June 30, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



259 



noteworthy collection. Among them was conspicuous a 

 specimen of Epidendrum vittalinum with sixteen spikes of 

 orange-scarlet flowers, besides Miltonias, Cattleya Mendeli, 

 Cypripedium grande with five stems and fifteen open flowers, 

 and other admirable plants. Mr. W. A. Manda was awarded 

 a special prize for a new form of Lrelio-Cattleya Arnoldiana 

 with violet sepals and petals, purple lip and yellow throat. 



The herbaceous Pa?onies of Mr. T. C. Thurlow attracted 

 much attention, especially the seedlings, some of which had 

 decided merit. Mr. L. W. Goodell showed two tubs of fine 

 Nympbseas, which made a conspicuous feature in the upper 

 hall and proved how much we owe to the skill of Monsieur 

 Marliac for some of the finest early effects in our outdoor gar- 

 dens. Mention should be made also of Mr. N. T. Kidder's 

 specimen of Bougainvillea Sanderiana, which was unusually 

 bright and well flowered, of a few belated Rhododendrons 

 shown by James Comley, of the superb Sweet Williams of 

 Mr. W. N. Craig, Taunton, Massachusetts. Mr. Craig also had 

 a general collection of border flowers such as Carnations, 

 Coreopsis, Campanula persicifolia, Foxgloves and many more. 

 Carl Blomberg also had an excellent collection of seventy her- 

 baceous plants, and Mrs. E. B. Richards had a display of wild 

 flowers which included the most attractive kinds now in 

 bloom, and had a distinct educational value. 



The strawberries were not as numerous as they have been 

 in former years, but some of them were as big as peaches. 

 Marshall still holds the lead hereabouts, and judging from the 

 magnificent samples shown by Varnum Frost, G. V. Fletcher 

 and C. H. Souther it will not soon be superseded. There was 

 also a good display of vegetables. Among the principal prize 

 winners besides those already mentioned were Kenneth Fin- 

 layson, the Bussey Institution, Rea Brothers, J. L. Gardner, 

 Patrick Kane, W. H. Spooner, Miss E. M. Gill and W. C. Winter. 



Boston, Mass. ■"£■ 



Recent Publications. 



The Spruce Forests of Maine. — I. 



Third Annual Report of the Forest Commissioner of the 

 Stale of Maine, i8g6. Augusta : Burleigh & Flint. 



That the forestry question in the United States is rapidly 

 emerging out of the hands of the popular propagandist 

 into those of the practical business man is evidenced by 

 several of the publications that have emanated within the 

 past year from official sources. The report of the Forest 

 Commissioner of Maine deserves perhaps the most credit 

 in that it approaches the subject entirely from the business 

 side of the forest owner or forest exploiter. The Commis- 

 sioner, himself, who fills the position only as an additional 

 duty to that of Land Commissioner, occupies only ten 

 pages of the report, in which he briefly discusses the re- 

 sults of the administration of the forest fire laws. He 

 dwells on the fact that the mere knowledge of the existence 

 of an organized service, evidenced by the "fire notices" 

 widely displayed, has been sufficient to prevent many 

 fires ; yet lack of power to act in cases of emergency is 

 complained of, and a fire patrol to follow every railroad 

 train in the dry seasons — which appears a somewhat 

 extravagant demand — is suggested. After a few slurs on 

 the collection of "scientific data " as against "wholesale 

 practical information," he introduces the report of Mr. 

 Austin Gary, who received his first insight into this line of 

 work when employed in the Division of Forestry for the 

 purpose of making measurements of the rate of growth of 

 Spruce and White Pine and afterward made a short trip to 

 Germany in order to gain some rudimentary knowledge 

 of German forestry methods. This report contains so 

 much that is valuable, new, suggestive and desirable 

 to be brought forcibly to the attention of Maine lumber- 

 men that it is a matter of regret that Mr. Cary has chosen 

 a diffuse style and the introduction of much irrelevant and 

 personal matter. In these busy days one objects to work- 

 ing over 200 pages of ore to get out fifty pages of pure metal. 



The subject of the report comprises, briefly stated, an 

 investigation into the condition and promise of the Spruce 

 forests of a part of Maine, namely, the portion on the Ken- 

 nebec and Androscoggin River basins. The report at- 

 tempts a statement from hearsay of the amount of standing 

 timber ; gives a description of the conditions of different 



spruce areas, especially after the lumberman has cut them 

 over ; and, what is most interesting, furnishes data regard- 

 ing the growth of spruce with a view of determining what 

 aftergrowth takes place and what method of cutting may 

 be most profitable. Various other matters are discussed 

 in separate chapters, such as the methods of scaling, 

 showing the irrelevancy of the board-measure unit, statis- 

 tics of lumber cut and boomed in various places, descrip- 

 tion of the methods of computing growth, calculations of 

 growth of spruce on cut-over lands, waste of logging, etc., 

 all matters of great interest and importance and often well 

 stated. 



To briefly summarize the more important results of this 

 investigation, we learn from them that the spruce area of 

 Maine, that which bears spruce in merchantable quantity, 

 is found on the broad, mountainous plateau whose axis 

 runs from the White Mountains across the Rangeley and 

 Moosehead Lakes to Mars Hill at the St. John River, by 

 which the state is divided into a northern and southern 

 slope. The area thus containing spruce is set down as 

 22,000 square miles. The spruce rarely occurs in pure 

 growths, except on the higher elevations ; it is mostly mixed 

 with hardwoods, which form two-thirds to three-fourths of 

 the natural cover, and toward the outer boundaries of the 

 spruce area, with decrease of elevation and improvement 

 of soil, the hardwoods become more and more prominent, 

 finally occupying the ground practically by themselves. 

 The centre of best spruce development, in number of 

 trees at least, is found near the Rangeley Lakes and 

 Moose River and westward to the White Mountains in 

 New Hampshire. Individual development, to be sure, 

 improves with soil conditions, and the best sizes are found 

 on the best hardwood lands ; the maximum average 

 dimensions being set at eighty feet in height and two feet 

 in diameter, breast-high. 



The estimates by local lumbermen of available spruce 

 standing are given as 1,260 million feet on the Kennebec 

 River with a total spruce-producing area of 1,964 square 

 miles, of which 400 remain virgin, and 3,600 million feet, 

 board measure, on the Androscoggin, in Maine, on a spruce- 

 bearing area of 830 square miles, of which 420 are estimated 

 virgin. Of this latter figure Mr. Cary says that it includes 

 trees down to the smallest log size, and is based on very 

 close economical utilization, while the usual practice in 

 other localities of Maine would bring this figure down 

 to 2,000 million feet. The average stand per acre on the 

 basis of the larger figure would be 6,800 feet, and consid- 

 ering that half the area has been cut over, the average 

 stand for this region, Mr. Cary says, should probably be set 

 as high as 9,000 feet when in natural condition. From the 

 various measurements of actual acre-yields, however, it 

 would appear unsafe to apply this figure to any large area ; 

 for the best measured acre, in Grafton, Oxford County, gave 

 with 526 Spruce-trees out of a total of S84 trees of all kinds 

 and a total volume of 2, 760 cubic feet of spruce, only 76 trees 

 over eight inches in diameter, which scaled 8, 792 feet, board 

 measure, and another acre in the same county with 191 

 Spruce-trees, out of a total of 535 trees of all kinds and sizes 

 and a volume of 2,220 cubic feet of spruce, gave 63 trees 

 over eight-inch diameter, which scaled 7,352 feet, board 

 measure. The majority of trees, it must be understood, are 

 under a three-inch or at least under a six-inch diameter, while 

 the eight-inch diameter seems to limit the available log size. 

 Another acre in Somerset County, Kennebec drainage, on 

 rocky land, moss-covered and of slow growth, 2,000 feet 

 abovesea-level, which, as the authorstates, represents a large 

 stand for spruce, "as much in fact as could well grow on 

 the ground in this size of trees," "their crowns shading the 

 ground about as densely and evenly as Spruce ever does," 

 contained 346 trees of Fine, Spruce and Fir over three-inch 

 diameter, of which 266 wereSpruce with a volume of 2,Soo 

 cubic feet, while the thirty Pines, a forgotten remnant, all 

 over eleven inches in diameter, represented 2,040 cubic 

 feet in the yield, each equal to 6,000 feet, board measure, 

 or 12,000 to the acre. 



