October 21, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



493 



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 21, 1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



TAGK. 



Editorial Articles :— Forest Reservations 493 



Botany at Barnard College 494 



Great Hill : A New American Country-seat. — I. 



Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. 494 

 Seedling Almonds in California. (With figure.). . . Charles Howard Shinn. 495 



A Clematis Borer (Acalthoe caudata). (With figure.) J. G. Jack. 496 



New or Little-known Plants : — New Orchids R. A. Rolfe. 496 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter W. Watson. 497 



Cultural Department:— Copper Salts and Vegetation A. W.Pearson. 498 



Work of the Season W. H. Taplin. 500 



Chrysanthemums J. N. Gerard. 501 



The Hardy Plant Garden E. O. Or/>et. 501 



Anemone Japonica M. Barker. 501 



Musa Ensete , T. D. Hatfield. S02 



Correspondence : — The Province Lands at Provincetown J. B. Harrison. 502 



Sawdust for Protecting Plants Charles L. Mann. 503 



Recent Publications 5°3 



Notes 5°4 



Illustrations :— A Clematis Borer (Acalthoe caudatd), Fig. 77 497 



A Seedling California Almond, Fig. 78 499 



Forest Reservations. 



WE have more than once called attention to the clos- 

 ing section of the act to repeal the timber culture 

 laws which was approved on the 3d of March last. This 

 section authorizes a distinct departure from the traditional 

 policy of the Government with relation to the public for- 

 ests by empowering the President, from time to time, to 

 set apart reservations of timber lands in any state or terri- 

 tory wherever such public lands may be situated, and " to 

 declare by proclamation the establishment of such reserva- 

 tions and the limits thereof." This power of the President 

 has already been exercised to enlarge the boundaries of 

 the Yellowstone and Yosemite reservations to the gratifi- 

 cation of the great body of the people of the United States. 

 There are many other portions of the national domain 

 where the exercise of the executive power is quite as de- 

 sirable. It is not to be presumed that the President will 

 wield this new authority with which he is clothed without 

 great caution, and, therefore, it is altogether fitting that 

 citizens who are well informed and interested in these 

 matters should recommend to him tracts of forest whose 

 preservation seems to them essential to the welfare of the 

 people. 



We are glad to note, therefore, that a memorial has been 

 presented to the President by the Honorable Edwin Wil- 

 lits, N. H. Egleston and Edward A. Bowers, representing 

 the American Forestry Association, and by a committee of 

 the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 consisting of Professors E. W. Hilgard, C. E. Bessey, Wil- 

 liam Saunders, T. C. Mendenhall and B. E. Fernow. The 

 memorial names five tracts for public reservation, each of 

 which is described at some length, with the specification 

 of its boundaries and the streams which take rise in them, 

 together with the reasons offered for setting them apart 

 and the names of those who have been active in urging the 

 step. The memorialists wisely suggest, that, before defi- 



nite action is taken, a more detailed examination should 

 be made by the proper agencies in order to ascertain more 

 fully what are the actual conditions, the best practicable 

 boundaries, the arguments for and the objections to reserv- 

 ing these tracts, as well as those in other locations. They 

 also state that such reservations cannot accomplish the 

 object for which they are made without the inauguration 

 of some strong and efficient administration which is capable 

 of supplying local timber requirements, and at the same 

 time of preventing depredations by lawless persons and 

 desolation by fire, and the President, therefore, is requested 

 not only to exercise his new right of reservation, but also 

 his entire power under existing laws to protect this prop- 

 erty and to urge whatever additional legislation may seem 

 to him necessary for this end. 



The first tract spoken of is that known as the Flat Head 

 and Marias River Reservation. Its establishment was origi- 

 nally proposed in bills introduced by Senator Edmunds 

 during the sessions of the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth 

 Congresses, which were passed by the Senate, in both 

 cases, without dissent. This is a tract of some 7,000 

 square miles, covering both slopes of the Continental 

 Divide in Montana, about the head-waters of the Flathead 

 River, a stream which unites with the Missoula to form 

 Clarke's Fork of the Columbia, and also including the head- 

 waters of the Marias, the Teton and Sun rivers, which are 

 affluents of the Missouri. This is an alpine tract of rugged 

 peaks and deep gorges, where snows and glaciers are per- 

 petual, and avalanches not infrequent. South of the middle 

 fork of the Flathead River the western slope is covered 

 with Fir, Spruce, Cedar, Pine and Larch, and north of this 

 the mountains have been nearly stripped by fire. In- 

 numerable streams, fed by the perpetual snows of the high 

 ranges, furnish the bulk of the water-supply for the Flat- 

 head River, while the rivers on the eastern slope are of 

 inestimable value for irrigation purposes before they reach 

 the Missouri. All the land is now unsurveyed. If this 

 forest-tract is obliterated by speculators and mill-men, who 

 are now attacking it, no money can measure the disastrous 

 results to our agriculture and commerce. If it is preserved, 

 as proposed by the bill of Senator Edmunds, under the 

 management of the Government the forests might be made 

 a source of permanent income, and they would exert, for 

 all time to come, a beneficient influence on two great 

 rivers, and upon immense areas which only need irriga- 

 tion to reward the labors of the husbandman. 



The next tract is the Tulare Reservation, which covers 

 also some 7,000 square miles along the western slope of 

 the Sierra Nevada, enclosing the entire eastern watershed 

 of the San Joaquin River and of the streams which flow 

 into Tulare Lake. Petition for this reservation has been 

 made by the California Academy of Science and by a con- 

 vention of the citizens of Merced, Fresno, Tulare and Kern 

 Counties. This is a mountainous tract, ranging from 2,000 

 to 12,000 feet high, with beautiful valleys and plateaus, 

 and embracing a dozen groves of the famous Big Trees, 

 besides the Pines, Firs and Spruces of the region. The 

 memorialists ask for the establishment of this reservation 

 so that those great natural wonders, the Sequoia groves, 

 may be preserved, and because it is necessary to the main- 

 tenance of the water-supply in the valley, which is depend- 

 ent largely upon irrigation for successful agriculture. Tim- 

 ber speculators are already recklessly cutting away the 

 timber, and the sheep of herders are destroying the under- 

 growths, while frequent fires are carrying destruction over 

 the forest-floor and obliterating vegetation of all kinds. 

 The preservation of this forest seems to be necessary to 

 this region, which has now been made fertile by irrigation, 

 and which, in this way alone, can be kept from reverting 

 once more to desert conditions. 



The Surveyor-General of New Mexico and many of its 

 citizens have advocated the Pecos River Reservation, 

 about 575 square miles in extent, on the main Rocky Moun- 

 tain Divide, and covering the Las Vegas and Santa Fe 

 ranges. These two ranges enclose the basins of the Pecos 



