February 4, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



49 



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, FEBRUARY 4, 1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS, 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— The Adirondack Reservation. — V/aste in the Turpentine 



Industry 49 



The Battle Monument at West Point 50 



Dahlias in Mexico C. G. Pringle. 50 



Plant Notes : — Prunus ilicif olia, var. occidentalis George B. Sudworth. 51 



New or Little Known Plants: — Viola ocellata. (With figure.) 51 



Juglans Vilmoriniana. (With figures.) M.L.de Vilmorin. 51 



Foreign Correspondence :— London Letter W. Watson. 52 



Cultural Department : — Experiments in Treatment of the Diseases of Plants, 



A. W. Pearson. 52 



Plant-houses for Amateurs. — I J. N. Gerard. 54 



Cypripedium venustum John Weathers. 56 



Color in Conifers William C. Strong. 56 



Some Useful Acanthads M. Barker. 56 



New Hardy Herbaceous Plants Max Leichtlin. 57 



Chrysanthemums T. D. H. 57 



Nematodes Attacking Bouvardias Professor Byron D. Halsted. 57 



Correspondence: — Notes from Brookline H. G. 57 



Meetings of Societies: — Western New York Horticultural Society. — I.: Do 



Varieties Run Out \ Professor L. H. Bailey. 58 



Bacteria and Green Manuring Professor G. C. Caldwell. 5n 



Diseases of the Grape in Western New York David G. Fairchild. 59 



Notes 60 



Illustrations :— Juglans Vilmoriniana, Fig. 11 52 



The Original Specimen of Juglans Vilmoriniana, Fig. 12 53 



Viola ocellata, Fig. 13 55 



The Adirondack Reservation. 



THE meeting held in the Museum of Natural History 

 ten days ago at the call of the State Forestry Associ- 

 ation surpassed in numbers and earnestness any simi- 

 lar gathering heretofore held in this city or state. This 

 evidence of a strong and growing popular sentiment is 

 gratifying, because it is the only power which can compel 

 appropriate forest-legislation or enforce forest-laws after 

 they are enacted. The people are slowly learning that 

 they have in their forests a possession of inestimable value, 

 and they are awakening to the truth that their preservation 

 is essential to the national well-being. They are begin- 

 ning to realize, too, what all experience has proved, that 

 forests in private hands are certain to deteriorate even in 

 countries where their value is recognized, where the proper 

 methods of managing them are understood and where men 

 schooled and skilled in the practice of forestry can be 

 secured to take charge of them. If the remnant of the 

 North Woods which still stands is to continue to do the 

 beneficent work of preserving the streams that flow out of 

 them, and ministering to the health, comfort and pros- 

 perity of our citizens, the state must ultimately take charge 

 of them. The state, with its continuous life, its compre- 

 hensive concern for the good of all, its ample capital, its 

 purpose which can be held steady from generation to gen- 

 eration, can alone be trusted to administer this property to 

 the highest advantage' of the community. 



But how and when, and within what limits, the state 

 shall acquire the fee of these forests, are questions of expe- 

 diency which need ample discussion. The State Commis- 

 sion have prepared one or more bills for the establishment 

 of a park, which we have not seen at this writing. The 

 State Forestry Association are preparing other bills. Cer- 

 tain clubs are advocating still further legislation. It is not 

 intended here to examine these proposed measures or to 

 pass judgment on any of their provisions, but simply to 

 say that in many particulars these provisions clash, and 

 they cannot all be right. Whether the state is to buy the 



entire tract at once and outright, or to invite clubs and 

 individual owners to retain their proprietorship under such 

 conditions of management as it provides for its own forests ; 

 whether it is to buy land and leave the privilege of cutting 

 timber to lumbermen or to work the woods itself and make 

 the profit on its forest-products offset the interest on the 

 bonds issued for the purchase of the park ; whether rail- 

 roads are to be stringently prohibited from entering the 

 reservation or admitted under restrictions ; all these and 

 a hundred more questions must be faced. Meanwhile, as 

 the demand for the park grows stronger, the owners are 

 raising prices, and a million dollars of purchase-money 

 will buy only a tithe of the land it would have bought 

 twenty years ago. 



Some manifestations at Albany are not such as to en- 

 courage the hope that an immediate or satisfactory adjust- 

 ment of these important matters is probable. The State Com- 

 mission has been charged with inefficiency and with subordi- 

 nating public interests to personal ends. On the other hand, 

 the Governor, who appointed the Commission, is said to be 

 plotting to undermine its influence for political purposes. 

 Let us hope that both charges will be proved baseless. 

 But, while there is investigation and recrimination, confi- 

 dence languishes. Before great sums of money are appro- 

 priated there should be absolute faith in the integrity, the 

 public spirit and the business capacity of the agents who are 

 to use it. It is a good time now for the people of the state 

 to let their representatives know that they are expected to 

 give their best thought to these problems and make some 

 genuine progress, even if it is slow. If but few steps are 

 taken, let them be made in the right direction — steps w r hich 

 will not need to be retraced. 



One thing, at least, our legislators should bear in mind. 

 The state should show itself competent to take care of the 

 lands it already possesses while it is preparing to acquire more. 

 Not another week should be allowed to pass without the 

 enactment of a measure to prohibit the construction of any 

 railroad across the state lands. The building of any dam 

 which may cause the overflowing of state land should be 

 forbidden with equal promptness. When these laws are 

 passed and more stringent measures are taken against fires 

 and trespasses upon its own lands, the state can ask with 

 greater assurance for the enlargement of its property. 



Of the extravagant methods which prevail in the United 

 States none certainly exceeds in extravagance that under 

 which the turpentine industry of the south is conducted ; 

 and there is no business connected with the products, of 

 the soil which yields so little return in proportion to the 

 destruction of material involved. Mr. W. G. Cooper, in 

 discussing in a recent issue of the Southern Lumberman 

 the forest-wealth of the state of Georgia, calls attention 

 again in a forcible manner to the lamentable results which 

 have always followed the manufacture of turpentine in this 

 country. The Pine-forests of Georgia once represented 

 fabulous wealth ; they were not surpassed by those of any 

 other region, and could they have been wisely husbanded 

 w r ould have made Georgia one of the richest states in the 

 Union. Mr. Cooper estimates that of the $400,000,000 

 worth of pine now standing in them, forty per cent, or 

 $160,000,000 worth, have been killed by the turpentine- 

 farmers, as the men are called who tap the Pine-trees. 

 There are, it is said, stills enough in operation in the state 

 to use up the remainder of the timber in seven years ; and 

 yet all that is paid for the privilege of destroying the value 

 of the trees is seventy-five cents to a dollar an acre, or 

 $5,000,000 for the destruction of forests which in fifteen 

 years of good management might, it is safe to say, pro- 

 duce $150,000,000 worth of lumber and naval stores with- 

 out seriously diminishing their productiveness. The men 

 who carry on the turpentine industry do more damage 

 than the lumbermen. The latter leave small trees, gen- 

 erally all those which do not measure ten inches across on 

 the stump. The turpentine-farmers, however, take every- 



