February ii, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



61 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sakgent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGF.. 



Editorial Articles :— Congress and the National Forests 61 



Garden Plants of Ceylon Professor George L. Goodale. 62 



Insect Enemies of the Pitch Pine Mrs. Mary Treat. 62 



Lenoir's "Elysee." (With figure.) M. G. Van Rensselaer. 63 



Plant Notes : — Some Recent Portraits 64 



New or Little Known Plants: — Clethra alnifolia, var. tomentosa. (With 



figure.) C. S. S. 64 



Foreign Correspondence : — New Plants of 1890 W. Watson. 64 



Cultural Department :— Notes on Some Hardy Wild Roses. — V J. G. Jack. 66 



Plant-houses for Amateurs. — II J. N. Gerard. 67 



Tomatoes Under Glass C. W. Mathews. 68 



Some Useful Palms W. H. Taplin. 68 



Notes from a Pennsylvania Garden Professor W. A. Buckhout. 69 



Seed-Sowing E. O. Orpet. 69 



Begonia Scharffiana T. D. H. 69 



Streptocarpus Kewensis J.N. Gerard. 69 



Correspondence: — Intelligence in Plants E. M. Hale. 69 



The Name of Rhode Island H. Christ, William D. Ely. 70 



Meetings of Societies :— Western New York Horticultural Society. — II.: Fruit- 

 growing in Canada Professor William Saunders. 70 



History and Current Progress of Economic Study of Plant Diseases, 



Professor A. N. Prentiss. 71 



Notes 7 2 



Illustrations :— Clethra alnifolia, var. tomentosa, Fig. 14 6s 



Cemetery of the Musee des Monuments francais, Fig. 15 67 



Congress and the National Forests. 



PERSONS who appreciate the important influence which 

 our forests exert upon the well-being of the nation are 

 often impatient at the apathy and dilatoriness of Congress 

 in taking measures for their protection. It is true that our 

 law-makers seem strangely inactive in this matter when we 

 consider the energy they display in affairs of much smaller 

 moment. Certain it is that no subject is likely to be 

 brought before Congress which approaches this in the 

 gravity of its ulterior consequences. A few years ago Mr. 

 Carl Schurz, who not only has a comprehensive knowledge 

 of European forests, but has been in a position while Secre- 

 tary of the Interior to obtain special information as to the 

 waste of the timber on our public domain, stated in a pub- 

 lic address that he considered this question one of para- 

 mount importance ; that discussions of tariff and currency 

 and other economic problems might be postponed to some 

 future day, for mistakes in this direction might be rectified 

 by a change of system, and the losses incurred might be 

 retrieved; but he added that "if the destruction of our 

 forests goes on at the present rate it may bring on a train 

 of disasters from which the country may never recover." 

 This is a simple, unexaggerated statement of a truth which 

 neither Congress nor the people of the country seem to 

 realize. The untold millions of dollars which vanish into 

 smoke every year by forest-fires : the additional millions 

 which are stolen from the public domain and wasted ; the 

 millions more which are destroyed by flocks and herds, not 

 to speak of the destruction of the very capacity of the soil 

 to produce timber in the future ; the more remote but 

 equally certain disasters which come to soil and climate 

 and public health from disturbing the balance of natural 

 forces — all these things are either unknown or unheeded 

 by the members of the national legislature, and the de- 

 struction is allowed to proceed from year to year without 

 any honest attempt to check it. 



It should be remembered, however, that members of 

 Congress fairly represent their constituents in this matter. 

 If the people of the country were adequately instructed 

 they would stand appalled by the magnitude of the loss 

 and danger which threatens, and they would speedily 

 compel their representatives to take efficient action for 

 maintaining the forest-property of the nation. The busi- 

 ness interests which are benefited by protection take 

 pains to make themselves felt in Washington ; so do 

 those industries which will be benefited by free 

 trade. The men who imagine that the free coinage of 

 silver will bring prosperity to them, and the other class 

 who are equally convinced that such coinage will interfere 

 with their prosperity, have agents at the Capitol at every 

 session to force upon the attention of the members their 

 demands in one direction or the other. The forests, how- 

 ever, have comparatively few friends. The people read 

 of the devastation by fire, and feel a temporary flush of 

 indignation at the waste of the present resources of the 

 nation and of their children's inheritance, but they say 

 little and do less. A few public-spirited men and women 

 hold meetings now and then and pass resolutions, but 

 their words lack the direct vigor of those which come from 

 men whose personal interests are at stake. Proper legisla- 

 tion for our forests will never be accomplished until the 

 people themselves are burdened with a personal sense of 

 the need of such legislation. When public sentiment is once 

 thoroughly aroused throughout the country the laws will 

 come. Every attempt, therefore, to arrest attention and 

 direct public thought to the necessity of a careful hus- 

 bandry of our forest-resources should be gratefully wel- 

 comed ; and we have been pleased to read that at a late 

 meeting of the Nantucket Improvement Association the 

 following resolutions were passed : 



Whereas, the illegal and wanton encroachments upon the 

 forest-lands of our nation are rapidly reducing the area of for- 

 est throughout the country, and leaving bare the tops and 

 slopes of mountains, thus rendering difficult their reclothing 

 with a growth of wood, and increasing the danger and damage 

 from flood due to the destruction of the leafy mould ; and 



Whereas, selfish interests of individuals, land and railroad 

 corporations are seeking to encroach upon tracts of land in 

 the Rocky Mountain range, California and other sections of 

 the country set apart for public use ; or are seeking to prevent 

 their enlargement as the best interests of the nation and the 

 proper protection of said national reservations demand ; 



Therefore Resolved, That we respectfully request and urge 

 the Congressional delegation of our commonwealth in the 

 national Senate and House of Representatives to promote and 

 press all measures that tend to protect our forests, and to suit- 

 ably extend and improve our national parks, having especially 

 in mind the Yellowstone Park Reservation, the Yosemite Park 

 and the Sequoia Groves of California. 



And, whereas, the Commissioner of the General Land Office 

 recommends the repeal of laws forbidding the entry of rugged, 

 stony or other timber lands unfit for cultivation and allowing 

 settlers to use the timber on such lands which they may ac- 

 tually need to develop the country ; and whereas, we believe 

 that the repeal of these laws is a menace to the best interests of 

 the country, that the time has fully come when the timber lands 

 of the nation should be jealously guarded from destruction, 

 and that a little forethought in the present may prevent serious 

 injury and agricultural ruin to great sections of our country in 

 the future, or may obviate the necessity of expending vast sums 

 of money to recover from such injury and ruin ; therefore 



Resolved, That we urge upon the members of Congress 

 to resist the repeal of any law that protects forest-land and 

 to advocate all laws that may render forest-protection and 

 extension more effective. 



The national forests belong to the people of Massa- 

 chusetts as truly as they do to the people of the states and 

 territories in which they are situated; and it is their right 

 to make protest against the failure to protect their property. 

 It would be a hopeful indication if other organizations 

 throughout the country would take similar action. If 

 every rural improvement association, farmers' institute, 

 grange convention, horticultural or agricultural society 

 would discuss the propriety of making such petition it 



