May 23, 1S94.] 



Garden and Forest. 



201 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building. New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sakgent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



201 

 202 

 203 

 203 



Editorial Articles :— Care of the National Forests 



Stephen Elliott. (With figure.) 



Abbazia Louise Dodge. 



Agricultural Changes in Central New York Professor L. H. Bailey. 



Botanical Notes from Texas.— XVIII E. N. Plank. 



Foreign Correspondence : — Notes on Orchids IV. Watson. c< .3 



New or Little-known Plants: — Elliottia racemosa. (With figure.) C. S. 5. 206 



Cultural Department: — Notes on Trees and Shrubs J. G. Jack. 206 



Foliage-plants tor Outdoor Bedding IV. H. Tafilin. 207 



The Hardy Plant Border T D. Hatfield. 20- 



Notes on Irises J. N. Gerard. 20S 



Correspondence: — Fruit Prospects in Central New York E. P. P. l p o8 



The Beauty of Rural England A. McC. Hallock. 200 



Recent Publications 209 



Notes , 2I ° 



Illustrations : — Stephen Elliott, Fig. 36 204 



Elliottia racemosa, Fig. 37 205 



Care of the National Forests. 



A BILL which has received general support from several 

 influential quarters is now before Congress for the 

 conversion of the Washington Forest-reservation into a 

 national park. What special advantage may be expected 

 from the conversion of this great forest-reserve, which 

 embraces within its boundaries Mount Ranier, perhaps 

 the noblest of the North American mountains, into a 

 national park, we confess, is not very apparent to us. If 

 the public have rights and opportunities in a national park 

 which are denied to them in a forest-reservation ; if roads are 

 to be built ; if any part of the forest is to be cleared up and 

 additional facilities for camping are to be afforded under 

 this bill, we hope that it will not be enacted at this time. 

 Such a bill ought not to pass, for the same reason that any 

 bill looking to a change in the boundaries of the Yellowstone 

 National Park ought not to be favorably considered at 

 present. 



No one now has sufficient knowledge of the conditions 

 that should govern the management of the parks and 

 forest-reservations established by the Government in the 

 west to speak of their future requirements with precision 

 or authority. Millions of acres of forest-land have been 

 withdrawn from sale and entry in the different states, but 

 the Government has so far failed to take the necessary 

 steps for formulating and putting into execution any plan 

 for the care and management of these great possessions. 

 These reservations have been made in bulk, so to speak, 

 their actual boundaries in many cases being still unknown ; 

 they are practically unprotected against the inroads of 

 campers, sheep-tenders and lumbermen, who are still able 

 to prey upon these national reservations with comparative 

 immunity from detection and punishment. In many cases 

 it is safe to say that land has been included in the reserva- 

 tions and parks which could more advantageously be 

 turned over to settlement, while in others an enlargement 

 of boundaries might accomplish important results in the 

 direction for which the reservations are primarily impor- 

 tant. With all the ignorance and uncertainty in which this 

 great question is involved, special legislation for any par- 

 ticular piece of Government property, we believe, would 



be unwise. What Congress and the President require is 

 knowledge upon which to formulate legislation, not only 

 knowledge of the best boundaries for each reservation, but 

 information upon the requirements of the inhabitants of 

 the different regions in which the reservations are situated. 



A great forest-reserve, covering, perhaps, thousands of 

 square miles, cannot be maintained in the midst of the 

 scattered population of the far west unless its value is 

 made apparent to the people who live near it ; and their 

 approval cannot be secured unless facilities are given 

 under proper restrictions for obtaining timber and other 

 forest-supplies from the Government land and for reasona- 

 ble hunting and other privileges. What, then, is needed is 

 information about the best boundaries of each reservation, 

 upon the actual condition of their forests and water-courses 

 and upon the needs of the people who live upon their bor- 

 ders, that a sensible, common-sense scheme of forest- 

 policy may be devised. 



As we have more than once suggested, information of 

 this character can only be obtained by experts empowered 

 to investigate the whole question of the national forests, 

 and to devise a scheme by which it will be possible to 

 make the reservations something more than reservations 

 on paper. Until Congress has such a report before it no 

 legislation should be attempted beyond such as may be 

 absolutely necessary to enable the Secretary of the Interior 

 or the Secretary of War to provide a sufficient military 

 patrol for the protection of the national property against 

 wholesale destruction. The establishment of the reserva- 

 tions was certainly a step in the right direction, at which 

 every one interested in the best development of the United 

 States had good reason to rejoice ; but unless this first and 

 easy step is to be followed by the adoption of a well-con- 

 sidered national policy, it had better never have been 

 taken, for the destruction of an unprotected forest-reserva- 

 tion is not less certain than that the axe and fire and 

 browsing animals will in time convert the best forest into 

 a desert wilderness, while an unprotected Government 

 forest, offering as it does every inducement to robbery and 

 deceit, is a sure source of public demoralization. 



In the settlement of this forest-question is the op- 

 portunity for the display of broad and enlightened 

 statesmanship ; there is no place in it for local jealousies 

 or for the gratification of selfish or sordid ambitions. 

 Its settlement will mean the stability and permanent 

 prosperity of an important section of the country, and, 

 what is of even greater importance, it will mean that the 

 people of the United States have attained to that degree of 

 intelligence and long-sightedness which indicate a high 

 condition of civilization. For, certainly, the intelligent 

 care of forests in this age is one of the best evidences of 

 civilization, and it is a fact that the true lovers of trees and 

 the wisest managers of forests are found among the people 

 who stand among the nations as the recognized leaders in 

 every intellectual and moral movement. 



Stephen Elliott. 



THF name of Stephen Elliott will be remembered by 

 botanists as long as the llora of North America con- 

 tinues to occupy their attention, for he was the author of a 

 work on the plants of an interesting region, based upon a 

 knowledge of their structure, habits, characteristics and 

 properties, obtained by studying them as he found them 

 growing in their native wilds, and not exclusively by an 

 examination of the dried and unsatisfactory material pre- 

 served in herbaria, upon which the knowledge found in 

 many works of botany is from necessity or otherwise ob- 

 tained. 



Stephen Elliott, who was born in Beaufort, South Caro- 

 lina, November nth, 1771, was a direct descendant in the 

 sixth generation of William Elliott, a leading merchant of 

 Charleston, where he arrived from England in 1670, and 

 where his name is still preserved in Elliott Street ; he was 

 a great-grandson of John Barnville on the maternal side. 



