical 

 thinlving in regard to our forest interests and their rela- 

 tion to the national welfare is possible only after a consid- 

 erable acquaintance with the facts upon whicli the science 

 and practice of Forestry depend. Some degree of famil- 

 iarity with the subject is necessary to enable people to 

 recognize its real nature and importance. Opinions 

 which have no basis of knowledge are of slight value — 

 are, indeed, hardly worthy of tlie name; and some know- 

 ledge of elementary facts and principles must be domesti- 

 cated — made at home — in the minds of the people, in 

 order to prepare them for intelligent action regarding our 

 forest interests. 



We have not yet reached this stage in the development 

 of our national intelligence in relation to this subject, and 

 much iteration and illustration of the truths which have 

 been established by observation and by the experience of 

 thousands of years, will be required before they become 

 a part of the national consciousness ; before these truths 

 can be assimilated and incorporated into the mind and 

 habitual thought of the American people. This indis- 

 pensable repetition of the essential facts and ideas of the 

 subject must be urged, and an impression produced, as 

 rapidly as possible, as the process of the destruction of 

 our forests does not wait for the necessarily slow advance 

 of popular intelligence. 



AH the money that has been obtained from the Adiron- 

 dack forests might have been gained without injury to the 

 woods themselves, leaving every acre still clothed with 

 prosperous and productive forests. But, by reason of 

 ignorance, indifference and mismanagement, much of this 

 region is to-day almost as completely and irrecoverably 

 ruined as if it were covered a thousand feet deep with 

 boiling lava. The people who are interested in great 

 schemes and enterprises for irrigation in the western part 

 of this country appear to be mostly unaware of the essen- 



tial fact that if the forests of that region are destroyed, 

 there will be a great loss of the water needed to carry out 

 any plan or system whatever. 



When the pine supply of Wisconsm and IMinnesota is 

 e.xhausted there is likely to be a very considerable move- 

 ment of the population out of the states which have de- 

 pended upon this region for lumber. Other sources of 

 supply will be too far away, and the increased cost of 

 timber will make the difference, for many thousands 

 of people, between being able and not being able to live 

 in that country. If the people thus evicted by irresistible 

 economic conditions should all go out at once, the spec- 

 tacle would be impressive and dramatic. But, as the 

 movement will take place gradually, few persons will give 

 it attention or recognize its cause. Yet the results in the 

 end must be the same. 



The ultimate and inevitable effect of the destruction of 

 our forests will be the impoverishment of some regions 

 of our country ; and, as a consequence of this wanton 

 and hideous waste of our national resources, millions of our 

 people will be compelled to live on a lower plane of civili- 

 zation, and with less means for physical subsistence 

 and comfort, and for development in all that constitutes 

 civilized life, than would have been accessible to them if 

 our forests had been intelligently cared for. There is no 

 subject which at present more urgently requires the atten- 

 tion of journalists, educators and statesmen, and of all 

 thoughtful men in this country. 



Christmas Green. 



EVERY morning for a week past the steamboat Minnie 

 Cornell, from Keyport, New Jersey, has come to her 

 pier loaded with "rope "and " fancy green." "Rope "is 

 the trade name for the cables made of Club-moss and oc- 

 casionally of Hemlock spray, and used for looping into fes- 

 toons or twining about columns in Christmas decorations. 

 " Fancy green " includes the wreaths, stars and other de- 

 signs, manufactured chiefly from the leaves of Holly, 

 Laurel and Rhododendron, together with INIosses, green or 

 gray, from Oak trunks and Cedar boughs, scarlet berries of 

 the Black Alder, the bluish gray fruit of the Juniper, the 

 scarlet and orange fruits of the Bittersweet, riot to speak of 

 Grasses dried and dyed in fearful and wonderful colors. 

 The little steamer has more than once carried 60,000 yards 

 of the festooning material, and 1,500 dozen stars and 

 wreaths at a single trip, and the entire amount of "rope" 

 brought to this market during the season would reach from 

 New York to Boston. The very first Christmas green sold 

 in this city came from Keyport. Some forty-five years 

 ago the wife of a Monmouth County farmer gathered 

 enough Ground Pine to fill a sheet with the four corners 

 tied together, and shipped it on a sloop with her poultry. 

 It proved a lucky venture, and ever since, the people of 

 Monmouth County have held almost a monopoly of the 

 industry, although both the species of Club-moss most 

 large])'' used, Lycopodiuni dendroideum and L. comphmalum, 

 were practically exterminated from that region years ago. 

 They are still abundant, howevei, in Connecticut, some 

 parts of northern New York, and Massachusetts, and are 

 shipped to New Jersey in such quantities that large dealers 

 buy them by the ton, and the manufacture of these festal 

 wreaths and cables gives emploj^ment to the wives and 

 daughters of many farmers after the fall work on the farm 

 is oven 



The trade in Ch'-istmas-trees began in 1S51, when IMark 

 Carr yoked up his oxen and hauled from the Catskills to 

 the steamboat landing on the Hudson two sled-loads of 

 voung Balsams, and paid a silver dollar for the privilege of 

 selling them on the cornerof Vesey and Greenwich Streets. 

 At least 150,000 trees have been piled up along the docks 

 of the North River during the last week, and since the days 

 of Mark Carr many a dealer has been glad to pay a hundred 

 dollars for a corner privilege for holiday trade in Christmas 

 trees. About half of tlie trees this year come from 



