192 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 482. 



scape-gardener to be the planting of flower-beds and of 

 ornamental shrubs. But, after all, it is this broad and 

 catholic art which alone is satisfying everywhere, and 

 which is just as useful in the preservation of the Yosemite 

 Valley or the scenery of Niagara as it is in planning a pas- 

 toral park or the grounds about a country house. 



A year ago we gave some account of the farming on 

 vacant lots in this city, carried on under the direction of 

 the New York Association for Improving the Condition of 

 the Poor. The experience of another year confirms what 

 we then asserted, namely, that there are many destitute 

 people in the crowded districts of this city who are not only 

 willing to support themselves, but who can earn a living if 

 they are allowed to use land which now lies idle and 

 unproductive. These tenement-house farmers work under 

 the instruction of experts trained and schooled in agricul- 

 tural theory and practice, so that they really cultivate their 

 land in accordance with the teachings of science. It thus 

 happens that besides gaining some support they are actu- 

 ally learning an honorable trade, and learning it in a more 

 direct and practical way than if they were attending a 

 school of agriculture. Last year the women again proved 

 the best farmers, and again the mothers were delighted at 

 the opportunity of taking their children out of the stifling 

 tenements and giving them an actual taste of country life. 

 Besides this, it is a great advantage to people who are 

 unskilled and unemployed to be lifted up to a place where 

 they can think for themselves and have their dull mental 

 processes stirred up and made helpful. As they begin to 

 sell their material they quickly learn the important lesson 

 that quality commands price, and as they are brought into 

 actual connection with the working world and are encour- 

 aged to hope that they may become self-supporting mem- 

 bers of society this schooling in the ways of actual business 

 is invaluable. The reason why vacant-lot farmers can 

 support themselves on the products of a comparatively 

 small area is that they sell directly to the consumer. Small 

 bunches of radishes, tastefully arranged and carried in a 

 basket among the tenements, will bring two or three times 

 as much as the same product nets the grower who sells at 

 wholesale. How well some of these people cultivate their 

 varied crops and how effectively they can display them 

 was shown at the American Institute Fair last autumn, 

 where one woman exhibited thirty-five kinds of vegetables, 

 all well grown and all arranged with singular good taste. 

 This colfection well deserved the award it received by the 

 unanimous vote of competent judges. 



This year the work has started once more in full vigor. 

 Provision has been made for helping a hundred families, 

 and a hundred other applicants were turned away because 

 it was not possible to secure land under favorable condi- 

 tions. The fact that almost the entire list of vacant-lot 

 farmers this year are novices does not show that the 

 people who took up this work the year before became 

 tired of the experiment because they had failed. On the 

 contrary, it is a fact that the greater proportion of those 

 who once cultivated vacant lots have gone beyond the 

 need of this help. They have been encouraged and 

 enabled to secure steady and remunerative employment, 

 and some of them have abandoned the tenement-house 

 regions for a life in the country. The educational feature 

 of this enterprise is the most interesting part of it, and if it 

 broadens out under the present judicious management as 

 it promises to do, there is no reason why the greater por- 

 tion of the vacant land that is arable and idle in the suburbs 

 of our cities should not be brought under cultivation. 

 The result will be not only that the necessities of many 

 destitute men and women will be met, but these people 

 will learn that there is a more natural and happy life for 

 them outside of the slums, and that they can make a 

 living in the country by using the knowledge they 

 have gained in these summer schools of practical agri- 

 culture. 



Three New Jersey Pines. 



A RATHER hurried trip through southern New Jersey 

 for the study of forest fires, under the auspices of the 

 State Geological Survey, recently took me, with my travel- 

 ing companion, Mr. H. S. Graves, through the fire-devastated 

 south-eastern portion of the state. Aside from the main 

 results of the trip, which must be reserved for a report to 

 the next Legislature, the excursion yielded the following 

 notes on three of the New Jersey Pines : 



Pinus rigida. — The power of this tree to sprout from the 

 stump has been well known hitherto, but it has been gen- 

 erally supposed that the sprouts perish in early youth, 

 never attaining merchantable size. This ability to coppice 

 freely is mentioned by Mr. B. E. Fernow in an article in 

 No. 405 of Garden and Forest, but the size to which the 

 sprouts attain does not seem to have been definitely de- 

 scribed. Southward from Lakewood and Toms River, on 

 the barren, sandy, burned portions of the state, these 

 sprouts of Pinus rigida are exceedingly common. In the 

 larger specimens, which commonly reach a diameter of 

 six to eight inches, breast-high, from two to five sprouts 

 from the same stump are usual, while those of younger 

 growth are often much more numerous. The life and 

 proportions of the sprouts, like those of the less numerous 

 seedling trees with which they were associated, were so 

 limited and restricted by the frequently recurring fires that 

 I was able to form no judgment of the maximum size to 

 which they may attain. In every case noted the parent 

 stem had been destroyed by fire, not by the axe. This 

 fact, taken in connection with the habits of this tree ob- 

 served elsewhere, may indicate a possible connection 

 between this unusual sprouting power and the sandy soil 

 and frequent fires of southern New Jersey. 



The same capacity to sprout is shown also in the 

 very numerous suckers which cover the trunks and the 

 trunkward ends of the branches of trees whose leaves have 

 been completely burned off, and whose smallest twigs 

 bear marks of fire (see page 195). I am acquainted with 

 no other tree whose capacity to recover after such treat- 

 ment compares with that of Pinus rigida, although I do 

 not know how durable that recovery may be. The oldest 

 suckers examined had been on the tree but three years. 



Pinus echinata. — So far as I am informed, sprouts of this 

 tree have not hitherto been noted. Near New Lisbon, in 

 the central part of the state, they were quite common, 

 though of small size, while at Lakewood and elsewhere 

 larger trees, which appear to be sprouts, but of which the 

 origin is still uncertain, are often conspicuous. Great num- 

 bers of little sprouts occasionally spring from small fire- 

 killed trees at the surface of the ground, as happens so 

 frequently with Pinus rigida, and stumps bearing a number 

 of vigorous living sprouts of some size were also found. 

 The power to sprout from the stump has not, until now, 

 been known to belong to any of the two-leaved Pines 111 

 America, nor have I learned of its existence among these 

 Pines in any other region. The five-leaved Pines do not 

 sprout, and among the three-leaved American Pines only P. 

 rigida has, so far as has been reported, this power. The free- 

 dom with which in certain localities both these trees, but 

 especially P. rigida, send up sprouts after a fire, leads to the 

 suspicion that these cases may be less isolated than they 

 appear. It seems not unlikely that further search would 

 result in extending the range of the sprouting capacity' of 

 P. echinata to other regions, and possibly in finding parallel 

 cases among species whose coppicing power is not yet 

 recognized. 



Pinus T/eda. — This tree does not appear to have been 

 reported previously from New Jersey. A single specimen, 

 found on this trip, is growing on the Price farm at Town 

 Bank, on the west side of Cape May, about three miles 

 from the bathing beach and the great hotels. It stands 

 alone, on pure white sand, two or three feet above the 

 fresh-water lagoon, which here, as elsewhere, lies directly 

 behind the moving sand dunes of the shore. The old 



