October 14, iSgi.] 



Garden and Forest. 



481 



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, OCTOBER 14, 1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article : — Report of the New York Forest Commission 481 



New England Parks Mrs. J. H. RobBins. 482 



Filices Mexicans;. — II. (With figure.) George E. Davenport. 483 



New or Little-known Plants : — Habenaria carnea. (With figure.) 484 



New Orchids 484 



An Orchid Nursery Visitor. 484 



Cultural Department : — Cabbage and Cauliflower Plants, 



Professor IV. F. Massey. 486 



Roses W. H. Taplin. 486 



Hardy Bulbs E. O. Orpet. 487 



Planting Hardy Bulbs % C. B. 4S8 



The Hardy Plant Garden J. N. Gerard. 488 



Correspondence : — A Fairy Candelabrum Sarah G. Duley. 489 



Recent Publications 489 



Periodical Literature 490 



Pomology : — Meeting of the American Pomological Society. — III. : Some Local 



Problems in Pomology Charles IV. Garfield. 491 



Notes 492 



Illustrations : — Hemionitis elegans, Fig. 75 485 



Habenaria carnea, Fig. 76 487 



Report of the New York Forest Commission. 



THE fifth annual report of the Forest Commission of 

 the State of New York contains much interesting 

 information, and is full of encouragement for the future in 

 the indication it gives of increased intelligence and a 

 greater interest in the forests of the state than prevailed 

 in this community at the time when the present Commis- 

 sion came into existence. When it is remembered how 

 feebly the public pulse beat ten years ago for the safety 

 of the North Woods, and how great the opposition from the 

 inhabitants of the northern counties was to every serious 

 attempt made for their care and protection, the present 

 feeling of the community must be a source of gratification 

 to the men, very few in number then, who believed that 

 there w r as no better piece of work to be done than to save 

 this wild region for the benefit for all time of the people 

 of New York. Something certainly has been accom- 

 plished ; not very much, perhaps, when one remembers 

 the great gashes which have been made in the wilderness 

 during these last years, but a step forward has been taken, 

 and the fact that the Commission is able to report that, 

 through the rules and regulations it has made and en- 

 forced, fires, always the greatest menace to the forests of 

 this country, where climatic conditions and forest-compo- 

 sition specially favor their spread, have decreased to a very 

 marked degree. Even more encouraging than the diminu- 

 tion of fires in the Adirondack woods is the smaller num- 

 ber of willful trespassers on the state lands. People are 

 learning at last to respect the forest as property which 

 cannot be entered and despoiled with impunity, and the 

 purchasers of forest-supplies in New York have gradually 

 outgrown that peculiar moral attitude which enabled 

 them to acquire, without any great strain on their con- 

 sciences, lumber, bark or cord-wood of very uncertain 

 origin. That the Commission, backed by increased public 

 intelligence on the forest-question, has been able to accom- 

 plish what it has done already with only a very mod- 



erate outlay of money, is certainly hopeful, and seems to 

 indicate that while we are still very far from attaining to 

 the system and perfect methods under which European 

 forest-property is usually managed we are as a people in 

 a better mental condition than we were ten years ago to 

 submit to the restrictions which forest-control must always 

 impose on all inhabitants of forest-regions. 



The most important part of the Commissioners' report 

 relates to the proposed Adirondack Park, the possibilities 

 of which they have been studying, their conclusions on 

 the subject, here reproduced, having already been pre- 

 sented to the Assembly in a special report. The proposal 

 of the Commission, stated simply, is that a forest-park shall 

 be created in northern New York to consist of some 

 2,200,000 acres, to be surrounded by a line not yet actually 

 determined on, but so drawn as to enclose the principal 

 sanitariums and the wildest and most picturesque parts of 

 the region. A portion of the proposed park the state owns 

 already, generally in small and often in widely separated 

 parcels ; and a very considerable portion belongs to hunt- 

 ing and fishing clubs, which of late years have been buying 

 up large tracts of the wilderness. Other parts belong to 

 hotels and sanitariums, and the remainder, and probably 

 the largest part, to individuals or firms, whojhold the 

 land for the value of timber growing on it. The com- 

 munity is fully alive to the necessity of the state's securing 

 such a park or reservation or public forest, to use what is 

 perhaps the most appropriate name for it, and the public is 

 now so generally in accord with the views of the Commis- 

 sion as to the necessity of such a reservation that it is need- 

 less to discuss, at this time at least, the merits of the 

 measure. But the Commission finds itself when the ques- 

 tion of methods is reached in serious difficulties. It feels 

 that if it recommends that the state exercise its right of 

 eminent domain and take possession of all the land within 

 the boundaries of the proposed park, the plan would create 

 so much opposition from interested parties that the whole 

 scheme would be defeated ; on the other hand, the state is 

 unable to purchase the land at anything like a fair price, as 

 much of it is held by persons who do not want to sell at 

 all, or by men who have bought their holdings in the hope 

 of selling it, at some time or other, to the state at a greatly 

 increased price. The land now held by the state has been 

 principally acquired at tax-sales, but all Adirondack lands 

 have now become so valuable that the time has certainly 

 passed when the state- will be able to add to its holdings 

 in this manner. 



The Commission has hit upon a compromise measure 

 by which it is hoped that the forest-reservation can be se- 

 cured through arrangements made with the individual 

 owners, under which these will agree to manage their land 

 in such a way that the community will obtain substantially 

 the same advantages that it would if the "title to all the 

 lands rested in the state itself. The plan seems to us to be 

 a bad one. A great state forest, such as is needed to ac- 

 complish what is expected of the Adirondack forest, cannot 

 be established on a really stable and permanent basis until 

 the state itself holds the fee to every foot of land within its 

 boundaries. What security can private owners give that 

 they will preserve the natural conditions of the forest be- 

 yond the time, when it would be for their individual interest 

 to destroy these conditions ? What is to prevent the sport- 

 ing clubs from selling their land by and by to men who 

 will buy it simply for what they can make out of it ? What 

 restrictions can be put"by the state on the cutting of timber 

 from land belonging to individuals which can be enforced 

 for all time? Can railroads be excluded from land belong- 

 ing to individuals if it is for their interest to have them 

 built that their timber can be sent to market ? The whole 

 question is not a very different one, except in its magnitude, 

 from that presented in the establishment of a city park. 

 What, for example, would have been the probable conse- 

 quences if some of the owners of the land which is occu- 

 pied by the Central Park, in this city, had been allowed to 

 retain the fee to their land ? What sort of a park would it 



