JUME V[, l8 9 I.] 



Garden and Forest. 



277 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted bv Professor C. S. Sargent. 



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



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— Village Woods 277 



Portable Saw-mills 277 



' ' Our Trees " 278 



Winter Studies of the Pine Barren Flora of Lake Michigan.— V ..E.J. Hill. 278 



How We Renewed an Old Place.— IX Mrs. J. H. Robbins. 279 



Weevils in Leguminous Tree-seeds. (With figures.) J- H. Jack. 280 



Foreign Correspondence : — The Temple Show ...W. Watson. 281 



New or Little-known Plants :— Crinum A siaticum. (With figure.). W. Watson. 282 

 Cultural Department: — Points of Merit in Vegetables. .Professor W. W. Tracy. 283 



Notes from the St. Louis Botanical Gardens F. II. H. 284 



German I rises J. N. Gerard. 284 



Earlv Peas Professor W. F. Massey. 285 



Alstr'omeria pelegrina E. O. Orfiet. 285 



Gram inaitopny Hum Measuresianum A. Dimmock. 285 



Correspondence : — Fruit-trees on Lawns E. P. Poiaell. 285 



A Neglected Evening Primrose Charles Howard Siiinn. 2S5 



The American Association of Nurserymen : — Annual Meeting at Minneapolis.. 286 



Evergreens from the Seed Charles F. Gardener. 286 



Georgia as a Fruit-growing State Major Gessner. 286 



Rockv Mountain Evergreens C. S Harrison. 287 



Notes 287 



Illustrations : — Weevils Found in Leguminous Tree-seeds, Fig. 49 281 



Crinum Asiaticum, Fig. 50 283 



Village Woods. 



ALMOST every week we hear that one or more of our 

 thriving young cities have been enabled by some 

 special legislation to acquire land to be used in the future 

 as a public park. Very often it is the case that this land 

 includes some picturesque glen through which a brook 

 flows, or some old forest, or a lake-front or other natural 

 feature of peculiar interest. This is all commendable, and 

 there is no danger that too many parks will be made. In- 

 deed, in almost every case which has come under our 

 observation it is probable that the investment will pay a sub- 

 stantial money return in the improved value of property, 

 without counting the still greater advantages which will 

 come to the city of the future from the increased health and 

 comfort and enjoyment of the citizens. 



In smaller towns, too, there is usually some square or 

 green which is utilized as a place of public assemblage, 

 and which is bright with grass and flowers and attractive 

 with the shade of venerable trees ; but it rarely seems to 

 occur to the inhabitants of smart villages that some public 

 ground would be to them a most valuable possession. In 

 many cases there is a neighboring grove to which the vil- 

 lagers resort for public gatherings. Of course, this is in 

 private hands, but the people are welcome there when 

 Fourth of July is to be celebrated or on such occasions as 

 Sunday-school anniversaries, and farmers'' picnics, and har- 

 vest-homes. We can call to mind several bits of woodland 

 which serve a purpose like this, and which visitors always 

 have in mind when they think of the villages near which 

 they stand. But woods are never safe in private hands, 

 and when the time comes, as it too often does, that the 

 grove is felled for firewood or for lumber, the destruction 

 of the trees is felt to be a distinct public loss. 



This train of thought has been suggested by what has 

 recently happened in a thriving village in northern New 

 Jersey. Within a short walk of the town-hall a beautiful 

 grove of hard-wood timber, some ten acres in extent, has 



stood as long as the oldest villager can remember. 

 Through the kindness of successive owners it has been 

 practically a public park for all, and in its shade have been 

 held neighborhood gatherings of every sort for generations. 

 It has been the haunt of the school-children, where spring 

 flowers and autumn leaves were gathered. Visitors from 

 the city have found in it a special attraction in a region 

 which is in itself distinguished for rural beauty. In short, 

 a great many people, when they think of the village, will 

 think of this grove as one of its prime attractions. But the 

 owner has been offered what he considers a fair price for 

 the timber, and the grove is doomed. When the gray old 

 trees fall the country-side will lose much of its beauty, and 

 the village will be bereft of one of its most interesting 

 features. 



In such a case as this it seems plain that it would have 

 been a public benefit if the grove could have been spared 

 to the village. Of course, it is not every owner who can 

 afford to give his property for the general good, but cer- 

 tainly the purchase of such a grove by the village would 

 have been from every point of view a wise outlay of public 

 money. Perhaps it would not have been difficult in this 

 instance if any public-spirited citizen had taken the matter 

 in hand to have raised sufficient money to save the grove, 

 but in most states there is no way in which unincorporated 

 towns can get possession of tracts of land for such pur- 

 poses and hold them. In the state of New York there is a 

 law wmich permits an association of citizens to hold land 

 for public use and to appoint their own successors. Under 

 this law landholders are encouraged to make dona- 

 tions of property to public use, and associations can 

 be formed to buy such property where purchase-money 

 is needed, and for this reason the action of the Legisla- 

 tures of New York and Massachusetts, which makes such 

 transfer of land possible, is to be commended. 



But, in addition to laws for securing such village com- 

 mon-woods or public parks, there is also needed a more 

 general feeling that they are worth having. Every 

 one admits the advantages of securing some bits of 

 rural scenery for the use of people in crowded cities. But 

 people in villages are not shut out from the enjoyment of 

 rural scenes. It is their privilege to see grass and trees, 

 and to have familiar intercourse with natural objects, so 

 that the commanding arguments for city parks do not apply 

 to their condition. But, after all, the advantages of some 

 common meeting-ground, for one purpose or another, are 

 very obvious, and those villages which bestir themselves 

 to save from destruction the groves or glens with which 

 their names are associated will never repent of the labor 

 and money expended in the cause. There is no question 

 that such an acquirement of common property will pay 

 in a broad way. It will give a stimulus to local pride and 

 public spirit. It will strengthen the ties which attach the 

 young people to their homes and to home interests. It will 

 promote social feeling and neighborly kindness. It will 

 add to the reputation of the village for enterprise and fore- 

 thought and general enlightenment, and it will help to 

 secure for the neighborhood that good name and fair fame 

 which is to be as highly prized by a community as by in- 

 dividuals. 



The timber in the grove alluded to above has been sold 

 to the owners of one of the portable saw-mills which are 

 moved around from place to place in northern New Jersey 

 and are making a market for the little collections of trees left 

 standing upon the farms of that region. For many years 

 these saw-mills have been helping to supply the market 

 with hard- wood timber from Indiana, Ohio and that part of 

 the country, but it is only of late years that they have 

 invaded the east. In the aggregate they cut over an im- 

 mense area of land, and as their proprietors are shrewd 

 enough to combine for holding down the prices, the grow- 

 ing scarcity of timber is not felt in the market. These little 

 supplies, gathered in from various sources, keep the mar- 

 ket full, and this full market is constantly used as an argu- 



