December 29, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



509 



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 HATTER AT THE POST-OFFICH AT NEW YORK, N. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY. DECEMBER 29, 1897. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article : — American Trees for America 509 



Notes on Cultivated Conifers. — XIII C 5. S. 509 



The Botanic Garden of Smith College. (With map.). . William F. Ganong. 512 



Plant Notes : — The Fruit of Sequoia. (With figure.) C. S. S. 514 



Notes on the Botany of some Southern Swamps B. F. Bush. 514 



The Forest : — The Shasta Fir (Abies Shastensis) C. I'. Caville. 516 



Recent Publications 517 



Notes 5 l8 



Illustrations :— Map of the Botanic Garden of Smith College 5 [3 



Sequoia Wellingtonia, Fig. 66 '. 515 



American Trees for America. 



EDKING at the matter broadly, comparatively little, in 

 northern countries at least, has been accomplished 

 toward beautifying the earth's surface by transferring trees 

 from one region to another, although a great deal of time, 

 energy and money has been expended during the last two 

 hundred years in the attempt to do it. It has given to 

 Europe from America the Locust, the great southern Mag- 

 nolia, the Negundo, the White Pine, several California 

 conifers, the Arbor Vitae, one or two Thorns, and the Stag- 

 horn Sumach, as truly permanent and valuable additions 

 to the native silva ; China has really enriched Europe, as it 

 has eastern North America, with the Ginkgo, the Ailanthus, 

 the Paulownia, the Yulan Magnolias, the Weeping Wil- 

 low and the flowering Apples ; western Asia has sent 

 to Europe the Cedar of Lebanon, the Oriental Plane, 

 the Oriental Spruce and the Cypress, while experiment 

 has shown that of the trees of Europe and western Asia 

 only the White Willows, the Beech, the Elm, the Norway 

 Maple, the Oriental Plane, the Larch, the Box, the Haw- 

 thorn and the Mountain Ash can really be depended on in 

 the eastern states to live out their lives in health and beauty. 

 These results may appear small to economists, but cer- 

 tainly all the effort that has been expended in testing exotic 

 trees in Europe and America has been well repaid in the 

 stimulus it has given to the study of botany, in the increase 

 of knowledge and in its few really important practical 

 results. Still, the lesson to be drawn from these two cen- 

 turies of effort is clearly that the best trees to plant in any 

 particular region are those that grow and thrive naturally 

 in that region. No teacher in such matters is so wise, 

 experienced and unprejudiced as Nature herself, and when 

 her teachings have been followed the best results from 

 tree-planting have always been obtained. The Elms and 

 Maples taken from adjacent swamps and hillsides, which 

 grace the streets of many New England country towns and 

 adorn many New England homesteads, and the Magno- 

 lias, Live Oaks and Water Oaks in the streets and gardens 

 of the south testify to the value of native trees ; and in 

 England, too, it is the native Oaks, Elms and Beeches 

 which give its distinctive aspect to the land and make its 

 parks the most dignified in the world. Fortunately, in this 



country it is not difficult to apply this rule, for no other 

 land is blessed with such a rich, varied and splendid silva. 

 In the southern United States the great evergreen Magno- 

 lia, the most beautiful of the broad-leaved evergreen trees 

 of the northern hemisphere, the Live Oak, the Water Oak, 

 the Laurel Oak, the Pecan and noble Bay trees, are avail- 

 able for the planter. In the Pacific coast states the condi- 

 tions are somewhat different ; the number of native trees 

 is smaller than it is in the east, and many of the finest of 

 these are found naturally only at high elevations and cannot 

 be successfully cultivated in the warm, dry valleys in 

 which the people of these states have principally estab- 

 lished their homes. Some of the trees which grow in the val- 

 leys spontaneously are not ornamental, and are often difficult 

 to cultivate, but some of the noble California Valley Oaks 

 surpass in stately beauty any exotic trees which are 

 likely to flourish in that peculiar climate, and two California 

 conifers, the Monterey Cypress and the Monterey Pine, 

 are generally and successfully grown from Vancouver 

 Island to San Diego. These are both beautiful trees, but 

 California will doubtless always be obliged to depend on 

 other parts of the world for many of her ornamental 

 plants. The trees of the eastern states do not flourish west 

 of the Rocky Mountains ; it is not probable that those of 

 Europe or Asia will ever gain much foothold in the soil of 

 California, and it is to Australia, Mexico and other dry 

 countries that California planters will continue probably to 

 derive much of the material needed for the decoration of 

 their parks and gardens. 



It is in the eastern and middle states, however, where 

 there is a greater interest in ornamental planting than in 

 other parts of the country, that most is to be obtained from 

 the native silva. That of no other part of the world is 

 richer in handsome trees. From its Magnolias, Oaks, 

 Hickories, Walnuts, Elms and Ashes, its Tupelo and stately 

 Tulip-tree, its Rhododendrons and Mountain Laurels, its 

 Birches and Lindens, its Coffee-tree and Honey Locust, its 

 Sourwood and Sassafras, its Beech, Chestnut, Yellow-wood 

 and Wild Cherry, its Catalpas, its Persimmon and Silver- 

 bell tree, its Flowering Dogwood and Fringe-tree, its Liquid- 

 ambar and Hackberry, its Sumachs, its Wild Crab and its 

 Hawthorns, planters of deciduous-leaved trees can choose 

 material enough to satisfy every taste and fill every require- 

 ment. And among coniferous trees none is more pic- 

 turesque in youth or more stately at maturity than the 

 northern White Pine, more graceful than the Hemlock, or 

 more symmetrical and enduring than the Red Cedar. 



In the past our gardens have suffered from the general 

 ignorance with regard to the true beauty and value of 

 native trees, which appears to have been peculiar to us as 

 a nation. Too often the planter, unable to obtain American 

 trees, has had to rely on the Spruces, Oaks, Ashes, Maples, 

 Pines and other trees of Europe, and these are still too 

 largely used in this country, although it is now known that 

 they are entirely unsuited to our climate and that where 

 they have been used in public parks they must soon be 

 replaced by native species. The lesson has been a costly 

 one, but the experience has not been dearly purchased if 

 we have finally come to realize that Nature has placed for 

 us in America a greater number of beautiful trees, large and 

 small, than is found in any other part of the world, and 

 that American trees are the best for America. 



Notes on Cultivated Conifers. — XIII. 



ABIES, the name now given to the Silver Firs, is one of 

 the widely distributed coniferous genera with a larger 

 number of species than any other except Pinus. It is well 

 characterized by its flat or more or less quadrangular leaves, 

 without persistent woody bases, spreading on lateral 

 branches in two ranks and leaving in falling nearly cir- 

 cular scars, scattered axillary male flowers, erect cones 

 usually produced only on the upper branches and maturing 

 in one season, their thin entire, rounded scales being often 

 shorter than the bracts, and separating at maturity from the 



