57 6 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 197. 



beautiful flowers introduced since his time — i. e., 271- years 

 ago. It is essentially a book of hardy or open-air flowers and 

 fruits, such as were commonly grown before the days when 

 cheap glass and coal made greenhouses and hot-houses pos- 

 sible." 



The sixth annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Forestry 

 Association was held last week in Philadelphia. Addresses 

 were made by Professor Rothrock, Herbert Welsh, John 

 Birkinbine and the Rev. J. P. Lundy, President of the Associa- 

 tion. Professor Rothrock offered a resolution, which was 

 unanimously adopted, that the Superintendent of Public 

 Schools in the State of Pennsylvania should recommend that 

 each of the state normal schools should give five lectures 

 every year upon the principles of forestry as related to the 

 public welfare. It was also resolved that a committee should 

 be appointed to consider the advisability of preparing forestry 

 tracts for general circulation, in order to spread a knowledge 

 of the subject as an essential preliminary to any effective 

 legislation. 



In the current number of Median's Monthly it is stated that 

 the Girard estate has been making small forest-plantations 

 in an experimental way to see if it was practicable to grow tim- 

 ber in the coal regions, where nearly every stick has been cut 

 away for props and various other uses connected with mining, 

 so that now almost every piece of plank used there has to be 

 brought from a distance. Eight years ago seedling English 

 Larches and Scotch Pines, one year old, were planted in fur- 

 rows driven through the underbrush which was growing up 

 where old forests had been cut away. The Larches now 

 average from seventeen to eighteen feet high, and are notice- 

 ably healthy. The Larch is a mountain-tree, and thrives in 

 comparatively poor soil, and as these plantings are 1,500 feet 

 above the sea-level the tree has something of its natural con- 

 ditions. The vigor of the trees shows that they appreciate this 

 position. 



Dr. Rudolph Stoll, professor in a pomological school near 

 Vienna, has issued a treatise on " American Early Peaches," 

 illustrated by fourteen colored plates. Peaches of the sort he 

 describes have been cultivated in Europe since the middle of 

 the century, but what he calls "a new epoch in the culture of 

 early Peaches " began in the seventies with the introduction of 

 varieties received from the American grower Hales. These 

 are now very largely grown in the south of France and also in 

 Austria, where the preferred varieties are Amsden, Alexander, 

 Musser and Wilder. "Propagation by means of seeds," says 

 Dr. Stoll, "is as yet certain only with seeds imported from 

 America, as most of the seeds grown in Europe do not come 

 true, and it also seems doubtful whether as early-bearing trees 

 would be produced by European seeds." Propagation by 

 graft is therefore exclusively relied upon in the orchards of 

 Professor Stoll's school. He says that in a climate where the 

 Vine flourishes these Peaches will also flourish either as 

 shrubs or as low trees ; that in middle Europe, where Vine- 

 culture is no longer profitable, they will do well on walls 

 facing south, and in more northern countries only on espa- 

 liers under glass." The comparative excellence of different va- 

 rieties as regards flavor he expresses in the following list : 

 Cumberland, Saunders, Amsden, Wilder, Gouverneur Garland, 

 Briggs' May Peach, Waterloo, Musser, Hales' Early, Bowers' 

 Early, Canadian Early and Harper's Early. 



The degree to which irrigation must have been practiced by 

 the indigenous tribes of the west, in regions that now have 

 relapsed into a desert condition, is well shown by the station of 

 an Indian "fort" recently discovered about ninety miles below 

 Phoenix, Arizona. The ruins, which are said to be the largest 

 yet found, lie more than four miles distant from the Gila 

 River, and are about a square mile in extent. In the centre is 

 the fort, still very well preserved, and covering about six acres. 

 It is built, says a writer in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, in a 

 very peculiar way. The first of the stories or "tables "of 

 which it consists is about twenty feet in height and " is made 

 of dirt with a wall of boulders laid in cement about the out- 

 side. On top of this and of the same height, though only 

 half the size otherwise, is the second table, walled up as the 

 first. On this a smaller one of the same height, and on top of 

 that is the fort proper, constructed of stone and durable. The 

 edges of the tower-tables were used as gardens, and around 

 the walls are hundreds of boulders brought from the river, 

 doubtless for the purpose of casting down on the heads of a 

 foe. In the top fort are many skeletons and human bones, 

 and in all probability the place was besieged and the people 

 died of starvation. A ditch four and one-half miles in length 



runs by the base of this structure and brought water from the 

 Gila. It is well defined and about thirty feet in width, fhough 

 it is stopped up and no water runs through it." This immense 

 construction, which was only the central feature of a large set- 

 tlement, now stands in one of the most desert parts of Ari- 

 zona, and no one had seen it until it was recently discovered 

 by some miners who had lost their way in the wilderness. 



Professor B. D. Halsted concluded a lecture on Injurious 

 Fungi, delivered before the Ohio Horticultural Society, with a 

 suggestion that we should not trust to fungicides alone for the 

 eradication of plant-diseases. He said that healthy plants of 

 strong stock, well fed and not overworked by undue cropping, 

 are the best able to withstand the inroads of" enemies of every 

 sort. The half-starved plant is no better able to struggle 

 among the vicissitudes of life than the ill-fed and half-sick 

 man. Blights overcome the one as scurvy does the other. 

 Therefore, the best conditions for the production of profitable 

 crops are the same as those that will most assist in warding 

 off its fungous enemies. Let the seed, soil and surroundings 

 be the best, and a fungicide, so to speak, has already been 

 used when it will do the most good and render the application 

 of others, when needed, all the more profitable. In short, 

 strive to do the best for the fruit-tree or shrub, as such, and a 

 long step will be taken toward overcoming the enemies that 

 break down the weakest hosts first. Having done this we are 

 ready to take up the direct fight of the fungus foes with the 

 long end of the lever. It must be a good, promising crop 

 that will warrant the expense of fungicidal applications, and 

 the larger the promise the greater the profit. Again : When 

 a house or a community is afflicted with some contagious 

 malady, pains are taken that the germs of the disease shall 

 not remain, lurking in out-of-the-way places. The carpets, and 

 even wall-paper, are removed and the whole house fumigated 

 or otherwise treated with some germ destroyer. While as 

 thorough a cleansing as this is not possible in orchard, vine- 

 yard or garden, there are some measures that could be taken 

 with profit. If weeds are left to mature and scatter their 

 seeds, weeds are expected to follow. In like manner, if all 

 diseased leaves, stems and fruit are allowed to pass the winter 

 undestroyed, we shall reap what we have sown. The burn 

 heap is to be a potent factor in future horticulture. If we 

 continue to scatter the seeds of fungus decay, of that sowing 

 we shall reap corruption. 



Mr. Waldo F. Brown writes to the Country Gentleman that 

 the Black Locust can be profitably planted for posts, at least 

 in Ohio. He asserts that farms have been sold there at 

 from $20 to $30 an acre, which, if planted in Locust-timber, 

 would yield several hundred dollars an acre in posts within 

 twenty years, and then would make a second harvest quicker 

 than the first grew. He cites an instance of a ten-acre grove 

 which was cut off between i860 and 1870 and then sold for 

 posts. How much this first cutting brought could not be ascer- 

 tained, but it was certainly profitable. In just eleven years 

 after the present owner began to sell posts from the second 

 growth, and he has since had a regular income every year. 

 Between 1879 and 1883 he cut 6,608 posts from the ten acres 

 which brought $991, or an average of fifteen cents a post, and 

 ever since then he has cut and sold large quantities. For ten 

 years past this land, which is a steep hill-side unfit for cultiva- 

 tion, has yielded more profit than the remaining ninety level 

 acres of the same farm which have been under cultivation. In 

 another case a row of thirty-three Locust-trees, which had 

 been planted along the north line of a farm for twenty rods, 

 was cut after having grown twenty-five years. The harvest 

 was 400 good posts, worth twenty-five cents each, 600 fence- 

 stakes, worth five cents each, and enough wood to pay for 

 cutting and splitting the posts. From the second growth of 

 this grove the owner has cut all the posts needed to keep the 

 fences on his farm of 150 acres, and he has now 200 posts sea- 

 soned for future use. These trees occupy only a quarter of an 

 acre of land. How long one planting of Locust-timber will 

 continue to yield crops no one knows. As soon as a grove is 

 cut off it begins to send up a new crop, which grows rapidly, 

 and will be large enough for post-timber some years sooner 

 than such timber could be grown from seed. Mr. Brown once 

 examined a grove of two acres on which the trees had been 

 cut eleven years before, and found that each stump had thrown 

 up from three to seven sprouts, the largest of which were then 

 being cut. This thinning process went on for several years, 

 until all but one of these sprouts to each stump was cut, and 

 then enough trees were left to make a dense forest. In the 

 thirteenth year after the original cutting 400 posts were cut 

 from two acres. 



