May 20, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



229 



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, MAY 20, 1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— The Report of the Secretary of Agriculture 229 



Forest-fires in the United States 230 



Do Americans Love Flowers ? 230 



A California Rose-bush. (With figure.) 231 



How We Renewed an Old Place.— VI Mrs. J. H. Robbins. 231 



Winter Studies of the Pine Barren Flora of Lake Michigan. — IV. E. J. Hill. 232 



New or Little Known Plants :— Clematis connata. (With figure.) C. S. S. 234 



Cultural Department : — Cinerarias 234 



Odontoglossum coronarium and O. brevifolium % Weathers. 234 



^Eschynanthus James P. Taplin. 236 



Dahlias 236 



Hardy Narcissus E. O. Orpet. 236 



Scilla hyacinthoides, Trollius Europseus, Aquilegia flabellata J. N. G. 237 



Begonia semperfiorens, The Satsuma Orange, Celery-plants, 



Professor W. F. Massey. 237 



The Forest: — Redwood Timber Carl Purdy 237 



Correspondence: — Wild Asparagus E. Lewis Stzirtevant. 238 



Water in "Pot-holes" H. B. Ayres. 238 



Watering Trees E. L. 238 



On the Names of Some North American Trees George B. Sudworth. 239 



Recent Publications 239 



Notes 240 



Illustrations :— A California Rose-bush, Fig. 41 233 



Clematis connata, Fig. 42 235 



The Report of the Secretary of Agriculture. 



IF the agricultural industries of the country are to yield 

 a greater profit in the future, it will be mainly because 

 the work in our farms and gardens, orchards and vine- 

 yards, is conducted with greater skill and intelligence. If, 

 then, Government is to give any assistance to agriculture, 

 the best aid it can render is to give information which will 

 help farmers and gardeners to decide correctly the ques- 

 tions which confront them in their daily practice. Of 

 course, Government may give direct aid in other direc- 

 tions, as, for example, it may introduce new varieties of 

 economic plants, or it may help in the battle with destruc- 

 tive insects, as it did recently by importing from Australia 

 the parasite which has done so much to save the Orange- 

 groves of southern California from the devastation of the 

 pernicious scale insect. But, after all, the most effective 

 work of the Government for agriculture must be educa- 

 tional. In the first place, then, the Government must 

 gather knowledge in order to disseminate it. Either under 

 the direct supervision of the department or under the va- 

 rious experiment stations which are now vitally connected 

 with it, a corps of skilled workers must be employed to 

 make such tests in various directions as farmers are un- 

 able. to make for themselves. Many of these experiments 

 are necessarily expensive, and can hardly be undertaken 

 by private persons. Many more of them require such 

 habits of investigation and comparison as only men of 

 long scientific training are able to accomplish. Others, 

 again, require a long series of years before any satisfactory 

 results are arrived at, and such tests can only be entrusted 

 to institutions with a continued life and a well-directed 

 purpose. It is worth while, therefore, to examine the 

 report of the Secretary of Agriculture, which has just been 

 published, in order to form some judgment of the extent 

 and quality of the work of his department. 



It will be observed at once that this publication is far in 

 advance of the reports of a generation ago, over which the 

 newspapers used to make merry. Even in that early day 



these volumes contained much that was of profound and 

 permanent value, although this matter was usually 

 smothered under a mass of crude and ill-digested facts 

 and fancies. In the main, however, these public docu- 

 ments deserved much of the contempt with which they 

 were treated, and the current report certainly shows in a 

 very marked way an improvement in scope and method. 

 In the first place it should be remarked that this report is a 

 very small part of the publications of the department 

 during the year. A very interesting chapter of the book 

 contains a summary of the publications of the department, 

 and the list for the year covers five pages. These publica- 

 tions vary in size from bulletins of a few pages to bulky 

 volumes. Many of these are monographs by men who are 

 recognized as authorities in various fields of scientific 

 study. We have just received, for example, a Report of 

 the Entomological Commission on Insects Injurious to 

 Forest and Shade Trees, which has been prepared by Dr. 

 A. S. Packard. Our students of entomology have natu- 

 rally been led to concentrate their studies upon garden 

 and field-insects rather than upon forest-insects. This 

 treatise, however, a revised and enlarged edition of 

 an earlier bulletin, makes up a volume of nearly a 

 thousand amply illustrated pages, and not only gives a 

 careful account, so far as is possible, of the insects 

 which attack various forest and ornamental trees, but 

 describes the diseases which they cause, and gives di- 

 rections for using the remedies and the various means of 

 applying these remedies to shade and forest-trees. Among 

 other publications of merit may be named Dr. Vasey's 

 Catalogue of Agricultural Grasses and Forage Plants ; 

 Professor Wiley's treatise on the Beet Sugar Industry ; Mr. 

 Tratman's Forestry Bulletin on the Substitution of Metal 

 for Wood in Railroad Ties ; Dr. Merriam's contributions to 

 the Study of the North American Fauna. In fact, all the 

 divisions of the department have issued books or bulletins 

 which have scientific and practical value. 



One of the most interesting of the reports of the divisions, 

 which are published in connection with the Secretary's 

 report, is that of Professor Atwater, the Director of the 

 Office of Experiment Stations, an office which has been 

 established now for a little more than two years. This is 

 interesting, not because it records any marked discoveries 

 in science or improvement in practice, but because it 

 promises in time to be very efficient among the agencies 

 of the department. The experiment stations as yet have 

 not given any adequate return for the large amount of 

 money they cost. In the first place, it is difficult to find 

 trained experimenters to conduct the station work, and, 

 again, their work is not sufficiently specialized, but is 

 spread over too much ground. Besides this, the Boards of 

 Control are under constant pressure to show results, so 

 that abstract research is neglected for superficial work, 

 which makes some immediate show of practical use. 

 However, it seems probable that these and the other causes 

 of failure will be gradually eliminated under intelligent 

 discussion. Ambitious and able young men graduating 

 from the schools of this country and of Europe are ready to 

 take occupation in the stations, so that, with a central 

 bureau, which, in some measure, may unify and collate 

 the work in the various states, we are justified in hoping 

 for such efficient aid in the practice of the arts of agricul- 

 ture and horticulture as can be furnished by a more 

 thorough understanding of the sciences upon which these 

 arts rest. The bulletins from this office have so far been 

 judiciously compiled and edited, and their distribution 

 must in time make a sensible increase in the popular 

 knowledge. 



Of some of the other special reports, like that from the 

 Division of Forestry, we shall take occasion to speak here- 

 after ; but the work in the Divisions of Chemistry, of Botany, 

 of Vegetable Pathology and Statistics is shown to be worthy 

 of respect, and the chiefs of these departments hold an 

 honorable position in the republic of science. The Secre- 

 tary's summary of the year's work is in the main judicious, 



