July i, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



301 



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, JULY 1, 1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles :— The President and the Public Forests 301 



Do New Englanders Love Flowers ? 301 



The Bermuda Palmetto. (With figure.) 302 



Kew and its Work 302 



How We Renewed an Old Place.— XI Mrs. J. H. Robbins. 303 



Winter Studies of the Pine Barren Flora o£ Lake Michigan.— VI. E. J. Hill. 304 



Plant Notes :— Some Recent Portraits 304 



Foreign Correspondence :— London Letter ..IV. Watson. 305 



Cultural Department: — Memoranda from the Strawberry-field. . .E. P. Powell. 305 



Stray Notes from the Arnold Arboretum. — II P. C. 306 



A Few Irises J. N. Gerard. 308 



Notes on American Wild Flowers F. H. PL 309 



Rogiera gratissima Ja7ties P. Tallin. 309 



An Orchid Anthracnose Professor Byron D. Halstcd. 309 



Correspondence : — The Cultivation of Acacia Farnesiana, or Cassie, in Europe, 



Charles Nandin. 309 



Forest Fires Charles L. Mann. 310 



Old Fort Erie 7- C. 310 



Recent Publications 3 11 



Exhibitions : — The Massachusetts Horticultural Show 311 



Notes • 3 11 



Illustration : — The Bermuda Palmetto (Sabal Blackburniana) in the Devon- 

 shire Marshes, Fig. 53 307 



The President and the Public Forests. 



WE have more than once alluded to a section in the 

 act repealing the timber-culture laws, which was 

 approved on the last day of the last session of Congress, 

 and which authorizes the President of the United States, from 

 time to time, to set apart public lands bearing forests or 

 in part covered with timber or undergrowth as public 

 reservations. The final clause of the section reads as fol- 

 lows : "And the President shall by public proclamation 

 declare the establishment of such reservations and the 

 limits thereof." This section has been' interpreted as hav- 

 ing a more than permissive force. Commissioner Carter, 

 of the General Land Office, has issued a circular to special 

 agents, in which it is held that, for the purpose of carrying 

 into effect the provisions of the act, it is important to re- 

 serve all public lands which bear forests or which are 

 covered with timber or undergrowth on which the timber 

 is not absolutely required for the legitimate use and neces- 

 sities of the residents of the territory or state in which 

 these lands are situated, or for the promotion of settlement 

 or for the development of the natural resources of the 

 region in the immediate vicinity of the forest-lands in 

 question. 



The circular goes on to instruct the agents that it is of 

 the first importance to reserve all public lands in mountain- 

 ous and other regions which are covered with timber or un- 

 dergrowth, at the head-waters of rivers and along the banks 

 of streams, where such forests are the natural agents for 

 absorbing moisture, checking mountain torrents and pre- 

 venting the sudden melting of the snow and the floods 

 which follow. Special agents are directed to make a per- 

 sonal examination of such forest-lands, and to acquaint 

 themselves in every possible way with the facts as to the 

 value of these lands for all purposes, and such investiga- 

 tions are to be reported to the Land Office. Furthermore, 

 they are to submit a report, with a recommendation in 

 each case, as to whether the lands examined should be set 



apart as a reservation, together with the reasons for this 

 recommendation. This recommendation and the reasons 

 therefor, with the full description of the lands under inves- 

 tigation, are to be published in the land offices and in the 

 newspapers of the vicinity, and it must be stated that the 

 object of such publication is to give timely notice of the 

 proposed reservation, so that all persons who have any 

 interest, either in favor of or in opposition to its establish- 

 ment, may have an opportunity to petition or remonstrate. 

 This must be done in time to have these views considered 

 before final action is taken in regard to the establishment 

 of a reservation. Wherever there seems to be any immi- 

 nent danger to the timber of any particular tract which 

 has been considered as a proper one for reservation, the 

 agent is to report this danger at once and state his reasons 

 for believing that there is necessity for immediate action. 



All this is done in order to lay before the President such 

 information as will enable him to take intelligent action 

 thereon. Of course, there are other means of acquiring 

 information which the President can make use of, and it is 

 altogether proper that any one who has any special knowl- 

 edge in this direction shall place it at his service. The 

 American Forestry Association, we are glad to see, is 

 taking steps to examine certain forest-areas in order 

 to ascertain whether they should be reserved from settle- 

 ment. There is very little danger that the Chief Executive 

 of the nation will include too large a fraction of the public 

 domain in these reservations ; and even if lands which are 

 more valuable for agriculture than for their forests should 

 be included, it would be very easy afterward to turn them 

 over to settlers. Indeed, we have urged that all forest- 

 lands should be withheld from entry until the data which 

 special agents of the Land Office are now instructed to col- 

 lect could be ascertained by a commission of scientific 

 men. The present action, however, is much better than 

 no action at all ; but what protection is there thrown 

 around these reservations even after the President has 

 made his proclamation to set them apart ? So far as we 

 are aware, no legal provision is made for guarding them 

 against depredation or protecting them from fire. It has 

 been our opinion that the United States army was the 

 proper force to use in guarding the forests on the national 

 domain, and we have urged that these forest-lands withdrawn 

 from entry should be placed under the charge of the army. 

 This has been done to some extent in the case of the Yel- 

 lowstone reservation and the great Sequoia reservations 

 of California. If it is practicable to place such reserva- 

 tions as are declared by the President under this same 

 guardianship, we shall feel that something has been done 

 for our forests which promises to have practical value, and 

 the brief section which was attached to an act relating to 

 quite another matter may prove an important piece of 

 legislation in the history of the forests of the nation. 



Do New Englanders Love Flowers ? 



MR. HAMILTON AIDE, in his article in the Nineteenth 

 Century, on "Social Aspects of American Life," ven- 

 tures the remark that "the true love of flowers, the patient, 

 careful love — -not the cupidity for cut roses at two dollars 

 apiece — does not seem to be inherent in the national 

 character," and alludes to Miss Wilkins' stories to show 

 that " flowers are an accident, not a daily interest, in 

 village life" in New England. 



This might pass as a snap-judgment on the part of a 

 foreign traveler, but how shall we excuse the critic in the 

 Boston Transcript, who declares that he " cannot deny the 

 truth of what Mr. Aide says." He who takes this ground 

 can scarcely be familiar with the old country towns of that 

 section to which one must look for the typical aspects of 

 New England life. Like all the sentiments- of its people, 

 the love of flowers is there, not paraded, but profoundly 

 cherished ; and if there is no gaudy display in the door- 

 yard, there is sure to be found a corner behind the house, 



