March 14, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



109 



a plant does not supply satisfactory foliage, of course one 

 should use something not more bold than is natural to the 

 plant. It also does not seem exactly right to use something 

 which has a dissimilar association. For instance, shade-loving 

 Ferns are out of character with flowers which are full of color 

 and sunlight, though this would not offend those to whom 

 flowers are merely ornamental objects. 

 Elizabeth, N. J. /• A 7 . Gerard. 



Correspondence. 

 To Protect Lake-shores. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir,- — Can you or any of your readers inform me of the best 

 means of preventing the falling away of the banks on an island 

 in a fresh-water lake, where the extent of shore renders the 

 building of a sea-wall entirely too expensive ? The soil is light 

 and sandy and is pulled down more by the effect of frost and 

 rains than of waves, but is also exposed in places to wave ac- 

 tion. Would the planting of Willows preserve the banks ? If 

 so, what variety is best for the purpose ? If Willow-seed were 

 planted as late as July 15th, would the plants be likely to sur- 

 vive the winter of northern New England ? 



Derby. 



[A bank such as our correspondent describes can be 

 saved from washing by planting Willows and other shrubs, 

 which can be faced on the water-side by bulrushes and 

 other moisture-loving herbaceous plants. Probably no 

 better shrubby Willows could be selected for this purpose 

 than some of the native species which may be found in the 

 local swamps and wet places. The narrow-leaved Silky 

 Willow, Salix sericea ; the Petioled Willow, S. petiolaris, 

 and the Heart-leaved Willow, S. cordata, are among the 

 best for such use. The Glaucous Willow, S. discolor, will 

 also thrive in such situations, but it grows taller than the 

 other species. Small plants may be moved from their 

 native habitat and planted near the margin of the pond, 

 and some of their branches may be bent over on each side 

 and layered deeply, and in this way a mass of plants 

 would be speedily obtained. Or cuttings from one to two 

 feet long may be taken in the autumn or spring. These 

 cuttings should have their lower ends shoved ten to twelve 

 inches into the soil. They may be planted pretty thickly 

 together, as not all of them are likely to grow. Cuttings 

 of some of the foreign species of Willow, like the Basket 

 Willow, form roots more readily than some of our indige- 

 nous species. Of course, cuttings are better than seeds. 

 Besides the Willows, Alders may be found a good protec- 

 tion for the banks of ponds in some situations ; and our 

 native Button-bush, Cephalanthus occidentalis, will thrive 

 and hold the soil in places so wet and boggy that even 

 Willows and Alders will not grow. The way to assured 

 success from plantings of this character is to study the un- 

 disturbed natural banks of a lake in the same region, noting 

 the plants that are found associated together in such situa- 

 tions and then reproducing, as far as possible, the effects 

 produced in nature. A mere list of herbaceous and other 

 plants that could be used to hold the banks of a lake in any 

 given locality would be of little practical value, for such 

 plants can rarely be obtained from nurseries, and have to 

 be collected from their native wilds. — Ed.] 



Meetings of Societies. 



Forestry Congress at Albany. 



THE forestry meeting at Albany last week was particularly 

 successful in the number of representative men from dif- 

 ferent states and from different associations who took part in 

 it, and in the practical quality of many of the papers read. 

 On the first evening Mr. Fernow delivered an illustrated lec- 

 ture, entitled "The Battle of the Forest," which showed in a 

 graphic way how the forest, after millenniums of struggle, 

 conquered its way to a full possession of the earth until man 

 began to make inroads upon it. Pictures of the desolation 

 which followed the wasteful use of the axe in the Adirondacks 

 and other parts of the United States were most instructive, as 

 were the views of the ruin wrought in the French Alps, where 



the removal of the forest-cover had let the torrents loose to 

 work their will. Very instructive, too, were the pictures of 

 the costly work of the forest-engineers of the French Govern- 

 ment now in progress to repair the damage which their own 

 improvidence had invited, works which we shall need to du- 

 plicate with equal expense unless we heed this warning. 

 Another illustrated lecture was given by Professor Rothrock 

 on the relation of forests to the soil, and some of its pictorial 

 lessons are mentioned editorially on another page. Among 

 other pictures which taught important lessons were two views 

 of a White Pine forest on land which Professor Rothrock him- 

 self remembers to have been a barren sand-hill thirty years 

 ago. The trees now stand about seven feet apart, with tall 

 straight trunks fifteen inches in diameter two feet from the 

 ground. A lecture by Professor Bickmore was also illus- 

 trated with views of forest-scenery selected for their beauty. 

 A carefully prepared paper by Mr. Gifford Pinchot set forth 

 the difference between forestry and lumbering with the appli- 

 cation of the subject to the North Woods. The paper is too 

 important to be dismissed in a sentence, and we shall treat of 

 it more fully in a future number. The paper of Mr. H. B. 

 Ayres on forest-fires was so compact that we shall be able to 

 publish it in full next week. 



At the first day's meeting the reports from the various states 

 were unusually interesting. Professor Rothrock spoke for 

 Pennsylvania ; Professor Smock, director of the State Geo- 

 logical Survey, spoke for New Jersey ; Secretary Gold, of the 

 State Board of Agriculture, for Connecticut ; Secretary Moses, 

 of the Forest Commission, spoke for New Hampshire ; Secre- 

 tary Appleton, of the State Board of Agriculture, spoke for 

 Massachusetts ; Colonel Fox for New York ; Mr. William Lit- 

 tle for Canada, and Mr. R. U. Johnson, of this city, being an 

 honorary member of the Sierra Club, was asked to represent 

 California, and made one of his vigorous pleas for the salvation 

 of the Yosemite National Park. He offered a resolution, which 

 was adopted, approving the national policy of setting apart 

 forest-reservations and endorsing the McCrea bill, which pro- 

 vides a plan for administering these reservations. The readers 

 of this journal need not be informed that the measures which 

 have been taken in the states named and in others for administer- 

 ing their woodlands are altogether inadequate for the needs of the 

 time ; but these reports did seem to show a gradual improve- 

 ment in the tone of public opinion in this matter. This does 

 not sound like a very decisive step toward reformation, but it 

 is the first step which costs, and, beyond question, the only 

 way to assured success is to start with enlightening public 

 opinion. 



Among the other notable addresses at the meeting was an 

 off-hand speech by Bishop Doane, in which he lamented the 

 fact that the Adirondacks were becoming something like a 

 fashionable resort, which was to be occupied by the same set 

 of people who tried to amuse themselves at Newport and 

 Lenox at different seasons of the year. When visitors come 

 away from the alleged camps in the woods with vivid memo- 

 ries of porcelain bath-tubs he feared that the contact of these 

 people with nature was not so intimate as it should be, and he 

 feared, furthermore, that society would fatally injure the woods 

 before the woods had an opportunity to regenerate society. 

 At the same session, Dr. Ford, of the Climatological Society, 

 spoke of the prophylactic and therapeutic value of camp life 

 in the woods against what is known as American nervousness 

 — that exhaustion of vital force which affects so many of our 

 countrymen. He knew of no treatment for this disease which 

 could compare with a few weeks in the thick woods of the 

 western Adirondacks. 



The only subject which caused any discussion was a resolu- 

 tion favoring in one section the purchase of the lands within 

 the boundary of the proposed state forest, which was ap- 

 proved, as was also the section advocating the issue of bonds 

 for a million dollars, and a third section restricting the selling 

 of outlying parcels of state land to such areas as are fitted 

 and desired for agricultural purposes. For the next section, 

 which favored the policy of the commission as set forth in 

 their report, Mr. Fernow offered a substitute to the effect that 

 no timber of any kind shall hereafter be cut and sold from the 

 state lands until a comprehensive and systematic plan of man- 

 agement has been devised and such methods of supervision 

 instituted as will ensure the permanence of the forest-cover 

 and the reproduction of the valuable kinds of timber. An ad- 

 ditional section affirmed that the practice of cutting all the Spruce 

 above twelve inchesin diameterdoes not ensure in all cases im- 

 munity from the danger of seriously interrupting the forest- 

 cover and is apt to impair the future of all the forest. Both of 

 these propositions seemed to the best-instructed portion of 

 the meeting entirely proper, but they were strenuously oh 



