9 2 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 472- 



We consider it absolutely essential that a quarantine officer, 

 if such a position is created, ought to have a considerable 

 knowledge of entomology, with special training and 

 experience. 



This whole subject, we are glad to learn, will be discussed 

 at the coming National Fruit Growers' Convention. We 

 cannot afford to sit idly by and allow these repeated attacks 

 upon agricultural industries in their present depressed con- 

 dition. Fruit growers, truck raisers and the growers 

 of staple farm crops have all they can do to secure a living 

 from the soil. The people who glibly give advice to them 

 " to go into something else," that is, to turn their truck 

 farms into small fruit farms, to abandon the raising of small 

 fruits for dairy products, or to plant vineyards instead of 

 orchards, do not realize how depressing it is to be com- 

 pelled to revolutionize an entire system of farm economy 

 when the old way is threatened by a glut in the market or 

 by the appearance of some new enemy. It is to be hoped 

 that some means can be devised for the suppression by 

 public authority of pests when they pass beyond the con- 

 trol of individuals. But we must repeat that no more 

 delicate problem than this has ever been presented either 

 to state or national legislation. Some phases of this prob- 

 lem were stated on page 401, in volume vi. of this journal, 

 and we have often discussed the particular cases of the 

 general question. Even if all the fruit, and seeds, and bulbs 

 and plants imported into this country were subjected to 

 rigid inspection it must be remembered that the germs of 

 disease, the seeds of evil weeds and the eggs of noxious 

 insects can be imported in a thousand other ways. When 

 once here the difficulties of preventing their transportation 

 into adjacent states arise, and a spirit of hostility, and per- 

 haps of retaliation, is at once kindled by any attempt to 

 prevent the transportation of infected nursery stock from 

 one part of this country to another, (hie thing the General 

 Government can do, and the state governments ought to aid 

 it in every way possible, and that is to give moral and 

 financial support to institutions where the scientific study 

 of the contagious diseases of plants and of pestiferous 

 insects is prosecuted, and to give substantial help to the 

 stations where experiments are made to discover the most 

 effective means of eradicating them. The more that is 

 learned about these enemies, and the more widely such 

 knowledge is disseminated, the more certainly we may look 

 for a strong and enlightened public sentiment on this sub- 

 ject, and, after all, this is the one condition essential to the 

 enforcement of a quarantine lav/ or any other direct legis- 

 lation for the extirpation of infectious diseases or insects. 



Second-growth White Pine in Pennsylvania. 



DURING a recent trip through Elk, Forest, Jefferson 

 and Clearfield Counties, Pennsylvania, I was repeat- 

 edly told that the White Pine never followed itself in forest 

 renewal ; that on White Pine lands from which the timber 

 was removed a vigorous growth of hardwoods would 

 appear, but that Pine never came again on such lands, or 

 at least not until the hardwoods had prepared the soil for 

 a second crop of Pine. Among others a leading lumber- 

 man of Elk County held strenuously to this doctrine, and 

 this gave an added interest to the examination of the 

 woods. My first stopping-place, after the interview with 

 the Elk County man, so completely refuted his contention 

 that it is hoped he may visit the slashings of the Du Bois 

 tract, and then apply the result of his observations to the 

 care of his own extensive holdings. 



In 1859 a cyclone destroyed the timber on a strip of land 

 half a mile wide and of great extent, its path crossing the 

 Du Bois tract in the north-west part of Clearfield County. 

 A new growth has, of course, sprung up in the path of the 

 storm. Upon one part of it, which by a fortuitous combi- 

 nation of circumstances has been protected from fire, there 

 is a vigorous stand of young White Pine, mixed with hard- 

 woods. Seen from an adjoining hill the Pine seems the 



most plentiful species, and a careful study resulted in a 

 surprisingly small percentage, but explained measurably 

 the erroneous theory regarding the absence of White Pine 

 generally in second-growth timber. 



An acre, believed to be representative of the protected 

 area, was measured off and all the trees counted, resulting 

 as follows: White Pine, 285; Aspen, 66; Beech, 138; 

 Sugar Maple, 130; Silver Maple and Red Maple, 130; 

 Black Oaks, 16 ; White Oak, 1 ; White Ash, 24 ; Cucumber 

 Tree, 96 ; Black Cherry, 79 ; Black Birch, 432 ; White 

 Birch, 12; Basswood, 6; Ironwood (Ostrya), 2; Tulip 

 Tree, 13 ; Chestnut, 2; Willow, 10; Hemlock, 50. 



To this list must be added a shrubby undergrowth of 

 Alder, Blackberry and other plants. 



It will be observed that of the 1,480 trees counted on the 

 area, only 285, a little less than one-fifth, are Pines. Of this 

 number 90 were estimated at forty feet or more in height. 

 These Pines were the tallest trees on the acre, and this 

 fact, coupled with their winter foliage, gave them the 

 appearance of being the most numerous. The tallest Hem- 

 lock on the acre was hardly more than six feet, while the 

 great majority of the Hemlocks were less than two feet 

 high. 



The age of the oldest Pines was found to be thirty-five 

 years, showing that they sprung up within a few years of 

 the destruction of the old growth. 



An effort was made to determine the age of small Pines 

 by pulling a number of trees up to three feet in height and 

 counting the annual rings at the collar, using the number 

 of whorls of branches as a check. For this purpose a 

 "slashing" (land whence the merchantable timber has 

 been cut) not far from the sample area above noted was 

 carefully examined. Immediately adjoining the slashing 

 was a splendid Pine forest, where there stood an average 

 of thirty-five Pines to the acre, the remaining trees being 

 Hemlock and a small admixture of hardwoods. In the 

 slashing the ground was covered with a dense growth of 

 Brambles, young Maples, Birch, Beech, etc., rising to a 

 height of ten or twelve feet. It was evident that fire had 

 not touched the tract since the timber was cut, and a care- 

 ful examination revealed a number of young Pines growing 

 healthily in the shade of the hardwoods. Unfortunately, 

 a fall of snow prevented the counting of the little Pines on 

 measured areas. Between forty and fifty trees were pulled, 

 their ages determined and height accurately measured, the 

 result being as follows : Two years old trees, 3 inches high ; 

 three years old, 5 inches ; four years old, 8 inches ; five 

 years old, 10^ inches ; six years old, 31 inches; seven 

 years old, 31 inches ; eight years old, 27 inches. It is not 

 to be inferred, of course, that the growth of Pine becomes 

 less the seventh and eighth years ; it simply happened in 

 this instance that the twelve trees of which the size was 

 determined had not made as good growth as those of less 

 age. It will be noted that during their first four or five 

 years the White Pine seedlings grow very slowly, and it is 

 easy to understand that there might arise a doubt of their 

 ever making large trees, compared with the more rapid- 

 growing hardwoods which shelter them. So, too, the tiny 

 seedlings might easily escape notice entirely, and thus the 

 false generalization with which this article is headed is 

 explained. However, in studying the development of the 

 young growth on the sample area above noted, it was 

 found that the Pine begins a rapid height growth when 

 from ten to fifteen years of age, and between the ages of 

 fifteen and fifty years it is no unusual thing for it to increase 

 in height from two to three feet in a single year. Thus we 

 find in the slashing tiny Pines which require a sharp look- 

 out to discover, while in the path of the cyclone, other 

 conditions than time being similar, the lusty Pines seem to 

 dominate all the other growth. 



The two instances above cited demonstrate the ability of 

 White Pine to reproduce itself, provided fire is kept away 

 from it. The proviso sounds simple enough, but the thou- 

 sands of desolate acres marked by charred stumps and 

 ash-covered soil which lie between Williamsport and 



