5° 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 154. 



thing they see, big and little, and once the resinous sur- 

 face of the tree is exposed, fire is almost certain to finish 

 the damage the axe of the turpentine-farmer has com- 

 menced. 



It appears from a recent investigation made of the area 

 and condition of the Georgia Pine-forests that 266 turpen- 

 tine stills are in operation in the state. The farms necessary 

 to supply one still will use up 15,000 acres of timber in 

 three years, and it is believed, at the present rate of opera- 

 tion, that the Georgia Pine-forests would be ruined in 

 twelve years even if a single acre had not already been 

 boxed. But as four-tenths of the trees have been boxed, 

 seven years, at the present rate the destruction is going 

 on, will steal away, Mr. Cooper believes, the life of every 

 Pine-tree in Georgia. It is only necessary to examine the 

 condition of the Pine-forests in eastern North Carolina, 

 where the turpentine industry was first established and has 

 thus been longest practiced, to realize the effect it has on 

 our forests, and the soundness of Mr. Cooper's views. Wil- 

 mington, which was once the most important shipping- 

 point in the world for naval stores and the principal ship- 

 ping-point for southern hard pine, has now lost entirely its 

 commercial importance as a point of distribution for for- 

 est-products, the North Carolina Pine-forests being no 

 longer a considerable or even an important factor in the 

 country's supply. 



The erection of the Battle Monument to be placed at West 

 Point near the verge of the beautiful bluff whence one 

 looks northward upon the river, has been entrusted to Messrs. 

 McKim, Mead & White, of this city, after a competition, in 

 which the judges were Mr. R. M. Hunt, of New York, and 

 Mr. Arthur Rotch, of Boston, architects, and Mr. St. Gaudens, 

 sculptor. Messrs. McKim, Mead & White, in the memoran- 

 dum presented with their drawing, said : 



" In preparing the design, we have most carefully considered 

 the object of the monument and the site which it is to occupy. 



" We believe the monument should be first and foremost a 

 martial one, distinctive in its character and impressive in its 

 design. The beauty of its site and the surroundings seem to 

 us to preclude any bulky or massive treatment, and to suggest 

 rather a treatment where the impression should be produced 

 by height supported by a base which should not interfere with 

 graceful and artistic treatment. For this reason, we have 

 adopted as the feature of our design a single monolithic shaft 

 treated in the shape of a memorial column or column of vic- 

 tory. This form seems to us to be more distinctively martial 

 than any other, and in this form we believe it is possible to 

 obtain impressiveness and dignity without a sacrifice of grace, 

 at the same time preserving a distinctively architectural and 

 monumental character. We lay great stress upon these two 

 points — namely, the necessity of giving the monument a mar- 

 tial character and the relation of the monument to its site. In 

 our design we have had these two points continually in mind 

 with results which you must judge. The shaft is a monolith 

 of polished granite forty-six feet high and five feet six inches 

 in diameter. To the best of our belief it would be the largest 

 polished shaft in the world. It is proposed to surmount it with 

 a figure of Victory and surround it by eagles — a distinct 

 mark of its national character. The shaft rests upon a circular 

 base surrounded by flights of steps, giving the greatest dignity 

 possible to the base. The materials are the most enduring — 

 granite and bronze. 



" The estimate for the cost of the monumentassumes an ex- 

 penditure of $50,000 in addition to the value — $5,000 — of cer- 

 tain bronze cannon donated for the purpose by theGoverment. 

 It is hoped that the monument will be completed during the 

 course of the coming summer." 



The other competitors were Messrs. Babb, Cook & Wil- 

 lard, of New York, whose design showed a Doric column of 

 polished granite, surmounted by a bronze figure, and set upon 

 a raised platform with exedras on two opposite sides ; Mr. W. 

 R. Emerson, of Boston, who proposed a triumphal arch of 

 white marble, flanked by a colonnade, and resting on a plat- 

 form ; and Messrs. Carrere & Hastings, of New York, who 

 again proposed a columnar shaft. Their memorandum said 

 (and the point they raise is worth noting in view of the very 

 lofty proportions of the column designed by Messrs. McKim, 

 Mead & White) : ".In our opinion, on the site chosen, with 

 no background other than the sky and distant scenery, what- 

 ever the character of the monument may be, its seeming pro- 



portions will so change— apparently lessening in diameter 

 without lowering in height— that it will need some kind of 

 decorative background between it and the landscape. More- 

 over, while the height of a classic column of such an order as 

 we have studied, if introduced into a building, should be equal 

 to nine diameters, we are persuaded that, standing by itself, it 

 should have seven and a half diameters, and this fact is illus- 

 trated in many examples, conspicuously in the Column of 

 Trajan, in Rome, and in the Columns Vendome and La Bas- 

 tille, in Paris. To illustrate further the principle of having 

 something between the monument and the landscape: a monu- 

 ment in a public square, amid buildings or other surroundings, 

 reveals its true proportions and looks better than it would in a 

 large park. We have, therefore, suggested a decorative 

 colonnade as shown on plans. The shafts of the columns 

 and piers, as also the friezes of this colonnade, would give the 

 space asked for in the programme, to receive the names of the 

 officers and non-commissioned officers who fell in the war." 



Dahlias in Mexico. 



IT EEDING the suggestion of an English botanist, I gave, on 

 11 my latest journey in Mexico, the home of the Dahlia, 

 special attention to this genus, and for the effort was well re- 

 warded as usual. Two new species were brought to light to 

 be added to the half-dozen already known and in the hands of 

 cultivators. These are Dahlia fiubescens .and D. dissccta of 

 Watson. 



D. pubescens was found on calcareous bluffs of prairies bor- 

 dering the valleys of small streams in the state of Mexico and 

 to the north of Toluca. The plant struck me at first sight as 

 very distinct in habit from the species I had frequently encoun- 

 tered, the parents of most of our garden varieties "; for it is 

 smaller, only one and a half to two feet high, and more strict, 

 the leaves, pinnately parted with narrower and more numer- 

 ous divisions, being, like the fewer branches, more erect. This 

 strict appearance is further increased by the flowers being 

 held vertically by erect peduncles. The flowers are two or 

 three inches broad, with a yellow disc surrounded by about 

 eight rays, which are purple, with lines of deeper color, but 

 change with age to light purple or dull rose. The tubers are 

 comparatively small, only one or two inches in length, and 

 vary from round to oblong in shape. 



D. dissecta was discovered growing on limestone ledges of 

 mountains fifty miles east from San Luis Potosi. It is a very 

 unique species, being scarcely more than two feet high and of 

 bushy habit from an almost woody base. Its leaves are bi- 

 pinnate, sometimes tripinnate, with numerous divisions only 

 one or two lines wide, smooth, dark green and somewhat 

 fleshy. The flowers are raised above the foliage on peduncles 

 a foot long ; they are two or three inches broad with about 

 eight mauve-colored rays. All my breaking up of the rocks, 

 in whose seams the roots of this plant were hidden, failed to 

 bring to view any tubers ; doubtless, it is only to be propa- 

 gated by seed and by division of the perennial branching base, 

 from which arise the very leafy annual flowering branches. 

 Owing to its peculiar habitat this must be a very local species. 



Working southward from the boundary slowly and some- 

 what carefully, I have as yet only reached the latitude of the 

 capital at various points within the states of Mexico, 

 Michoacan and Jalisco ; hence I have so far met with only 

 two of the old species of Dahlia, D. coccinea and D. vari- 

 abilis, those earliest known and most varied and combined 

 under cultivation. 



Of these D. coccinea has the more northerly and by far 

 the most extensive distribution. From the Cordilleras of 

 Chihuahua, within 200 miles of the United States Boundary 

 — probably much nearer, and possibly within the limits 

 of the United States on the Chiricahua Mountains of 

 Arizona — it ranges southward through the mountains to Jalisco 

 in a purple flowered variety, and was seen again in the 

 adjoining state of Michoacan in a yellow variety. On the eastern 

 side of the country, also, it was found from the mountains of 

 Coahuila to those surrounding the Valley of Mexico. On this 

 line the colors shown were scarlet varying through orange to 

 lemon yellow. The size of its flowers in the wild state varies 

 from two to three or four inches in breadth, and the stature of 

 the plant from three to six feet or more. Its habitat has been 

 given as " sandy meadows" (probably the alluviums of streams 

 was meant), but I have rarely seen it growing except in the 

 thin, dry soil of ledges — even in the crevices of bare ledges — 

 or (quite commonly) among the broken rocks which form, 

 with a little soil, the talus of cliffs, either mountain walls or 

 canon walls. A sight of its bright flowers is cheering to the 



