338 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 178. 



surface, and shining, although somewhat paler, on the 

 lower surface. They are borne on long slender stalks 

 which, like the upper side of the veins, are sometimes 

 tinged with red ; and in the autumn they turn first dull- 

 red and then yellow before falling. The fruit is unlike 

 that of our other Oaks. It is sessile or very short-stalked ; 

 the cup is flat or shaped like a shallow saucer, with a 

 narrow raised border of small, close-fitting scales, and is 

 often more than an inch across, enclosing the base only 

 of the large oblong or ellipsoidal acorn, which is as long 

 or longer than the cup is broad. The fruit is produced 

 generally in great profusion, and in October often covers 

 the ground beneath the trees. 



The wood of the Red Oak, although strong and heavy, 

 is coarse-grained and difficult to season ; it is light reddish 

 brown and contains the bands of large open ducts found 

 in the wood of all the Black Oaks. Formerly it was little 

 used, but of late years, since white oak has become scarce 

 and expensive, it is employed in great quantities in cooper- 

 age, in the manufacture of cheap furniture, especially in 

 some parts of the west, and for the interior finish of build- 

 ings, for which purpose, when "quarter-sawed," it is well 

 suited and now highly esteemed. 



The Red Oak grows rapidly. Very few of the American 

 trees which produce hard wood increase in height and in 

 girth of trunk as rapidly. Mr. Emerson, who devoted 

 much attention to studying the rate of growth of different 

 trees, found that the average increase of the Red Oak in 

 Massachusetts during the first thirty-five years of its life 

 was at the rate of about two inches in diameter every eleven 

 years. In more favored parts of the country it would proba- 

 bly grow more rapidly. As a street or park tree the Red Oak 

 is not surpassed in value by any of our trees, and it is sur- 

 prising that it is not generally planted. There is, however, 

 a popular belief that Oaks are hard to transplant and that 

 they grow very slowly. White Oaks are certainly difficult 

 to move, and must be set as seedlings if they are to grow 

 into fine trees. But all Oaks grow rapidly when once 

 established, and there is no tree easier to transplant than 

 the Red Oak. Specimens ten or fifteen feet high can be 

 moved with perfect safety from the woods, and if they are 

 planted in good soil will make for many years an average 

 annual upward growth of eighteen or twenty inches. If 

 hardiness, good habit, adaptability to different soils, beauty 

 of foliage, longevity and freedom from disease have any 

 weight with planters of trees, the Red Oak should receive 

 attention at their hands. It is valued in Europe, where, 

 especially in Germany and in Belgium, it is more fre- 

 quently seen, and in better condition, than any American 

 Oak. But how many Americans plant Oak-trees or realize 

 when they send to nurseries for foreign trees that their own 

 town contains the best material for their ornamental plan- 

 tations ? 



Some idea of the beauty of the stem of one form of the 

 Red Oak can be gained from the illustration on page 341. 

 It is made from one of Dr. Rollins' photographs of a tree 

 growing in Dedham, Massachusetts, and one of the noblest 

 specimens in New England. 



Squandering a Nation's Patrimony. 



AT the recent celebration of the 4th of July at Wood- 

 stock, Connecticut, Mr. Murat Halstead delivered a 

 striking address, to which he gave the title of the " Preser- 

 vation of the People's Inheritance." It could be more 

 accurately described as an account of the reckless way in 

 which mankind in general, and Americans in particular, 

 had squandered, and were continuing to squander, their 

 inheritance. In speaking of the decline of certain nations, 

 Mr. Halstead said : 



The lands have been wasted, the forests are no more, the 

 soil that once made fruitful hills and blooming valleys is at the 

 bottom of the seas, and the streams that watered the peopled 

 plains are lost in the sands that are the tombs of the profligates 

 who have perished. The elements of possibility, the founda- 



tions of prosperity, are gone, never to be restored, and those 

 cancers of the earth, the deserts, are eating away more and 

 more that which should sustain the generations to come. 



Coming down to our own country, the speaker referred 

 to the exhausted fertility of tobacco-lands and wheat-fields ; 

 to the extermination of- food fish and noble game and water- 

 fowl ; particularly to our vanishing forests. 



The woods have been torn from the mountains, and brooks 

 have departed because the springs have ceased to flow ; and, 

 when not dwindled almost to dust-beds, the ancient mill- 

 streams are roaring floods, for the slopes of the ridges are 

 bared and the rain-falls rush from them as over roofs of slate ; 

 the hill-sides are plowed up and down preparing gutters to 

 feed the freshets with the soil that is far more precious, in the 

 eyes of those who have been taught the art of seeing, than the 

 precious metals. It is the passion and pride of the average 

 American to smite the trees and shoot the birds and slaughter 

 the last of our running game — and if there are laws for the 

 protection of trees in parks, or game-laws to save the quail 

 and squirrel, or to prevent scouring the rivers with seines out 

 of season, and to provide fish-ladders and abolish fish-traps, 

 they are regarded as tyrannical, a style of oppression identified 

 only with effete monarchies and the tottering despotism of 

 worn-out worlds. The buffalo have been exterminated — a 

 noble race murdered, so that there are hardly enough to sup- 

 ply museums — and if there is a moose left in Maine he has 

 been accidentally spared, and must be pursued by the hunter 

 with remorseless fury to shed his blood to the final massacre. 

 It is a crime to cut down the woods on a mountain, a crime to 

 heedlessly kindle fires to burn forests, but our people have no 

 realizing sense of the sort, and sneer at the Swiss and Ger- 

 mans who require three permits to fell one tree. In New 

 York there is a struggle that seems hopeless to preserve the 

 remnants of the once majestic and always romantic Adiron- 

 dack wilderness. In our new states the statesmen dare not 

 stand against the timber-thieves. 



In some parts of the address Mr. Halstead's rhetoric was 

 rather too intense for scientific accuracy, but, after all, the 

 real sting of the indictment is in its truth. To the speaker's 

 hopeful spirit the establishment of fish-hatcheries by the 

 Government, the effort to protect the seals of Behring Sea, 

 and the reservation of the Sequoia groves were acts which 

 gave promise of a time coming when more serious thought 

 would be given by our nation to the preservation of its 

 heritage. He noted, too, as hopeful indications, that 

 Arbor days were celebrated in many states ; that tree- 

 planting by children had become fashionable, and that 

 the discussions over the Adirondack woods, although it 

 might not save the wilderness, would ultimately, perhaps, 

 save many other forests. We feel inclined to consider it 

 another cheering sign that an orator of national repute has 

 felt impelled, on that anniversary when Americans are in 

 their most exultant mood, to raise his voice in earnest pro- 

 test against the reckless destruction of our forests. No 

 higher public service can be rendered by the country's lead- 

 ing men than the reiteration of warnings like this, until it 

 comes to be universally understood what the ruin of our 

 forests means. 



How We Renewed an Old Place. 



XIV.— THE ROSE-CHAFER. 



THERE is no interim between our summer visitors. No 

 sooner is the trunk of the last caterpillar packed than the 

 rose-bug arrives, bag and baggage, to take his place. The 

 half-eaten leaves that have been rescued from the jaws of the 

 web-worm are in a few hours riddled with the bites of these 

 winged pests, which are even harder to destroy than their pred- 

 ecessors, for they hunt in couples and fly, and cannot be 

 stamped out of existence. 



An imperturbable imp is the rose-chafer, descendant on one 

 side from the scarabceus, and if his Egyptian ancestor was 

 half as hard to kill as this other flying beetle, no wonder the 

 ancients used him as an emblem of immortality. 



This voracious summer boarder arrives with unpleasant 

 punctuality upon the 10th of June— that is to say, the advance- 

 guard of the great army shows itself in the shape of a scout or 

 two, who merely precede the main swarm, which comes in a 

 cloud, and settles everywhere, and stays nearly four weeks. 



The opening Roses are their nominal prey, and are soon 

 disfigured with their dingy yellow-brown carcasses ; but that 



