March 21, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest 



in 



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. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article : — Lumberman and Forester in 



Botanical Notes from Texas.— XVI E. N. Plank. 112 



The Earliest Flowering Shrubs J. G. Jack. 112 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter IV. Watson. 113 



New or Little-known Plants : — Ostrya Knowltoni, a new species of Hop 



Hornbeam. {With figure.) Frederick Vernon CoznlLe. 114 



Cultural Department : — The Best Varieties of Vegetables R. 116 



Snowdrops J.N. Gerard. 117 



Currants for Market S. 11S 



The Earliest Flowering Shrubs Joseph Meehan.. riS 



Correspondence:— A Plea for Wild Flowers.. B. L. Putnant. 118 



March in a West Virginia Garden Danske Dandridge. 118 



Notes from a Northern Garden H. A. Fortuine. 119 



Recent Publications 119 



Notes 120 



Illustration : — Ostrya Knowltoni, Fig. 23 115 



Lumberman and Forester. 



WHEN an American lumberman attacks a forest his aim 

 is to cut and market all the lumber he can profitably 

 handle. Since our original forest-area was practically un- 

 limited it was not reasonable to expect that the men who 

 have felled our forests should regard the future of the 

 woods in which they operated, for when they had finished 

 one tract they could begin work in another. Naturally, 

 the American lumberman has developed great skill in 

 handling forest-products, and since nothing has been al- 

 lowed to stand in the way of his immediate profits, a 

 forest which he has once cut over and abandoned is a pic- 

 ture of desolation. This ruinous work, however, cannot 

 be justly counted blameworthy ; it was the necessary out- 

 come of simple, natural conditions, although the waste, as 

 we now look back upon it, has been calamitous. We ought 

 to remember, too, before we pronounce this extravagance 

 criminal that in many parts of the country our agriculture, 

 and in some places our mining, has been carried on after 

 the same prodigal fashion. 



The science of forestry, on the other hand, has been 

 developed in countries where the supply of timber has been 

 limited and where it has been recognized as essential that 

 the productive powers of the forest should not be dimin- 

 ished, but increased, if this were in any way possible. In- 

 stead of cutting everything which he can market with a 

 profit, the forester cuts only such trees as ought to be 

 removed when their present value is considered in connec- 

 tion with the future welfare of the woods, and the trees 

 which are selected for removal are so treated in cutting and 

 carrying as to do the least possible injury to the young 

 growth that remains. The time has certainly come when 

 this forward-looking forest-policy ought to prevail in our 

 own forests, even where the production of lumber is their 

 only value ; but in a case like that of the North Woods, 

 where the importance of the forest as a conservator of the 

 water-supply is paramount, plans for preserving a contin- 

 uous forest-cover for the future should not be embarrassed 

 for a moment by any considerations looking to immediate 

 revenue from the sale of lumber. 



These different attitudes toward the forest assumed by the 

 lumberman and the forester, made the subject of an instruc- 

 tive address by Mr. Gifford Pinchot, at the late Forestry 

 Congress at Albany, and we are glad that the paper has 

 had a wide circulation by publication in The Tribune of this 

 city and in othernewspapers. Mr. Pinchot showed how the 

 forester, by adapting natural processes to the use of man, 

 could make the forest a permanent resource by successive 

 renewals within reasonable periods, and yet he explained 

 that in order to do this effectually the forester needed the 

 co-operation of the practical lumberman. The forester's 

 duty is plainly to lay out a general plan and to decide as 

 to the location and amount of every year's cut. The trees 

 for cutting should be selected under hissupervision, although 

 much of this marking can be done by a lumberman who 

 has received a sufficient schooling in forestry to enable 

 him to grasp the spirit of forest-management. The lum- 

 berman's training will enable him to have all transportation 

 facilities in good order and to see that the work of felling 

 is done in accordance with the forester's instructions, and, 

 in short, will enable him to take direct charge of all prac- 

 tical work in the woods. When such sympathetic co- 

 operation between the two crafts is secured, the forester is 

 relieved of the burden of practical details which can be laid 

 on the shoulders of the lumberman, who is the one man 

 with adequate training to carry out his instructions. Mean- 

 while, the forester is left free to study and devise plans for 

 forest-management on broad, scientific principles. 



Of course, Mr. Pinchot believes that restricted lumbering 

 in the North Woods would be better than lumbering with- 

 out any restrictions, but yet he feels that the twelve-inch 

 limit fixed by the New York law, and of which we spoke a 

 fortnight ago, is not a sufficient safeguard against danger 

 to the forest-cover. The man who buys the stumpage on 

 state lands, even when he does not cut trees as small as 

 twelve inches in diameter, takes little precaution as to the 

 injury he does to the young growth, and Mr. Pinchot has 

 proved in North Carolina that precautionary measures 

 which did not add more than two or three per cent, to the 

 cost of felling and handling trees made an improvement of 

 ninety-five per cent, in the condition of young trees after 

 the old ones were cut down. Under the existing law no 

 provision is made for replacing timber by equally valuable 

 species, and the constant removal of conifers, which are at 

 best making an up-hill fight against the encroachment of 

 the hard-woods, will finally exterminate them, and thus 

 ruin the principal source of revenue which it is possible for 

 the state to derive from the woods for a long time. 



A summary of the whole situation in the Adirondacks 

 can best be given in Mr. Pinchot's own language : 



In conclusion it may be said that for many reasons the 

 Adirondacks are peculiarly well suited to forest-management. 

 The soil is excellent, from the standpoint of tree-growth, but 

 of little value for any other purpose. The young growth of 

 the valuable species of trees, with the single important excep- 

 tion of White Pine, is always sufficiently, and often exceed- 

 ingly, abundant. The small proportion of the valuable soft- 

 wood trees makes it possible for forest-management to make, 

 from the very start, almost as large a return in money as lum- 

 bering ; and the balance must change soon and permanently 

 to the other side of the account. The great interests which 

 are involved in the maintenance of the water-supply are fully 

 protected under forest-management, which is not the case 

 under any form of lumbering, however restricted in the 

 size of the trees which it may cut. The protection of fish and 

 game falls naturally to the forester, whose training and tradi- 

 tions both fit him peculiarly for such work. In all countries 

 where forestry has become established, the functions of for- 

 ester and game warden are combined. Finally, the general 

 character and very uniform composition of the North Woods 

 are admirably adapted to the operations of forest-management. 

 In other words, Nature's process of handling the forest, which 

 must guide the forester and dictate his methods, needs very 

 little variation to respond completely to all the different de- 

 mands which, as a civilized community, we can make upon 

 the forest. There is no forest of equal area in this country 

 from the management of which more useful, more imme- 

 diate, or more lasting and assured results can be obtained. 



