302 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 336. 



forestry. In Missouri, lectures are given three times a 

 week during- the third year, with required readings on for- 

 estry, and it may also be an elective study. In Nevada, 

 forestry is taught by " lectures and the use of the best liter- 

 ature that can be obtained " for five hours a week during 

 the third term of the senior year. In New Hampshire for- 

 estry is included under work in botany, and during the 

 winter of 1893 a course of lectures on forestry was given 

 by the members of the New Hampshire Forestry Commis- 

 sion. In the College of New Mexico "instruction is given 

 on the effect of trees on climate, etc." In Cornell Uni- 

 versity the subjects of arboriculture and forestry occupy 

 two hours a week in the spring term. In North Dakota, in 

 the third term of the sophomore year, five hours a week are 

 given to the subject of forestry for four weeks. The Ohio 

 State University offers a course in horticulture and forestry, 

 and three hours a week are devoted to this subject during 

 one term of the senior year. Instruction in forestry is given 

 in the Pennsylvania State College by lectures, in connection 

 with Hough's Elements of Forestry, during one session of 

 the senior year. Two small artificial plantations of trees 

 are maintained on the place, and there is a large exper- 

 imental tract on an adjacent mountain. Four hours a week 

 are devoted to forestry and landscape-gardening during one 

 term of senior year at the Rhode Island College. In South 

 Dakota there are lectures on the propagation and planting 

 of forest-trees and the study of the habits and characters of 

 the trees best suited to that state. The lecture work is 

 supplemented by practice work in the forest plantation of 

 the college-grounds. The subject is taught two hours a 

 week in one term and three hours in another term of the 

 junioryear. InTexas, Hough's Elements of Forestry is studied 

 two hours a week during the winter term of the fourth year. 

 In Utah forestry is said to " receive considerable attention." 

 In Vermont instruction is said to be given in forest-plant- 

 ing. This is part of the work on " fruit-culture, landscape- 

 gardening and forestry," which occupies three hours a 

 week during half of junior year. 



These details are somewhat tedious, perhaps, but they 

 show pretty clearly to what extent the colleges founded 

 by Government bounty are helping the cause of forestry. 

 It is safe to assume that forestry is not considered of much 

 importance in those institutions whose year-books make 

 no allusion to it whatever. It may be that in the other 

 colleges students receive more instruction than one would 

 infer from the promise in the published curriculum. But 

 where only two or three hours a week are devoted to for- 

 estry during one term of a single year, and in institutions 

 where it is considered a branch of landscape-gardening or 

 one of the minor divisions of economic horticulture, we 

 can hardly expect the student to make any remarkable 

 progress. It is encouraging to note that some of the col- 

 lege-farms have forest-plantations, and the subjects of Mr. 

 Fernow's lectures at Amherst College, which we have 

 already published, show that even in a brief course the 

 fundamental problems which confront the pioneers in 

 scientific forestry in America can, at least, be stated, and the 

 methods of attacking them can- be outlined. The season 

 for the meeting of various scientific associations is at hand, 

 and the leading instructors in many of these colleges, as 

 well as the officers of the experiment stations, will meet in 

 council. Perhaps it may be worth while for them to in- 

 quire in what way, and to what extent, these Government 

 institutions can be made efficient in promoting the cause 

 of forestry. 



Wayside Plants in the Pines. 



DURING the last few years I have noticed many for- 

 eign plants that have become thoroughly naturalized 

 along our waysides in the Pines, where they are making a 

 strenuous, and often victorious, fight for life with our native 

 species. Many of our indigenous plants will not long sur- 

 vive when the woods are cut away and nothing is left to 

 shelter them from the hot sunshine of our dry summers, 



and when to these trying conditions are added direct attacks 

 of foreign plants, which crowd them and rob their roots of 

 food and moisture, their extermination is more rapid. 

 Among the most showy of these naturalized plants is a 

 Hawkweed, Hieracium aurantiacum, bearing a clustered 

 bunch of deep orange flowers. It is hardy, full of life, 

 and spreads rapidly from seed and runners. Some three 

 years since I took two or three plants from the roadside 

 and planted them in my garden, where they so quickly 

 overran a large area that 1 was forced to restrain them 

 from becoming dangerous weeds. At the same time I 

 transplanted a few of our own Hawkweeds, among them 

 the slender and delicate H. venosum, but it did not ap- 

 preciate the kind treatment, although it grows naturally 

 in dry sandy places. Another foreign plant that I have 

 recently observed is a Salvia, which grows in strong, dense 

 clumps, with long branching spikes of quite showy deep 

 blue flowers. The ample radical leaves, ten to twelve 

 inches in length, look fresh and vigorous when other plants 

 are withering in the present drought. It answers to the de- 

 scription of S. verbenacea, with the exception of the leaves, 

 which are never lobed or incised in the least. I think, 

 however, that it is this species. 



The Bladder Campion, SileneCucubalus, is another Euro- 

 pean plant growing with our native starry Campion, S. stel- 

 lata, with its large open panicle of pretty fringed flowers. 

 The beautifully veined, inflated calyx of the Bladder Campion 

 is its chief attraction. Galium Mollugo is a handsome 

 plant, growing luxuriantly along grassy roadsides and in 

 fields. It has long panicles of small white flowers, which 

 are fragrant and very abundant, while the stems are thickly 

 set with whorls of small deep green leaves. Our own Gal- 

 iums will not grow where this aggressive foreign species 

 makes itself perfectly at home. Hall's Japan Honeysuckle, 

 Lonicera Halleana, is another rampant grower in this soil 

 which it is almost impossible to keep within bounds. The 

 seed is carried by birds, so that it has become established 

 in many places along the roadsides and on the edge of 

 woodlands. It has the merit of being a handsome climber. 

 The Lucerne, Medicago sativa, is also taking possession of 

 the roadsides and waste places, but as this is a good forage- 

 plant it will be welcome to farmers and herdsmen. The 

 Ox-eye Daisy is becoming as great a pest here as it is in 

 the older-settled portions of the country ; so also is the 

 showy Toadflax, Linaria vulgaris. Were it not for the dis- 

 agreeable odor of this plant it might be utilized, like the 

 Daisy, in bouquets, but the entire plant is so offensive that 

 it is as little welcome to the flower-gatherer as it is to the 

 farmer. The common Carrot, too, is very abundant on 

 the waysides where it is allowed to grow, but as it is a 

 biennial it can easily be kept in check by mowing before 

 the seed ripens. 



The European Clover-Dodder, Cuscuta Epithymum, has 

 recently invaded the Clover-fields here, and threatens dis- 

 aster to that crop. It is a slender, delicate, parasitic plant 

 which tightly hugs and soon smothers its host, so that the 

 Clover looks as if a fire had passed over it. It blossoms 

 considerably earlier than the native species. The flowers 

 are in small clusters, pure white and quite fragrant, attract- 

 ing many insects. Like our own Dodders, the plant starts 

 from the ground, but soon dies at the base, and then draws 

 its entire nourishment from its host. 



Among our own plants that still cling to the waysides 

 we find many in the Pulse family. One of the most hand- 

 some is Tephrosia Virginiana, with large white and pink 

 pea shaped flowers. Another is the Wild Indigo, Baptisia 

 tinctoria, a round-topped, bushy plant, and when covered 

 with bright yellow blossoms it is quite. pretty and showy. 

 The false Indigo, Amorpha fruticosa, also grows on the 

 roadsides, a shrubby plant with dense terminal spikes of 

 small purple flowers. The wild Lupine, too, is very com- 

 mon, with a long showy raceme in varying shades of pur- 

 ple, and there is also a pink variety. The Rose Acacia, 

 Robinia hispida, has also become a roadside shrub, and 

 its handsome deep rose-colored flowers are always wel- 



