230 



Garden and Forest 



[Number 169. 



and altogether it would seem that even in fields which 

 require specific training, popular opinion can be trusted at 

 last to pronounce judgment upon the efficiency of our 

 public servants and upon the quality of their work. The 

 abuses in the matter of seed-distribution are being gradu- 

 ally cured, and we may hope that this bureau will finally be 

 restricted to its only legitimate purpose ; that is, of mak- 

 ing a careful trial by means of skilled agents in various 

 parts of the country, of new seeds and plants which promise 

 to be of economic value. 



We can see no reason why there should be a Secretary 

 of Agriculture, with a seat in the Cabinet, whose position 

 is essentially political, and who must of necessity be 

 changed with every changing administration. The practi- 

 cal control of the educational machinery of the department, 

 at least, ought to be invested in- some officer whose stand- 

 ing as a man of science is universally recognized. The 

 position of this man should be certainly as permanent 

 as that of the Director of the Coast Survey. He -should 

 be able to make plans for work that will extend through 

 more than one administration. But, after all, when we 

 consider how much time and experience is necessary to 

 organize a force of skilled workers in various branches 

 of scientific inquiry, and how difficult it is in Washington 

 to select men on any other principle than that of political 

 availability, we ought not to complain of the progress that 

 has been made, but rather to feel encouraged to hope that 

 the work of the department will improve in quality as the 

 years roll on. 



It is now ten years since a bulletin of the Tenth Census 

 set forth the fact that fires had swept over more than 

 10,000,000 acres of forest in the United States, and destroyed 

 more than $25,000,000 worth of property in a single year. 

 The publication of these startling figures caused wide dis- 

 cussion. The people of the country were generally in- 

 formed through the press that even this enormous destruc- 

 tion was only a portion of the actual loss, for, in addition 

 to the annihilation of so much forest wealth, the ruin of 

 millions of seedling trees should be counted, besides the 

 actual burning up of the soil or its deterioration in those 

 qualities which make forests possible — that is, these annual 

 fires not only destroy the standing timber, but they destroy 

 the hope of timber in the future. Since the publication of 

 this bulletin, forestry associations in various states and 

 scientific societies have been passing resolutions on this 

 subject and presenting their views to various legislative 

 bodies, state and national, and yet in the first half of this 

 month forest-fires were raging unchecked in half a dozen 

 states, and the devastation has been unusually widespread. 

 In most cases they have burned themselves out, or have 

 been stopped by timely rains ; very rarely has any human 

 agency prevailed to arrest their progress. The fact is, that 

 after a drought in the early spring, especially in a forest 

 where loggers have been at work and have left the ground 

 covered with dry branches, a fire once under good headway 

 is practically uncontrollable. In Europe there is no longer 

 any serious danger from these fires, because every one 

 hastens to smother them as soon as they are started, and 

 in this country the only way to prevent this wholesale 

 devastation by flame is by an organized effort to arrest the 

 fire as soon as it is kindled. 



Of course, every state needs a special law relating to these 

 fires, but even where it is made a crime to set fire to any 

 woods or underbrush, either through malice or negligence, 

 conviction is rare. For the same reason a forest-police 

 can hardly be trusted as a protective agency until the 

 whole community has an intelligent interest in forests. 

 No law can be effectively enforced unless it has behind it 

 a strong public opinion, and the fact that thousands of 

 acres of Pine-lands have been recently on fire within a few 

 miles of cities like New York and Philadelphia is a proof 

 that there is no genuine popular appreciation of their value. 

 Men who live on clearings in the forest, or on lands 

 adjoining forests, will fire brush-heaps in the spring, 



especially when it is dry, although they know the flames 

 will sweep over miles of wood-land. To them and to the 

 public generally a forest has no value — it is waste-land, 

 the prey of every trespasser. So long as forest-property is 

 held in so little esteem our existing forests will have no 

 adequate protection, and there will be small encourage- 

 ment to plant new ones. 



Do Americans Love Flowers ? 



THE Illustrated American, as quoted by Science, maintains 

 that Americans do not love flowers, because they are 

 used, among the rich and fashionable, in reckless profusion 

 for display rather than enjoyment. It is also claimed in 

 Science that we are not a flower-loving people, because wc 

 accept botanical appellations for our indigenous plants, instead 

 of giving them simple, homely names like the charming ones 

 with which familiar flowers have been christened in older 

 countries. 



To this it may be answered, that what ostentatious dwellers in 

 towns are guilty of is by no means to be accepted as a national 

 trait. The place to study the characteristics of a people is not 

 among the very rich, but among those in moderate circum- 

 stances, who make up the bulk of the inhabitants. 



Any one who has driven through New England or the 

 older middle states cannot doubt that there, at least, the people 

 truly love their gardens, and the house plants, with which 

 their windows, in winter, are stocked. Even the humblest 

 dwelling has its row of flower pots, or tin cans, well filled with 

 slips of Geranium or other bright flowers ; and the hours 

 spent over their gardens, by gentlewomen who cannot afford 

 a gardener, are the best proof that the affection they have for 

 them is a real and ardent one. We have known many a house 

 mother, burdened with domestic cares, to rise before day to 

 snatch an hour for weeding or watering her little border, that 

 its fragrant contents might be of avail for a friendly gift, or an 

 adornment for her own table. It is the rarest thing, in a New 

 England village, to enter a room in summer and find no flow- 

 ers disposed about it ; and in the winter the eager question, 

 " How are your plants prospering?" often comes before the 

 conventional inquiries after the health of the members of the 

 household. Their new varieties are discussed and exchanged ; 

 there are rare Chrysanthemums to talk about in autumn, and 

 choice tulips and hyacinths to be complimented in the spring, 

 and each one knows what her neighbor's garden is most 

 famous for, and who is the most successful in her general 

 management of her pets. 



Many women are experienced botanists in their own locality, 

 and can tell where every wild flower of the region is to be 

 found. They rejoice, too, in the discovery of a new weed with 

 as much enthusiasm as an astronomer shows over a fresh 

 comet. Most of the men who live in the country are too busy 

 to give much time to flower-gardens, but they show great in- 

 terest and pride in those so carefully tended by their wives 

 and daughters, and are ready enough to lend a helping hand, 

 even though they may pretend to begrudge the space taken 

 from grass or vegetables for what they think it their duty to 

 call an idle diversion. But given a retired merchant, with 

 not much to occupy his mind, and the chances are that he will 

 soon be wearing himself out in loving labor among his Rho- 

 dodendrons and Roses, taking pride in having the earliest and 

 largest blossoms in his parterre, and conferring in a friendly 

 way over the fence with his neighbors, who stop to consult 

 with him on the best way of dealing with insect pests. Of 

 course, in the remoter west, life is too strenuous to leave much 

 space for flower-gardening. But we have seen flowers grow- 

 ing in a little enclosure on a frontier sheep-ranch, which had 

 cost not only labor but self-denial, and yet they were hardly 

 seen once a year by any save their owner. The care which it 

 cost the mothers and daughters among the early emigrants to 

 transport seeds and slips and roots of the old home flowers 

 from New England to brighten new homes in the west has 

 often been described, and the love with which these flowers 

 are cherished by their descendants is well known. 



It is to these people we must look to discover whether the 

 love of flowers and gardening is implanted in a people, not to 

 the wasteful and luxurious dweller in the town, who only uses 

 flowers as a pretext for wanton expense. And it should not be 

 forgotten that aside from this extravagance, which may show 

 itself in the purchase of flowers, as in the purchase of other 

 luxuries, simply because they maybe rare and costly, the great 

 body of common-sense people in the city buy flowers habitu- 

 ally because they love their beauty and fragrance. 



