402 



Garden and Forest. 



[NUMEER 346. 



IT is difficult for persons who live in cities, or for those un- 

 familiar with the woods, to understand the magnitude of 

 such a calamity as the forest-fires in Minnesota and Michi- 

 gan last month. In a private letter, just received from the 

 former state, the writer says, in alluding to the fires that 

 were especially destructive on the first of September : 



People who were not in this region at that time speak of the 

 " Hinckley Fire," seeming to forget that everywhere through- 

 out this state, Wisconsin and Michigan destructive conflagra- 

 tions were raging at the same time. In explanation of the 

 widespread character of the destruction, Mr. Ayres made a 

 perfectly correct statement in your issue of September 12th 

 when he said that throughout the entire wooded and inhabited 

 region there was fire in nearly every section, that is, in nearly 

 every square mile. I have been riding for two days behind a 

 pair of good horses and have seen little else than blackened 

 stumps, dead saplings and hardwood trees, and the prospect 

 would be the same if I drove for two weeks in any direction 

 from this point. In every little piece of unburned stump land 

 little Pines are starting up, showing how valuable the land 

 would be for the growth of timber but for the liability to fire. 

 On many of the uncut tracts it is hard to start a forest-fire, but 

 the woods have been cut over so rapidly that I can hardly 

 realize that this is the same country through which I passed five 

 years ago. Yet, in spite of all these lessons, and of all that has 

 been said and written on the subject, there are many men liv- 

 ing in the woods who are actually ignorant of the fact that 

 there is any law against setting fire to them. 



The White Ash. 



SOME thirty species of Fraxinus are now recognized, a 

 dozen of them belonging to eastern Asia, and others 

 having their homes in central Asia, in the Himalayas, in the 

 Orient, in northern Africa and in Europe. North America 

 contains about as many species of Ash as all the rest of the 

 world put together, and they are found from Cuba to the 

 extreme north and from ocean to ocean, although the 

 forests of the eastern part of the continent are the richest in 

 species. 



The White Ash, Fraxinus Americana, is easily the noblest 

 of the American species, one of the most beautiful of our 

 native trees and one of the most valuable timber-trees of 

 eastern North America. It is common in all the forests as 

 far north as Minnesota and Nova Scotia and as far south 

 as northern Florida and Mississippi, and ranges westward 

 to the Trinity River, Texas, the Indian Territory and Ne- 

 braska. It is usually found in rather moist soil, although 

 it does not delight in cold swamps and the low wet banks 

 of streams and lakes, like the Black Ash, F. niger. It 

 grows to its largest size in rich bottom-lands, and is at its 

 best in the basin of the lower Ohio. In the forest it sends 

 up a perfectly straight and slender stem to a great height, 

 and ash-poles not over a foot in diameter and a hundred 

 feet high were often raised as flagstaffs in the campaign 

 when Henry Clay was a Presidential candidate. A full- 

 grown White Ash is occasionally 125 feet high, with a tall 

 columnar trunk six feet in diameter. The grain of the 

 wood is straight, and it is always selected by farmers for a 

 flail-staff or other implement which must be at once light 

 and strong. It is now largely used for making tool-han- 

 dles, for oars and for the interior finish of buildings, and 

 especially for agricultural implements. 



In the open ground the White Ash broadens out into a 

 round-headed tree, though with a height considerably 

 greater than its diameter. The bark of the trunk, which is 

 marked by deep narrow furrows, is dark gray ; the dense 

 foliage is a deep, clear green, and in the autumn it 

 turns to a rich chocolate-brown or olive purple, and some- 

 times to a pure yellow ; in winter the graceful poise of its 

 branches and light, lustrous, bloom-covered branchlets 

 make it attractive still ; it grows rapidly, and attracts few 

 destructive insects or fungi, and, altogether, is one of the 

 very best of our native trees for ornamental planting. It 

 is one of the latest of our trees to come into leaf in spring, 

 and while this detracts somewhat from its value as a park- 

 tree, it is a real advantage in trees used for roadside plant- 



ing, for in our cold wet springs it is not desirable to have 

 any of the sunshine excluded from water-soaked roadways. 

 The European Ash, Fraxinus excelsior, is also a tree which 

 comes late into leaf. This is probably the tree referred to 

 by Tennyson in the well-known lines : 



Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, 



Delaying as the tender Ash delays 



To clothe herself, when all the woods are green ? 



and yet when our White Ash is planted with F. excelsior 

 on the high regions of central Europe it comes into leaf 

 still later than that species, and for this reason it is consid- 

 ered better for forest-planting, since it escapes the late 

 spring frosts, which often destroy the young shoots of the 

 European tree. In forest-planting on the prairies the White 

 Ash grows more slowly, and is less able to resist the 

 droughts than the Green Ash, a variety of Fraxinus 

 Pennsylvanica, which extends westward to the eastern 

 ranges of the Rocky Mountains, Wasach range of Utah 

 and the mountains of eastern Arizona. 



The illustration on page 405 is from a photograph taken 

 by Professor J. T. Rothrock of a tree in Chester County, 

 Pennsylvania. It represents, to a certain degree, the wood- 

 land form of the White Ash, since the specimen was well 

 grown before the land about it was cleared away, although, 

 undoubtedly, the head is now much broader than it would 

 be if the surrounding trees had not been felled many years 

 ago. The trunk is now fifteen feet ten inches in circum- 

 ference at four feet above the ground. 



Horticulture in Kern Valley, California. 



A FEW days ago I visited what is known as the Kern 

 Valley, a portion of the great San Joaquin country, 

 and yet set apart from that by a low watershed and by 

 many physical peculiarities. It is a very remarkable re- 

 gion, the delta of two great rivers, vast sand plains, vast 

 islands of swamps and Willows, vast levels as yet hardly 

 cultivated ; everywhere, in the midst of these, are immense 

 orchards, vineyards, fields of Alfalfa and other crops. Four 

 hundred thousand acres hereabout are practically under 

 one management, and this simple fact may be taken to 

 mark the scale upon which matters are carried on in the 

 San Joaquin country. 



The homesteads in this district belong, in many cases, 

 to the old plantation type of the better southern classes in 

 the days before the war. One finds areas of six thousand 

 or eight thousand acres, with stately mansions, amid tall, 

 semi-tropic growths of trees and vines. Fields one sees of 

 a thousand acres, and the herds of cattle" and horses seem 

 countless. Around such mansions are deer parks, aviaries, 

 broad lawns, swimming-ponds, wide water-ditches full of 

 exotic water-plants. The offices, workshops and men's 

 quarters accommodate a hundred or more employees. The 

 owners spend much of the year elsewhere, but sometimes 

 they come with hosts of friends and live right royally. 



From the economic standpoint, these great plantations 

 are of little importance compared with the multitude of 

 small colony homesteads being established in the richer 

 and more accessible lands. Rivers of water are at the dis- 

 posal of settlers, and the sandy soil admits of subirrigation 

 to an extent that I have seldom witnessed elsewhere. The 

 rapid growth of vegetables of every description and of 

 vines and trees, under these circumstances, is hardly 

 believable, even to a Californian well used to many of the 

 possibilities of his own country. There is an experiment 

 garden at Bakersfjeld under private management. Here I 

 saw hills of peanuts, each grown from a single kernel, 

 planted June 2d, that averaged four feet across." I saw in 

 August Lima Beans, the second crop on the same soil — 

 that is, there had been Lima Beans planted and grown to 

 maturity, and the ripe beans were then planted alongside 

 the old hills, and were also brought to maturity, all since 

 the spring frosts. I saw taller Corn, Cotton, Okra, Jerusa- 

 lem Artichokes and many other crops than I have ever 

 seen in any part of the United States. 



