April 14 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



141 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 1897. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article : — The National Forest Reservations 141 



The Red Cedar. (With figure.) 142 



Mature White Pine in Pennsylvania Charles A. Keffer. 142 



Burdock as a Vegetable Inazo Nitobe. 143 



Plant Notes: — Lilium pardalinum Carl Purdy. 144 



Cultural Department : — Southern California Ferns C. R. Orcutt. 146 



Ouvirandra fenestralis G. IV Oliver. 146 



Notes from the Botanic Garden of Smith College ...Ed-ward J. Canning. 147 



Rose Hybrids J. N. Gerard. 147 



Bamboos in Florida. H. Nekrlzng. 147 



Correspondence : — Notes from West Virginia Danske Dandridge. 148 



Nomenclature of the Spruces and Firs O. A. Fariaell. 149 



Notes from Carlton Hill, New Jersey M. B. C. 149 



Notes 150 



Illustration : — Red Cedars in New England, Fig. 17 145 



The National Forest Reservations. 



CERTAIN western Senators are strenuously demanding 

 the revocation of Mr. Cleveland's proclamation on the 

 22dof February, which established the great forest reserves 

 on the Government lands. It is not likely that they will 

 fully succeed, but some amendments to the Civil Sundries 

 Bill are now before the Senate as a sort of compromise. 

 The excuse is offered for attempting to legislate in such 

 an unusual way that the wants of miners and settlers are 

 immediate — that they need firewood and fencing and the 

 right to build roads to their mines. This is true, but no 

 one is suffering, and the fact is that the property of no one 

 except the Government is threatened. Beyond question, 

 some way of adjusting the rights of individuals and of the 

 Government must be devised, but it is notorious that every 

 effort to protect the public domain in these transactions by 

 the agents hitherto appointed by the Secretary of the In- 

 terior has failed. Our defective land laws, inadequately and 

 insufficiently enforced, have produced the inevitable result 

 of making the inhabitants of the public-land states 

 and territories look on the public domain as their own 

 personal property. Few men in the west consider that 

 they do wrong in cutting timber or pasturing their domes- 

 tic animals on public land, and any attempt to check 

 them is considered an infringement of their vested rights. 

 At present there is but one way in which the reser- 

 vations can be protected from fire and theft, and that is 

 by military control. Of course, the troops should not 

 be used permanently, and what is needed is the authority 

 from Congress for the Secretary to organize a quasi military 

 service of permanent trained forest officers to protect the 

 reservations and carry out such rules and regulations as he 

 may make for their administration. 



A year ago the Secretary of the Interior, appreciating 

 the gravity of the situation, and desiring more informa- 

 tion than he possessed on the general" forest situation 

 in the west, asked the National Academy of Sciences 

 for advice in the matter. A committee of experts was 

 appointed by the Academy to consider the whole ques- 

 tion, and during the past year it has devoted itself 

 assiduously to this work. The report and recommenda- 

 tions will be in the hands of the Government in a few days, 



and it seems at least unwise to legislate on such an impor- 

 tant question before the information collected by the highest 

 scientific body in the United States and the scientific ad- 

 viser of the Government can be utilized. The legislation 

 proposed by this committee, together with the report accom- 

 panying it, will be before Congress early next month, and 

 in order to inform the Secretary of the Interior of its leading 

 features the committee addressed to him on the 5th of April a 

 letter, which we publish entire as a matter of record, and 

 to show how carefully the rights and privileges of actual 

 settlers have been considered : 



To the Honorable 



The Secretary of the Interior, Washington, D. C. 



Sir, — The legislation relating to reserved forest lands of 

 the public domain which the Commission of the National 

 Academy will recommend in its final report, now in course 

 of preparation, provides for the following : 



First, that authority be given to the Secretary of War to 

 make details of troops, at the request of the Secretary of the 

 Interior, to protect temporarily, and until a forest service is 

 organized, the property of the Government in the forest 

 reservations from fire and trespass, and to enforce such 

 rules and regulations as he may make for their care. 



Second, the establishment of a permanent Forest Bureau 

 in the Department of the Interior, composed of trained 

 officers, to administer, maintain and improve the reserved 

 forest lands. 



Third, the appointment of a Commission to institute as 

 rapidly as possible, under the supervision of the director of 

 the Geological Survey, topographical surveys of the reser- 

 vations and determine what portions of them should be 

 permanently reserved on account of their forest covering 

 and what portions should be reopened to entry and sale. 



Fourth, to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to issue 

 the necessary rules and regulations for the protection, 

 growth and improvement of the forests on the reservations, 

 for the sale of timber, firewood and fencing from them to 

 actual settlers in and adjacent to the reservations and to 

 owners of mines legally located therein for use in such 

 mines ; for granting permits to sawmill owners to enter 

 the reservations for the purpose of manufacturing such 

 lumber as may be sold to actual settlers in and adjacent to 

 the reservations and to the owners of mines located therein ; 

 for allowing actual settlers who have no timber on their 

 own claims to take from the reservations firewood, posts, 

 poles and fencing material necessary for their immediate 

 personal use ; for allowing the public to enter and cross 

 the reservations ; for granting to county commissioners 

 rights of way for wagon roads in and across the reserva- 

 tions ; for granting rights of way for irrigating ditches, 

 flumes and pipes, and for reservoir sites ; and for permit- 

 ting prospectors under such rules and regulations as he 

 may from time to time establish to enter the reservations 

 in search of valuable minerals. 



The Commission will recommend that the reservations be 

 opened to the location of mining claims under the general 

 mineral laws, and that the owners of valid mining locations 

 in the reservations made and held in good faith shall be 

 permitted to fell and remove from their claims the timber 

 growing on them for actual mining purposes in connection 

 with the particular claim from which the timber is cut. It 

 will also recommend that the owners of unperfected bona 

 fide claims or patents of land included in the forest reser- 

 vations shall be permitted to relinquish their claims to the 

 Government, selecting in lieu tracts of vacant land open to 

 settlement, but not exceeding in area the tracts covered 

 by their claims or patents ; and that the owners of such 

 unperfected claims shall not be subjected to additional 

 charges for entries or record, and that credit shall be allowed 

 them for the time spent on the relinquished claims. The 

 Commission will also recommend that the Secretary of the 

 Interior be authorized to enter into negotiations with the 

 land-grant railroad companies for the purpose of conclud- 

 ing agreements by which these companies may relinquish 



