Garden and Forest. 



[Vol. IV., No. 150. 



number of White Oaks produced on different soils. He 

 found that the average trunk-diameter of ten trees growing 

 on bottom-land was 4.59 feet, and that their average total 

 height was 123.60 feet, while of seven trees growing on 

 gravelly uplands in the same region the average trunk- 

 diameter was 2.40 feet, and the average total height only 

 99.82 feet. 



The White Oak was noticed by the earliest botanists who 

 explored the North American flora. Bannister, the English 

 minister, who died in Virginia in 169 2, knew it; Clayton, whose 

 Virginia plants were published by Gronovius, remarked 

 on the resemblance of its leaves to those of the English 

 Oak ; and Catesby published in 173 1, in his "Natural His- 

 tory of Carolina," the first portrait of the foliage and fruit 

 of this tree. It is said to have been cultivated in England 

 as early as 1724, and Michaux, late in the same century, 

 sent great quantities of the acorns and young plants to 

 enrich the forests of France. Such a valuable tree was 

 naturally sought for by European planters, who a hundred 

 years ago were keener than they are to-day in their search 

 for exotic timber-trees. Efforts to grow it successfully in 

 Europe have, however, always failed; and a good speci- 

 men of this or of any of the other American species of the 

 White Oak group is probably not to be found there. The 

 reason of this is not easily explained, for nearly all the 

 Black Oaks, especially the Red Oak, the Scarlet Oak and 

 the Pin Oak, grow rapidly and live as long in Europe as 

 they do in this country. Here the White Oak, although it 

 is a difficult tree to transplant, and is best grown from seed 

 planted where the tree is to remain, grows very rapidly, 

 and is one of the most desirable and ornamental of all our 

 native trees for the embellishment of large parks and 

 gardens. 



The value of the White Oak from an economic point of 

 view is not easily overestimated. It supplies the principal 

 part of the American oak of commerce, and is very largely 

 used throughout the country in ship-building, in all sorts 

 of construction, in the manufacture of carriages and agri- 

 cultural implements, for railway-ties, fencing, cabinet- 

 making, the interior finish of buildings, and for cooperage, 

 fuel, etc. For years it has been exported in immense 

 quantities in the form of staves for wine and other casks, for 

 which purpose there is a large and increasing demand for it 

 in Europe, and in California, where no Oak furnishing wood 

 suitable for this purpose grows. There are still great 

 bodies of this timber standing in the United States, espe- 

 cially in western North and South Carolina and in eastern 

 Tennessee and Kentucky and in Arkansas. Railroads, 

 however, are penetrating these Oak-forests, which inaccessi- 

 bility has thus far preserved from the axe of the lumberman 

 and the settler. Every year the supply is becoming less, 

 and if it is fair to judge of the future of our forests by their 

 past, white oak as a great forest-product must eventually 

 disappear. The time has already arrived when the White Oak 

 is worth preserving. Few of our trees, indeed, better deserve 

 care, especially as a danger more serious even than the axe 

 is threatening to exterminate the White Oak in the very 

 region where it grows naturally in the greatest abundance. 

 The acorns of this tree, like those of the other Oaks with 

 annual fructification, are, unfortunately, sweet, and are, 

 therefore, hunted for and devoured by the hogs which are 

 allowed to roam at will in great bands through the forests 

 of the southern states. They eat the White Oak acorns 

 and pass by the bitter fruit of the Black Oaks, which are, 

 therefore, gradually getting possession of the soil and 

 driving out more valuable species, so that it will be a 

 question of time only, if the pasturage of the southern 

 forests is continued, when their most valuable tree will 

 disappear. 



The density of the original forest-covering of eastern 

 America prevented, except in rare cases, the growth of 

 broad-branched, spreading trees such as we so much ad- 

 mire in some of the old forests and parks of England. 

 There are exceptions, however, and fine old wide-spreading 

 White Oaks are occasionally met with in the eastern states. 



Such trees are those at Waverly, in Massachusetts, which 

 have already appeared in this journal (vol. iii., p. 81), and 

 such is the tree which appears on pages 6 and 7 of the 

 present issue. It is growing on the grounds of Mr. W. H. 

 Fearing, near Jobstown, New Jersey; the diameter of the 

 trunk is six feet at three feet from the ground, and the 

 branches cover a circle 120 feet across. Larger trunks are 

 not uncommon, but such a magnificent expanse of foliage 

 is rare. The tree is fortunate, too, in having escaped mu- 

 tilation by wind and storm. It has lost no large limbs, 

 shows no dead or dying wood, and is in vigorous health. 

 Altogether the tree is a fine example of what the White 

 Oak can become under favorable conditions, and what 

 character of trees the people who inhabit America three or 

 four hundred years hence will have before their eyes if 

 the present generation of planters plants wisely, and their 

 descendants value trees for what they are worth and be- 

 stow upon them the care they deserve. 



Dispatches from Washington state that Secretary Noble 

 has asked the War Department for two companies of 

 cavalry to protect the additions to the Yosemite Park 

 and the Tulare Sequoia Reservation from the dangers that 

 beset all Government forests when not under military con- 

 trol. The presence of troops has alone kept the forests 

 and game of the Yellowstone Park from extermination, and 

 no doubt the visible presence of the force of the Federal 

 authority in the shape of armed and uniformed men will 

 do much to prevent wanton destruction of the nation's 

 property by fire and trespass of various kinds. In spite of 

 the smallness of our army and the vast area over which 

 our public forests are scattered, we still feel that these for- 

 ests would be safer under the control of the army than under 

 any other administration. As matters now stand, the army 

 is the only force that will be likely to represent with any firm- 

 ness the dignity of the nation against local interest, and 

 against the right which herders and lumbermen, and, in fact, 

 •settlers of all kind, feel they have acquired by long usage, 

 to cut or pasture or burn over the woods on the public 

 lands as it may seem for their profit or pleasure to do so. 



Old Methods of Preserving Seeds for Transportation. 



n^HE Gentleman's Magazine for 1760 and 1769 gives some 

 -*- interesting notes on the methods then employed in treat- 

 ing seeds for long voyages. Four methods are described, one 

 as originating with Linnaeus, and the other three with John 

 Lewis, Esq., F.R.S. 



Mr. Lewis' first method was tried with acorns of the English 

 Oak, and consisted in wrapping the acorns separately in thin 

 sheets of "common yellow bees-wax," warmed so as to be 

 pliable; then adding a coating of "brewers' loam" moistened 

 with a thick solution of gum-Arabic. The acorns were after- 

 ward placed in a " chip box," the interstices being filled with 

 dry "house sand," and the box stowed away in a dry cask, 

 from which, after nearly ten months, they were taken out (on 

 arriving at Georgia) "in a state of vegetation, and being set, 

 soon germinated and grew." 



Spanish chestnuts were made to retain their germinating 

 power for nearly a year on a sea voyage by pouring a melted 

 mixture of bees-wax and mutton suet over the nuts in an 

 earthen jar ; and similarly by using pure bees-wax. Mr. Lewis 

 laments, however, that in one instance, at least, a supply of 

 chestnuts from Spain failed to grow under this process; but 

 he subsequently learned that the nuts had been " thoroughly 

 kiln-dried" to prevent their moulding on the voyage. 



The third process tried is similar to the first, with the excep- 

 tion that the nuts were simply wrapped in small sheets of 

 wax. The bottom of the box to contain the nuts was then 

 covered with melted wax to a depth of an inch, and when the 

 wax became partly cooled the nuts were packed in regular 

 layers and the interstices of the last layer filled up with warm, 

 pliable wax ; a wooden cover was then secured over all. The 

 acorns thus encased were placed in a dry closet for one year. 

 At the end of this time they were transmitted for examina- 

 tion "to Mr. William Aiton, botanic gardener to Her Royal 

 Highness the princess dowager of Wales at Kew." Mr. Lewis 

 states that in a letter subsequently received from Aiton the 



