470 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number. 189. 



and after-treatment change quality in different timbers ? 

 In what relation does structure stand to quality? How far 

 is weight a criterion of strength ? What difference is there 

 in wood of the different parts of a tree? How far do cli- 

 matic and soil changes influence quality? In addition to 

 the study of these and other problems which will suggest 

 themselves as the work advances, it is proposed to test the 

 influence of continued use upon the strength of timbers by 

 experimenting, for example, with timbers which have seen 

 service in bridges for a given length of time. 



We are glad to observe that the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science has appointed an advisory 

 board to assist in securing improved methods for this work, 

 and co-operation is invited from all other scientific men 

 and institutions, so that this will be made a truly national 

 work. We have been permitted to examine a schedule 

 under which various data are placed on record, and it is 

 very ingenious and comprehensive ; and, altogether, we 

 agree with Mr. Fernow that this is the most promising 

 work in which the Division of Forestry has yet been en- 

 gaged. It is plainly a work worthy of the Government, and, 

 from its magnitude and cost, it could hardly be undertaken 

 by private enterprise. Many of the problems to be investi- 

 gated have already been made the subject of careful study 

 in the Tenth Census, but we cannot have too many tests 

 to corroborate or check each other. If, therefore, the 

 work, of the Government is to be carried on with thor- 

 oughness at all stages, it has begun none too early, for 

 some of our most valuable woods are growing scarce, 

 and we ought to know what other kinds are best suited 

 to particular uses, for, as the circular referred to states, the 

 knowledge gained by these tests will enable us not only to 

 apply our timbers to the uses to which they are best 

 adapted, but will help us to supply conditions which will 

 produce these required qualities, and thus direct both the 

 consumer of the present and the forest -grower of the 

 future. 



Some years ago something like a panic seized a few city 

 boards of health who had just learned that preparations 

 of arsenic had been used upon potatoes to protect the crop 

 from insects, and there was much discussion about con- 

 demning all potatoes as dangerous, unless it could be 

 proved, in each case, that no poison had been applied to them. 

 It was long before this that the insects made their memo- 

 rable march from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic and 

 farmers had been using arsenical preparations for several 

 seasons with no evil consequences. But the city people 

 had not heard of this, and when the matter was brought to 

 their notice the newspapers at once sounded the alarm and 

 the boards of health aroused themselves to sudden activity. 

 There was a fall in the price of potatoes, which caused 

 much loss at that time, but the arsenites are still used, and 

 we hear no more of poison potatoes. 



Four years ago we described the method of spraying 

 Grape-vines with the copper mixtures as a preventive of 

 certain fungous diseases which were desolating our vine- 

 yards. Without some protection against the Bla'ck Rot, 

 the cultivation of the Vine in many parts of the country 

 would be impossible. The use of the so-called Bordeaux 

 mixture has become almost universal, and no one has ever 

 been injured by it. It seems strange, therefore, that the 

 discovery of some copper stains on the stems of a few 

 grape-clusters should have created so much excitement as 

 it did ten days ago. If any growers have been foolish 

 enough to spray their vines after this treatment was use- 

 less, or with a mixture of more than the regulation strength, 

 this mistake could have been rectified without so much 

 noise and circumstance. The startling head-lines in the 

 newspapers naturally terrified timid buyers, and the grape 

 market was literally paralyzed. 



Scientific men in city health boards should keep 

 themselves a little better informed as to the diseases of 

 plants 'and the remedies generally used to hold them 

 in check. 



Sacred Trees of the World, 



T^HE Palm, the Oak and the Ash are the three trees 

 -*- which since times immemorial were held to be sacred 

 trees. The first among them, which figures on the oldest 

 monuments and pictures of the Egyptians and Assyrians, 

 is the Date-palm (Phcenix dactyliferd), which was the sym- 

 bol of the world and of creation, and the fruit of which 

 filled the faithful with divine strength and prepared 

 them for the pleasures of immortality. "Honor," said Mo- 

 hammed, " thy paternal aunt, the Date-palm, for in Paradise it 

 was created out of the same dust of the ground." Another 

 Mohammedan tradition of a later period says that when Adam 

 left Paradise he was allowed to take with him three things — a 

 Myrtle, because it was the most lovely and the most scented 

 flower of the earth ; a Wheat-ear, because it had most nourish- 

 ment, and a date, because it is the most glorious fruit of the earth. 

 This date from Paradise was, in some marvelous way, brought 

 to the Hejaz ; from it have come all the Date-palms in the world, 

 and Allah destined it to be the food to all the true believers, 

 who shall conquer every country where the Date-palm grows. 

 The Jews and the Arabs, again, looked upon the same tree as 

 a mystical allegory of human beings, for, like them, it dies 

 when its head (the summit) is cut off, and when a limb 

 (branch) is once cut off it does not grow again. Those who 

 know, can understand the mysterious language of the branches 

 on days when there is no wind, when whispers of present and 

 future events are communicated by the tree. Abraham of old, 

 so the rabbis say, understood the language of the Palm. The 

 Oak was always considered a "holy" tree by our own ancestors, 

 and, above all, by the nations of the north of Europe. When 

 Winifred of Devonshire (680-754 A. D.) went forth on his 

 wanderings through Germany to preach the Gospel, one of his 

 first actions was to cut down the giant Oak in Saxony which 

 was dedicated to Thor and worshiped by the people from far 

 and near. But when he had nearly felled the Oak, and while the 

 people were cursing and threatening the saint, a supernatural 

 storm swept over it, seized the summit, broke every branch, 

 and dashed it, " quasi superni motus solatio,"with a tremendous 

 crash to the ground. The heathens acknowledged the marvel, 

 and many of them were converted there and then. But the 

 saint built a chapel of the wood of this very Oak and dedi- 

 cated it to St. Peter. 



The sacred Oaks, it must be admitted, do not seem to have 

 always done their duty. Thus, for instance, a famous Oak in 

 Ireland was dedicated to the Irish Saint Columban, one of the 

 peculiarities of the tree being that whoever carried a piece of 

 its wood in his mouth would never be hanged. After a time, 

 however, the holy Oak of Kenmare was destroyed in a storm. 

 Nobody dared gather the wood except a gardener, who tanned 

 some shoe leather with the bark ; but when he wore the shoes 

 made of this leather for the first time he became a leper and 

 was never cured. In the Abbey of Vetrou, in Brittany, stood 

 an old Oak-tree which had grown out of the staff of St. Martin, 

 the first abbot of the monastery, and in the shade of which the 

 princes of Brittany prayed whenever they went into the abbey. 

 Nobody dared to pick even a leaf from this tree, and not even 

 the birds dared to peck at it. Not so the Norman pirates, two 

 of whom climbed the tree of St. Martin to cut wood for their 

 bows. Both of them fell down and broke their necks. The 

 Celts and Germans and Scandinavians, again, worshiped the 

 Mountain Ash, and it is especially in the religious myths 

 of the latter that the "Askr Yggdrasil " plays a prominent 

 part. To them it was the holiest among trees, the " world tree" 

 which, eternally young and dewy, represented heaven, earth 

 and hell. According to the Edda, the Ash Yggdrasil was an 

 evergreen tree. A specimen of it (says Adam of Bremen) 

 grew at Upsala in front of the great temple, and another in 

 Dithmarschen, carefully guarded by a railing, for it was, in a 

 mystical Avay, connected with the fate of the country. — 

 Deutsche Rundschau. 



How We Renewed an Old Place. 



XX. — UTILITY VERSUS BEAUTY. 



ON any moderate-sized place, with only a man or two to 

 do the necessary work, there is a constant conflict be- 

 tween what is of present importance and what serves for future 

 adornment. 



This is one reason why we like to have as many things done 

 in the autumn as can safely be accomplished at that time, be- 

 cause of all seasons of the year the spring is the one when 

 everything comes at once, and your factotum is more than 

 ever distracted by the various calls upon his time and atten- 

 tion. 



