382 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 181. 



and the book was, therefore, pronounced by them a failure. 

 But the principles of silviculture are the same everywhere, 

 and the application of these principles to the treatment of 

 different woods in different parts of the globe will lead to 

 the adoption of similar methods ; and, therefore, accord- 

 ing to Dr. Brandis, the author of the manual was right in 

 selecting the timber trees of Europe to illustrate these 

 principles and the practice based upon them, because these 

 trees are at hand for example, and because the systematic 

 treatment of European forests is of long standing, and has 

 endured the test of experience, while the methodical care 

 of Indian forests is not more than thirty-five years old. 

 As an interesting example of the way in which similar 

 practices have developed in the rearing and tending of 

 woods in Europe and in India we quote the following 

 parallel from Dr. Brandis' review : 



In a loop of the Main River, in Lower Franconia, east of 

 Aschaffenburg, rises an extensive mountainous country, 

 clothed with almost unbroken forest of singular beauty and 

 of enormous value. It is the Spessart, in old times known as 

 the home and haunt of great highway robbers, but also known 

 from time immemorial as the home of the best Oak timber in 

 Germany. The red sandstone of the Trias, which everywhere 

 is the underlying rock in this extensive forest-country, makes 

 a light sandy loam, which, where deep, is capable of produc- 

 ing tall, cylindrical, well-shaped stems. Having grown up, 

 while young, in a densely crowded wood, the Oak here has 

 cleared itself of side branches at an early age. Hence these 

 clean straight stems which, in the case of Spruce, Silver Fir 

 and other forest-trees, may justly be said to be the rule, but 

 which the Oak does not produce, save under these and simi- 

 larly favorable circumstances. The species here is Querciis 

 sessiliflora ; this species does not form pure forests, but is 

 always found mixed with other trees, the Hornbeam, the 

 Beech, and on the lower slopes of the western Schwarzwald, 

 the Silver Fir. In the Spessart, the Beech is associated with 

 the Oak in the same manner as the Bamboo is the chief asso- 

 ciate of the Teak-tree in Burma. 



The principles which guide the forester in the proper treat- 

 ment of his woods are the same in India as in Europe. In the 

 Teak-forests of Burma the Bamboo has a position similar to 

 that of the Beech in the Oak-forests of the Spessart. Oak and 

 Teak are both trees with comparatively light foliage. Pure 

 woods of these species, while young, are sufficiently dense to 

 shade the ground, whereas at an advanced age the wood gets 

 thin, the canopy light, and the result is that grass and weeds 

 appear, and that by the action of sun and wind the soil hardens 

 and is less fertile than the loose porous soil, which is shaded 

 by dense masses of foliage. Hence the advantage of asso- 

 ciates, which, like the Beech in Europe and the Bamboo in 

 Burma, shade the ground with their dense foliage, and enrich 

 it by the abundant fall of their leaves. But it is not only the 

 condition of the ground which is improved by these useful 

 associates. Teak and Oak have this specialty also in common, 

 that, when growing up alone, their stems, instead of running 

 up into clean cylindrical boles, are apt to throw out side 

 branches, which greatly impair the market value of the log. 

 But when growing up in dense masses with their natural asso- 

 ciates, these latter, crowding in as they do on all sides around 

 the Oak in the Spessart and the Teak in Burma, prevent the 

 development of side branches, and thus produce clean and 

 regularly shaped stems. 



In these and many other ways are the associates of the Teak 

 and of the Oak useful friends, so to speak. Under certain 

 circumstances, however, and at certain periods of their life, 

 they are dangerous enemies to their more valuable compan- 

 ions. On the sandstone of the Spessart, and elsewhere, the 

 Beech, as a rule, has a more vigorous growth than the Oak ; 

 it gets the upper hand, and, unless it is cut back or thinned 

 out in time, the Oak, if both are growing up in an even mix- 

 ture, has no chance. The Bamboo is even more formidable 

 as an enemy of the young Teak-tree. Though the Teak may 

 have had a long start, if a crop of Bamboos — either the shoots 

 of old rhizomes, or, perhaps, the result of general seeding of 

 the old Bamboo-forest, cleared away to make room for the 

 Teak — springs up among it, the Teak is doomed. As soon 

 as the rhizomes of the Bamboo have acquired sufficient 

 strength they produce, within a few weeks, during the rains, 

 such a profusion of full-sized shoots, say twenty to thirty feet 

 high, that the young Teak-trees among them are throttled and 

 extinguished. 



The similarity in the relations of Teak and Bamboo in 



Burma, and of Oak and Beech in the Spessart, has led 

 foresters in both countries to devise similar arrangements 

 for the regeneration of these forests. In the Spessart, when 

 the old timber in a compartment of the forest is cut, the best 

 places for the growth of the Oak are selected, and the Oak, 

 which here sells at the rate of from two shillings to three 

 shillings a cubic foot for sound and well-shaped pieces, is 

 sown on soil most suitable for its development ; while the 

 Beech, the timber of which only fetches about one-fifth of 

 that amount, is allowed to reproduce naturally from self-sown 

 seedlings over the rest of the area. Among the Oak also a 

 certain but small proportion of Beech springs up, and even 

 where pure Oak woods may be the result of these proceed- 

 ings, it will not be difficult, when they are sufficiently advanced, 

 to introduce such a proportion of Beech as will secure their 

 satisfactory development. In the same way in Burma, selected 

 areas are cleared for the growth of Teak in the original forest, 

 the clearance being effected, and the Teak planted, with the 

 aid of that rude mode of shifting cultivation, known as the 

 Toungya system. 



Correspondence. 



Conifers on Mount Ranier. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — I send you a view of a group of trees on the south side 

 of Mount Ranier (see page 380). The tallest is a fine specimen 

 of the Mountain Hemlock, Tsuga Pattoniana, and the trees 

 which surround it are Abies lasiocarpa (subalpina). A few 

 notes on this last, as it appears on Mount Ranier, may be 

 interesting. 



Abies lasiocarpa occurs on Mount Ranier at altitudes vary- 

 ing from 5,000 up to nearly 8,000 feet. At 5,000 feet it parts 

 company with its two near relatives, Abies nobilis and Abies 

 amabilis ; and from this elevation up it is invariably accom- 

 panied by the Mountain Hemlock, and less frequently by the 

 Nootka Cypress, Chamizcyparis Nutkaensis. At 6,000 feet 

 Abies lasiocarpa is in all its glory ; at 7,000 feet and over it 

 spreads on the ground in great mats still accompanied by 

 Tsuga Pattoniana, and occasionally by Pinus albicaulis. Only 

 one conifer, the little alpine Juniper, grows at higher eleva- 

 tions than A. lasiocarpa on Mount Ranier. 



The illustration represents a small grove at 6,000 feet alti- 

 tude. These groves occupy only the drier ridges, and fre- 

 quently are very symmetrical in outline. Nothing in the for- 

 ests of Washington can equal them in beauty, and one never 

 tires of admiring the vivid light green color of Abies lasio- 

 carpa, which is made still more beautiful by contrast with the 

 sombre hues of the Mountain Hemlock. The interior branches 

 of these groves are literally festooned with lichens, and this, 

 together with their pitchiness, renders these trees exceedingly 

 inrlammable. 



Several Pine-groves on Mount Ranier have been destroyed 

 by fire, and, to any lover of trees, their tall dead trunks make 

 a mute, although forcible, appeal for greater care. 



Seattle, Washington. Charles V. Piper. 



[Our correspondent's discovery of Abies nobilis on Mount 

 Ranier extends the northern range of this species, not 

 known before north of the Columbia River, very consider- 

 ably ; and his observations show that on this mountain as 

 large a number of coniferous trees of the north-west are 

 aggregated as in any other one locality. Very possibly 

 there is no other mountain on which the four north-west- 

 ern Firs — A. amabilis, A. nobilis, A. lasiocarpa and A.grandis 

 — are growing. — Ed.] 



The Destruction of California Wild Flowers. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The extensive floral decorations which are a general fea- 

 ture of private and publicentertainments in San Francisco were 

 formerly committed to florists. More recently professional 

 decorators are employed, who draw as much as possible on the 

 wild plants of the California forests and canons, instead of 

 buying garden-grown blossoms. Many of the great canons 

 and mountain-slopes, wooded with Oaks, Madrones, Pines and 

 a great variety of smaller growth, are within a few hours' jour- 

 ney from San Francisco. The professional decorator can 

 easily hire men for two dollars a day and car fare, who will 

 bring back immense loads of Ferns, wild Violets, Rhododen- 

 dron-branches, and whatever has happened to strike the fancy 

 of the hour. Properly worked up, with perhaps a small ex- 



