July 15, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



335 



forestry associations ; circulars, too, have been issued, one, 

 for example, giving directions for the growing of seedlings, 

 and another for the treatment of young seedlings in the nur- 

 sery. The important bulletin prepared by Mr. Tratman on the 

 substitution of metal for wood in railway-ties, and issued 

 during the year, has been previously noticed. The mono- 

 graphs on the life-histories of conifers are again promised. 

 Many of them have been prepared for some time, and their 

 publication should be no longer delayed. In connection with 

 technological investigations, which are still in progress, this 

 work is perhaps the most promising yet undertaken by the 

 department. 



One of the great difficulties in introducing good forest-man- 

 agement is the fact that no competent forest-managers can be 

 found. Undoubtedly there will soon be a demand for men of 

 training in this particular occupation, but it is difficult to see 

 how forestry can be studied here to advantage so long as there 

 is no practical illustration of good forestry, and, on the other 

 hand, foresters imported from abroad will find it difficult to 

 adjust their methods to the conditions existing here. Mr. 

 Fernow, therefore, advises that young men with considerable 

 preliminary preparation should go ahroad and acquaint them- 

 selves, by study in the various academies and in practical 

 work in the woods, with the theory and practice of forest- 

 management. This might be accomplished in one or two 

 years abroad by any one who is fitted with the necessary bo- 

 tanical and technical preparatory education. Persons who 

 wish to prepare themselves for such a course may find very 

 considerable facilities for this study in the libraries and mu- 

 seums of the department, and a list is also given to show what 

 facilities are offered in the different states at the experiment 

 stations and agricultural colleges on subjects which are neces- 

 sary to a preliminary course in forestry. 



Many other subjects are touched upon in this brief report 

 which we have not space to notice in detail. Most interesting of 

 these, perhaps, is the chapter on the wood-pulp industry, which 

 has had a most rapid development in a few years. It certainly 

 has not yet reached its full development, and perhaps Mr. 

 Fernow is correct in saying that its expansion during the next 

 few decades may bring revolutionary changes in our wood 

 consumption, and modify to a considerable extent the prac- 

 tice of forest-management. 



The report closes with the statement that increased appro- 

 priation will make it possible for the division to devote more 

 time to missionary work, which is still sadly needed, before any 

 intelligent forest-policy can be adopted in the United States. 



Periodical Literature. 



In the Popular Science Monthly, for July, Professor C. S. 

 Ashley gives an account of "Our Agricultural Experiment 

 Stations " which should interest those who see the reports 

 from these stations constantly referred to in Garden and 

 Forest. He traces their establishment to Samuel W. John- 

 son, now Professor of Agricultural Chemistry in the Sheffield 

 Scientific School at New Haven, and Wilbur O. At water, now 

 Director of the office of Experiment Stations in the National 

 Department of Agriculture, who, having studied in the agri- 

 cultural stations of Germany, made, in 1873, " me first direct 

 effort to start an agricultural experiment station on this conti- 

 nent." This effort was made in Connecticut, and the first 

 American station was there established, at Middletown, in the 

 year 1875. In 1876 another was started in California, and in 

 "1877 another in North Carolina, and in 1887, when the Hatch 

 act passed Congress, there were eighteen stations spread 

 through fourteen states. "This act made provision for an ap- 

 propriation of $15,000 a year to each state or territory that 

 would accept the trust, to establish a station in connection 

 with its agricultural college, or to aid such stations already 

 established. All of the states, except Montana, Washington 

 and Idaho, have taken advantage of the act, as have also New 

 Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Some have more than one, and 

 some, who have only one regular experiment station, have 

 organized one or more branch stations, located in different 

 sections of the state. If these branch stations be excluded, 

 there are now fifty-three experiment stations in the United 

 States ; while if these be counted, there are sixty-nine." Four 

 hundred and twenty-three persons are now employed on the 

 scientific staffs of these stations, including agriculturists, 

 chemists, horticulturists, botanists, entomologists, veterina- 

 rians, meteorologists, biologists, microscopists, physicists, 

 mycologists, viticulturalists and geologists. Each station is 

 independent of the others, but a central bureau at Washing- 

 ton collects and publishes summaries of their work for the 



use of the public, special bulletins for the station-workers 

 themselves, and reports and monographs of various kinds, 

 and serves as a "medium of information and exchange." 

 During the present year about $1,000,000 will be expended on 

 these stations, and reports will be sent direct to nearly 400,000 

 farmers — and all this' is a growth of the last fifteen years. 



It seems odd to read that " the greatest obstacle which the 

 stations have met has been a demand from the farmers for im- 

 mediate results and a prejudice against the laboratory and its 

 work"; but, we are told, "this gradually disappears as the 

 farmer becomes more and more familiar with science." The 

 way in which fraudulent fertilizers have been driven from the 

 market by the action of the stations is named as one conspicu- 

 ous instance of the practical good they have done, and others 

 are the improvement in the methods of extracting sugar from 

 cane in Louisiana and the introduction of the process of " Pas- 

 teurization " of wines in California, which does away with the 

 use of antiseptics of any kind, while the new facts, theories 

 and interests which the bulletins bring into the farmers' lives 

 have, apart from their practical outcome, an educative and 

 cheering influence which can hardly be overprized. Of course, 

 at first it was difficult to get competent scientific workers for 

 the various stations, but this hindrance is gradually disap- 

 pearing. 



In the same number of the Popular Science Monthly Mr. 

 Joseph F. James writes of " Pollen and its Uses." We quote 

 a single paragraph as a sample of the interest of all the others. 

 "The immense number of pollen-grains," he says, " produced 

 by a single flower apparently militates against the saying that 

 Nature allows nothing to be formed but what is' needful. It 

 seems, indeed, a vast waste of material to have such a multi- 

 tude of grains when so very few would answer the same pur- 

 pose. In a single flower of the Peony there are about three 

 and a half million grains ; a flower of the Dandelion is esti- 

 mated to produce nearly two hundred and fifty thousand ; the 

 number of ovules in a flower of the Chinese Wistaria has been 

 counted and the number of pollen-grains estimated, and it is 

 found that for each ovule there are seven thousand grains. 

 While few fall below the thousands, many rise far above the 

 Peony in point of numbers. These are the wind-fertilized 

 flowers, and here Nature must provide for an immense loss of 

 material. Darwin says that ' bucketfuls of pollen have been 

 swept off the decks of vessels near the North American shore. 

 . . . Kerner has seen a lake in the Tyrol so covered with pol- 

 len that the water no longer appeared blue. . . . Mr. Blackley 

 found numerous pollen-grains, in one instance twelve hun- 

 dred, adhering to the sticky slides, which were sent up to a 

 height of from five hundred to a thousand feet by means of a 

 kite, and then uncovered by means of a special mechanism.' 

 The so-called showers of sulphur which have at times visited 

 various cities, notably St. Louis, are nothing but clouds of yel- 

 low pollen blown from Pine or other forest-trees from some 

 distant place. Perhaps, out of millions of grains thus scattered 

 far and wide, only a single one may be of service. As if to 

 compensate for this expenditure of pollen in some plants there 

 are others in which the amount is very limited, and where 

 nearly every grain is made to count. These are known as 

 cleistogamous flowers, a term applied to those which always 

 remain in the bud. These flowers are found in plants belong- 

 ing to about sixty different genera of various orders, and gen- 

 erally in those species which at the same time produce the 

 normal and conspicuous flowers. These large blossoms are 

 often sterile, and the plant must depend upon the cleistog- 

 amous flowers for its seed. In the Wood-sorrel (Oxalis 

 aceto sella) these flowers have each about four hundred pollen- 

 grains ; the Touch-me-not (Impatiens) has only two hundred 

 and fifty, and some Violets only one hundred. Even before 

 leaving the anther-cells the grains in these cases have pro- 

 truded their pollen-tubes ; these seek the pistil and penetrate 

 to the ovules. It might perhaps be supposed that, as the seed 

 can be produced so easily, all plants would have cleistoga- 

 mous flowers. But here comes into play the fact that that 

 continual close fertilization is a great detriment, and not a 

 benefit, and that it is better in the end that flowers produce an 

 apparently wasteful amount of pollen and take the chances of 

 a cross, than to be more economical and be perpetually self- 

 fertilized." 



As a companion to this article on pollen, the Monthly gives, 

 from the Comhill Magazine, one called "On the Wings of the 

 Wind," which explains some of the methods used by plants in 

 scattering their seeds. To hint at the variety of these methods 

 we will merely quote the author's declaration that among the 

 Composite alone " I can reckon up more than a hundred and 

 fifty distinct variations of plan among the winged seeds known 

 to me in various parts of Europe." 



