January 20, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



21 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted bv Professor C. S. Sargent. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1897. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



(Editorial Article : — The North Woods 21 



Two Years After the Great Freeze in Florida H. S. Williams, 22 



Conifers on the Grounds of the Kansas Agricultural College.— III. 



F. C. Sears. 23 



Foreign Correspondence :— New Garden Plants, 1891-1895 W. Watson. 23 



New or Little-known Plants : — Pseudotsuga macrocarpa. (With figure ) 



C. S. S. 24 



Cultural Department:— Vegetable Notes J. A. New! in. 25 



India Rubber Plants.... J. N. Gerard. 26 



Seasonable Work W. H. Taplin. 26 



Anthuriums William Magee, Jr. 27 



Window Plants William Stuart 27 



Correspondence : — The Best Winter Pears.. A. D. Morse, 27 



Recent Publications :— The First Account of Some Western Trees.— I. . C S. S. 28 



Notes 3° 



(Illustration : — Pseudotsuga macrocarpa on the San Gabriel Forest Reserva- 



vaton, Fig. 5 25 



The North Woods. 



IT is now twenty-five years since the passage of an act 

 by the Legislature of New York providing for the ap- 

 pointment of seven Commissioners of Parks for the state, 

 who were directed to inquire into the expediency of "pro- 

 viding for vesting in the state the title to the timbered 

 regions lying within the counties of Lewis, Essex, Clinton, 

 Franklin, St. Lawrence, Herkimer and Hamilton, and con- 

 verting the same into a public park. " That is, as long ago 

 as 1872 there was a general recognition of the value 

 -of this region for its timber-supply, for its usefulness in 

 preserving and maintaining the water-supply of the 

 canals and streams of the state, for furnishing hy- 

 draulic power, and for the attraction which its picturesque 

 scenery, its numerous lakes and its abundant game offered 

 -to the invalid, the tourist and the sportsman. This record 

 also demonstrates that even then the attacks on the timber 

 of this vast region had been so merciless that the Legisla- 

 ture had been driven to take some active interest in its 

 preservation. In the documents prepared by these com- 

 missioners, of whom the Hon. Horatio Seymour was 

 President, it is set forth that this broad area, once owned 

 "by the state, had been largely conveyed to purchasers who 

 had bought it for the timber and bark it carried ; that a 

 single tract embracing more than a quarter of a million of 

 acres had been conveyed to a corporation for five cents an 

 acre under a scheme of speculation that was little less than 

 fraudulent, and that the state then owned but a small frac- 

 tion of the territory, and this was in detached parcels. The 

 report also declares that the lands originally bought 

 for their timber had been largely abandoned after this 

 was removed as not being worth to the holders the 

 taxes on wild lands, so that large blocks had been repeat- 

 edly sold for arrears of taxes or left in the possession of the 

 state as not worth these claims until, in the course of time, 

 another growth had made them desirable, when they were 

 again bought from the state, again to be abandoned when 

 stripped of everything worth carrying away. It was stated 

 also that whenever a project for repurchasing this land was 

 brought forward the owners would combine to raise the 

 price to an unreasonable amount, so that Dr. Hough, 

 another of the commissioners, stated two or three years 



later, in a Congressional document, that "insuperable diffi- 

 culties toward establishing this park were found in the fact 

 that the soil belonged chiefly to private owners, and could 

 not be acquired without unreasonable cost." 



And now, twenty-five years later, Governor Black, in his 

 first annual message, pronounces these words of warning 

 and reproof: "A question too long neglected is the preser- 

 vation of our forests. The state, either through indifference 

 or false economy, has been stripped of its most valuable 

 timber lands, has allowed its water-supply to be seriously 

 impaired, and the most wonderful sanitarium of the world 

 to be defaced and partially destroyed. Every element of 

 economy and foresight is outraged by this course." And 

 he goes on to say that private individuals, taking advan- 

 tage of the state's neglect, have taken possession of more 

 than three-fourths of the area of the entire Adirondack 

 region, and that more than five-sevenths of the proposed 

 Adirondack Park, which includes some 2,800,000 acres, are 

 now held as private preserves or owned by lumbermen, 

 much of the land being exposed to appalling and disgrace- 

 ful devastation by fire and axe. When we remember that 

 during all these years the destruction of these forests has 

 been the theme of public discussion in the press and of 

 reports by commission after commission, and that it has fur- 

 nished matter for legislative oratory and action at every 

 session, the result can hardly be pronounced encouraging. 

 The report of Mr. Seymour's Commission stated that the 

 ruin was going on unchecked, and it has been going on 

 ever since. It seemed to the early commissioners that the 

 land could not be acquired without unreasonable cost to 

 the state, and it will cost the state ten times as much 

 to-day^. But something has been gained. A constitutional 

 amendment has been adopted which, in a blind, uncivi- 

 lized way, attempts to save the forests on the state 

 lands by forbidding anybody to use them. Of course, 

 neither state forests nor any other forests can have 

 any direct economical value unless their products are 

 gathered any more than a farm can be made profit- 

 able under a prohibition against harvesting any crops. The 

 exclusion of the axe from the state woodlands, provided 

 they are not devastated by fire or water, does, however, 

 give them a certain assured value as a protecting cover to 

 the land, and the people of the state showed that they were 

 in earnest in preserving this bulwark against destruction of 

 our state forests when they voted almost unanimously at 

 the late election against nullifying or changing the consti- 

 tutional provision. Another cheering symptom is found in 

 the vigorous words of the new Governor, which prove 

 that he has given some personal thought to the matter, for 

 no more convincing statement as to the need of the preser- 

 vation of these forests can be found in any public docu- 

 ment. Following the words already quoted, Governor 

 Black says : 



More than four hundred and fifty million feet of wood and 

 timber are cut, and more than one hundred thousand acres are 

 stripped every year. This work of devastation is progressing 

 fast. The banks of the lakes and rivers, and all sections accessi- 

 ble from either, are ravaged at such a pace that but few years 

 more can elapse before that region, in many respects the most 

 wonderful and valuable in the world, will' be practically de- 

 stroyed. The parts acquired or claimed by individuals are the 

 best. A traveler through any desirable portion of that country is 

 sure to be met with the charge of trespassing, for the cases are 

 rare in which the title of the state to a desirable tract is acknowl- 

 edged. Some time this deplorable condition must be recti- 

 fied. Every year the loss to the state grows larger, in all cases 

 difficult, and in some cases impossible, of recovery. The 

 land is steadily and rapidly increasing in value. The bogus 

 title burrows further out of sight the longer it is let alone. 

 Witnesses die, and the only thing sure to increase is the en- 

 croachment of individuals upon the domain of the state. The 

 enlargement of the canals will require more water, and the 

 demand in every direction is increasing, while the supplv is 

 steadily falling off. A subject of such magnitude should not 

 be postponed, nor conducted with the halting method which 

 is too apt to distinguish public enterprises, in which large 

 appropriations afford convenient resting-pla - in w hi 



