38 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 466. 



building. Large sums of money have certainly been 

 devoted to the construction of park roads, but the Com- 

 mission has also spent a great deal of money in erecting 

 ugly, and often useless, park buildings and in expensive 

 masonry construction not always necessary and often 

 of doubtful taste. The Commission, too, has for years 

 maintained a large garden establishment which has 

 been actively and successfully engaged in propagating and 

 planting through the parks herbaceous plants, Honey- 

 suckles, Vincas, Japanese Retinosporas, Golden-leaved 

 Junipers and Elders and many other exotic garden shrubs. 

 It is a question of taste which it is not our purpose to discuss 

 now, whether the masses of weedy garden perennials are 

 properly used along the drives of the Fenway and the bor- 

 ders of its salt marshes, or whether Japanese Retinosporas, 

 Golden Elders and yellow Junipers do not strike false notes 

 in the rural landscape sought for in Franklin Park. Such 

 plants may have been wisely selected for their purpose, but 

 it is certainly not good management, when the amount of 

 money for park-planting is limited, to spend a considerable 

 part of it in this way and leave the parkways unprovided 

 with shade-trees, and allow Oaks, Elms, Chestnuts, Hickories 

 and Beeches which have been growing for more than a hun- 

 dred years, perhaps, to suffer from overcrowding, insufficient 

 nourishment and the attacks of insects. A Retinospora or a 

 Japanese Honeysuckle may attain its greatest usefulness 

 and beauty in the course of a dozen years, but an Oak or a 

 Hickory will increase in beauty for a century, and may in 

 our climate, if it is properly cared for, last for a century 

 longer. If a choice must be made, our plea is for the 

 Oaks and the Hickories against the Retinosporas, Elders, 

 Honeysuckles and all the garden trash in which park 

 makers seem to delight, and against unnecessary stone and 

 mortar when stone and mortar preclude the proper care of 

 the trees. — Ed.] 



Pollen-bearing vs. Plant Vigor. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — Pollen being generally considered the male element of 

 higher plants is supposed to demand an appreciable portion 

 of the plant's vigor. This hypothesis has gained some cre- 

 dence in the popular mind, and even botanists assume that it 

 is more or less true. Numerous instances of increased vigor 

 and size among emasculated animals are cited to prove 

 that the same principles hold good in the plant world. But 

 this analogy between plants and animals is untenable, since an 

 animal is an individual whose various organs are more or less 

 interdependent, while a plant is a congeries of individuals 

 which are not to the same extent dependent on, but, in 

 a certain sense, at variance with one another. The plant may 

 lose a leaf, a twig, a branch — it may even be destroyed to 

 the root, but life is not necessarily extinct. Under favorable 

 conditions it may spring into renewed activity. The animal, 

 on the contrary, never wholly recovers from the loss of a 

 member, if we leave out of consideration the reproduction of 

 lost parts in some invertebrates, although frequently the other 

 members may acquire an increased development, or enforced 

 inactivity may result in greater size. The loss of one arm in 

 man brings about increased power and dexterity in the other, 

 because of the greater amount and variety of work demanded 

 of it. The loss of reproductive power results in the turning of 

 that energy into other channels, as weight, for example. These 

 principles are supposed to hold in the vegetable world, and 

 on this hypothesis horticulturists base the statement that pis- 

 tillate strawberries, for example, produce better and more 

 fruit than hermaphrodite varieties, because they do not have 

 the two offices of staminate and pistillate flowers in the same 

 individual. 



But, although this theory has gained some currency, there 

 have been no experiments tried, so far as can be learned, to 

 prove it, and it was to test the matter that a series of tests has 

 been conducted by the writer, at Cornell University. 



Plants were selected in which the stamens could easily be 

 reached and removed. All were subjected, as far as practica- 

 ble, to the same conditions of growth — that is, uniform soil, 

 temperature, moisture and light. Plants raised from cuttings 

 were chosen from a large number of one variety, and were as 

 nearly uniform in development as possible. The same care 

 in selection was exercised in the case of seedlings. All shifts 



were made simultaneously, and in homogeneous soil. Vege- 

 tative conditions, then, being equal, the one factor to be varied 

 was the removal or non-removal of the stamens. One set of 

 plants was allowed to bloom without interference ; a second 

 suffered exsection of the stamens in each alternate flower, or, 

 in the case of Geraniums and the like, each alternate truss of 

 bloom was castrated, while all the anthers were removed from 

 the third set. The exsection was performed as soon as fine- 

 pointed tweezers could be inserted into the expanding bud 

 without damage to its perfect development. 



At the close of the experiments some of the varieties seemed 

 to have been benefited by the loss of anthers. Most notewor- 

 thy of these was Clarkia pulchella, in which not only were the 

 emasculated plants more robust and vigorous, but they bore 

 nearly four times as many flowers. On the other hand, some 

 of the plants treated showed little or no effect from the opera- 

 tion. From the experiments thus far made no definite law or 

 laws can be formulated, but from data at hand it seems proba- 

 ble that plants like Clarkia and Geranium, which have an 

 extended season of bloom, might be aroused to increased 

 effort, while species which have a brief flowering period might 

 show no effect at all, since the plant is practically mature when 

 the flower appears. Further, it is not improbable that plants 

 cultivated for their flowers may show the effect of castration 

 in increased vigor and flower production, while others, like 

 Peppers, might bend their energies toward fruit production. 

 Experiments are still being conducted, and I should be glad 

 to correspond with any one interested in the subject. 

 Ithaca, N. Y. Maurice G. Kains. 



Recent Publications. 



The First Account of Some Western Trees.* — II. 



On January 8th, 1806, the party ascended a hill above 

 what is now Nehalem Bay (ii., 749) and found " the moun- 

 tains covered with a very thick growth of timber, chiefly 

 Pine and Fir, some of which, perfectly sound and solid, rise 

 to the height of 2 10 feet and are from eight to twelve feet in 

 diameter." The Pine and Fir are referred by Dr. Coues to 

 Abies grandis and Pseudotsuga Douglasii, perhaps correctly, 

 although Picea Sitchensis is common here, and the largest 

 tree on the coast. "The White Cedar, or Arbor Vitas," was 

 seen at the same time, and by Dr. Coues was referred to 

 Thuya occidentalis. This tree, which was Thuya gigantea, 

 is now almost always called Red Cedar on the north-west 

 coast, the term White Cedar, when used at all, being applied 

 to Cupressus Lawsoniana, which does not extend as far 

 north as the territory visited by our travelers. The wood 

 of the Thuya (ii., 764) was used by the Indians in making 

 their bows. The "light white pine" used by them for 

 arrows, if it was white pine at all, may have been the 

 wood of Pinus monticola or of Pinus Lambertiana, but as 

 these trees do not grow in this neighborhood, at least in 

 any quantity, it is more probable that this white pine is the 

 wood of Picea Sitchensis. The bark of the Cedar (ii., 768) 

 was used in making hats, which were traded with the 

 whites, and this bark, too, interwoven with Bear-grass 

 (whatever that may be), was closely woven into water- 

 tight baskets (ii., 769). It is from the trunks also of this 

 Arbor Vita? that the canoes used by the Indians of the lower 

 Columbia were made (ii., 770), and such canoes were seen 

 by Lewis and Clark fifty feet long, and capable of carrying 

 twenty to thirty persons. 



Chapter xxv., at the beginning of the third volume of 

 this edition, is devoted to a general description of the 

 botany and zoology, especially of the region of the lower 

 Columbia, and here are well described a number of the 

 peculiar trees of the north-west coast. A shrub (hi., 828), 

 with a "deep purple berry like the huckleberry, terminates 

 bluntly, and has a cap, or cover, at the end. The shrub 

 rises to the height of six or eight feet, and sometimes grows 

 on high lands, but more frequently on low marshy grounds. 

 The shrub is an evergreen about ten inches in circumfer- 

 ence ; it divides into many irregular branches; seldom 

 more than one stem springs from one root, although the 



* History of the Expedition under the command of Lewis and Clark. A new edition 

 by Elliott Coues. In 4 vols. Francis P, Harper. New York, 1893. 



