January 21, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



35 



forest-officers. New Zealand has taken the examples of the 

 ■colonies of eastern Australia, and Ceylon, Java, the Fiji Islands 

 and others have made steps in the right direction. 



Dr. Schlich's statement of the destructive tendencies of 

 private forest-ownership in India might with equal truth have 

 been made as a general proposition. It is the salient fact 

 which the history of the forests of the earth seems to teach ; 

 hut nowhere have the proofs of its truth taken such gigantic 

 proportions as in the United States to-day. Even in Germany, 

 where the state has done its utmost to surround them with 

 •every possible safeguard, the wood-lands of private proprietors 

 are steadily decreasing both in area and in quality. A second 

 great fact, which is of equal and immediate significance to us 

 in America, is that the countries which have been successful in 

 forest-preservation have been so along the lines of forest- 

 management. The first and most evident function of the for- 

 est is to produce wood, and no scheme which leaves out of 

 account the imperative and legitimate demand for forest-pro- 

 duce is likely to meet with the support of a people as practical 

 as our own. The forests which are most profitably used are 

 the forests which are best preserved. These truths have 

 never had the currency with us which their importance has 

 deserved, and as a result we have been hastening along a road 

 whose end is painfully apparent. We are surrounded by the 

 calamitous results of the course that we are now pursuing. 

 In fact, if seems as though there were almost no civilized or 

 semi-civilized country in either hemisphere which cannot 

 stand to us as an example or a warning. To this great truth 

 they bear witness with united voice : The care of the forests 

 is the duty of the nation. 



New York. Gifford Pinchot. 



Correspondence. 



The Owl and the Sparrow. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Garden and Forest for December 24th, 1890, contains 

 a letter from Charles Naudin, in which he recommends the 

 introduction into the United States of the European Pigmy 

 Owl, or Cheveche, the scientific name of which he gives as 

 " Stryx passeri?ia, Linnaeus." Strix passerina of Linnaeus 

 (1758) is the Glaucidium passerinum of modern authors, while 

 Strix passerina of Gmelin (1776) is at present known as Carine 

 noctua. 



It is not quite clear which species is really meant, but this 

 matters little so far as the proposed scheme of introduction is 

 concerned, both species inhabiting France, and both feeding 

 largely on small birds, particularly such species as make their 

 nests in holes or cavities. It is not likely that the introduction 

 of either of these small owls into the United States would go 

 far toward reducing the numbers of English sparrows ; while, 

 on the other hand, the experiment might be fraught with most 

 unfortunate results. 



Our little wrens, bluebirds, titmice, and other species which 

 nest in crevices, holes and artificial houses erected for their 

 use in the vicinity of dwellings, would be destroyed as well as 

 the sparrows. 



One of our native owls — namely, the little Screech Owl 

 (Megascops asio) — has taken up its residence in many cities 

 and large towns infested with sparrows, and has learned to feed 

 upon these pests in great numbers. Its presence may be en- 

 couraged without incurring the risks attendant upon the intro- 

 duction of exotic species. The importation of exotic birds, 

 with a view of setting them at liberty in our own land, should 

 always be regarded with suspicion, as likely to be followed by 

 disastrous results. 



Department of Agriculture, Q Hart Merriam. 



Washinsrton, D. C. 



The Maclrofia in Winter. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir. — Among the broad-leaved evergreen trees of the Pacific 

 coast none are handsomer perhaps than the Madroha 

 (see illustration in Garden and Forest, iii. 515), and it 

 is peculiarly bright and beautiful hetre during the winter 

 months. Unlike the Ash, the Alder and the Maple, the Ma- 

 drona is found in the driest and sunniest localities upon the 

 hill-sides as well as in the denser forests along the foot-hill 

 streams. Even on these drier ridges, where the forest is more 

 open, the Madrona is quite abundant, and always forms a 

 charming feature of the landscape. Especially is this the case 

 in the winter, when the bright green of its leaves are in pleas- 

 ant contrast with the sombre hues of the huge conifers of this 

 region, or with its leafless neighbors among the deciduous 



trees. But in the denser forests of mingled evergreen and de- 

 ciduous trees along the foot-hill streams the Madrona is most 

 abundant, and here in the dim light, where the rich and varied 

 foliage of evergreen shrubbery hangs above a living carpet of 

 moss and trailing plants, its presence wonderfully increases the 

 charm of it all. Its large, handsome leaves are of the glossiest 

 green. Its great, almost naked, branches are clad in the dain- 

 tiest and closest fitting bark, soft, velvety, smooth and con- 

 spicuously clean, a garment scarcely thicker than writing 

 paper, and ranging through a variety of colors, from almost 

 pure white through the most beautiful and delicate shades and 

 tints which I can only describe as drab to pea-green, yellow- 

 green and buff to cinnamon and red. 



Here the Madroha, the type of all that is loveliest in sylvan 

 life, is so abundant, that with its leafy wealth on every hand, 

 we are made to believe, even in the winter months, that by 

 some magic we have been transported to some semi-tropical 

 land. Berberis Aqiiifoliicm, the handsome Holly-leaved 

 Mahonia, with us called Oregon Grape ; B. nervosa, the low 

 Oregon Grape, the prettiest little plant, perhaps, of its genus ; 

 Micromeria Donglassii, the sweet-scented yerba buena ; 

 Linnea borealis, the pretty little Twin-flower, known and loved 

 the world around ; Whipplea modesta ; Synthyris; Gaultheria 

 Shallon, the Salal; Chimapila umbellata, the Prince's Pine, and 

 a host of other evergreen, shrubby and trailing plants, lend the 

 charm of their bright foliage to this deception. 

 Wimer, Ore. E. W. Hammond. 



Periodical Literature. 



In the Popular Science Monthly for January we find a 

 biographical sketch of Dr. Elisha Mitchell, who deserves to 

 be more widely known to American lovers of nature than we 

 believe to be the case. Dr. Mitchell was born in Connecticut 

 in the year 1793, was graduated from Yale College in 1813, and, 

 after being licensed to preach by the Theological Seminary at 

 Andover, accepted, in 1818, the post of Professor of Mathe- 

 matics in the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, in 

 that state. Here he remained until the end of his life, a period 

 of thirty-nine years, being transferred, however, in 1825 to the 

 chair of Chemistry, Mineralogy and Geology. These facts 

 imply great breadth of learning, which indeed he possessed ; 

 but natural science was his favorite study, and, though not a 

 titular professor of botany, he was an enthusiastic and accom- 

 plished botanist. One of his biographers has said that " when 

 he died he was known in almost every part of North Carolina, 

 and he left no one behind him better acquainted with its 

 mountains, valleys and plains ; its birds, beasts, bugs, fishes 

 and shells ; its trees, flowers, vines and mosses ; its rocks, 

 stones, sands, clays and marls. Although in Silliman's Jour- 

 nal, and in other periodicals less prominent, but circulating 

 more widely nearer home, he published many of his discov- 

 eries concerning North Carolina, yet it is to be regretted that 

 he did not print more and in a more permanent form.' It 

 would doubtless have thus appeared that he knew, and per- 

 haps justly estimated the worth of, many facts which much 

 later investigators have proclaimed as their own remarkable 

 discoveries. But the information that he gathered was for his 

 own enjoyment and for the instruction of his pupils. On these 

 he lavished, to their utmost capacity for reception, the knowl- 

 edge that he had gathered by his widely extended observations, 

 and had stored up mainly in the recesses of his own singularly 

 retentive memory." In the extracts from his note-books and 

 the comments of his friends, which are given in the article 

 from which we quote, it is interesting — in these days of per- 

 haps excessive specialization — to read how all the natural 

 sciences went hand in hand in his mind and his daily labors. 

 In one memorandum book he wrote, when preparing for a 

 journey : " Objects of attention — geology, botany, height of 

 the mountains, positions by trigonometry; woods, as the Fir, 

 Spruce, Magnolia, Birch ; fish, especially trout; springs; biog- 

 raphy," and so on. And among his baggage he notes "two 

 barometers, a quadrant, a vasculum for plants and a hammer 

 for rocks." Of course a man whose energies, no matter how 

 great they may be, are thus widely spread, can rarely reach 

 the highest eminence in any one branch; but in a little known 

 and interesting region, where scholars and explorers were 

 few, such a many-sided absorber as Dr. Mitchell was especially 

 able to do good service to science, and his own pleasure must 

 have been infinitely greater than that of the most devoted 

 specialist. His most noteworthy claim to remembrance was his 

 service in ascertaining the exact altitude of the highest peak in 

 the Appalachian range, that peak of the Black Mountain in 

 Yancey County, North Carolina, which is loftier even than 

 Mount Washington. It was at first generally known in the 



