5 86 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 198. 



" From an elevated point the picture of this torrent-scoured 

 country is that of desolation and of death. Immense beds of 

 rounded pebbles, many yards deep, cover great areas, sur- 

 rounding, and even covering to the top, the largest trees, and 

 making a hopeless desolation of the farm land. There is 

 nothing more depressing than the sight of these deep cuts, 

 from which the mountains seem to have rushed out upon 

 the plain to cover it over with rocks. 



"The debris of these torrents can be seen a great way off, 

 spread out at the mouth of the gorges, in the shape of a great fan, 

 sometimes to the width of 3,000 yards, higher at the centre and in- 

 clined toward the edges like a mantle of rock overall the coun- 

 try. Such is their appearance when they are dry, but human 

 language has no words to describe them at the moment of a 

 sudden flood, when they break out with unrestrained violence 

 which has no parallel in the ordinary behavior of river waters. 

 Sometimes the unchained torrent strikes a river at right 

 angles and forcibly rolls it back toward its source ; elsewhere, 

 two torrents, from opposite slopes, rush together in the middle 

 of the river between them and assail each other with rock and 

 gravel. 



"The district is pastoral in the higher portions, and slightly 

 cultivated in the valleys. Forests are rare, and, unfortunately, 

 belong to the community. Their product is almost nothing. 

 The expense of protection is beyond the local revenues, and 

 the inhabitants vie with each other in destroying what is public 

 property. 



" The road system in the Alps is exposed not merely to the 

 elements of destruction common to other parts of the country. 

 The road engineers in the Alps are always ready for war ; in 

 winter, to open the road ; in the spring, to repair it ; in the sum- 

 mer, to guard against torrents. A warm wind, which suddenly 

 melts the snows, a storm accompanied by pouring rains, a 

 flock of goats or sheep which start a shower of stones, an ava- 

 lanche which tumbles across the path, is sufficient to block all 

 travel. The abrupt and often precipitous nature of the land 

 leaves no escape from dangerous grades, and often compels 

 the engineers to suspend the road over dizzy precipices. Works 

 of engineering art are seen at every step, in the form of 

 bridges, dams, embankments, or tunnels. Notwithstanding 

 these constant efforts, travel is often arrested, and but tew 

 months pass without some tragic accident to spread alarm and 

 terror among the hearts of the people." 



Twenty years later, following the investigation of 1866, the 

 Councillor of State, charged with the study of south-eastern 

 France, in his report, prepared in 1868, described the Depart- 

 ment of the Lower Alps as follows : 



" What impresses one first in traversing the mountainous 

 parts of the department of the Lower Alps is the imposing, but 

 sad and desolate aspect which they present. Instead of the 

 great forests or green pastures, which, according to local tra- 

 ditions, once covered them, they only show bald summits, 

 arid slopes where a little brush still retains the scanty vege- 

 table mold which the waters have not washed away, and 

 deep ravines, where the torrents have rolled enormous ava- 

 lanches of rocks and gravel. Here and there, as if lost in the 

 devastation, upon .heights or on slopes, apparently inaccessi- 

 ble, one sees a few poor dwellings ; some abandoned, others, 

 poverty-stricken relics of some industry which had managed 

 to survive the land-slides brought on by ignorant clearing. 



" At intervals, one comes upon villages surrounded by small 

 estates that a rude population have laboriously created, and 

 still more laboriously defended against the storms, torrents and 

 avalanches which threaten our French Alps. Then, far apart, 

 appear a few meadows, wooded hill-sides, or plateaus of good 

 pasturage, whose slight inclination has saved them from the 

 prevalent ruin. These are the oases of these immense wastes, 

 and about them slowly, but incessantly, goes on the work of 

 impoverishment which began more than a century ago. 



" Every year the coat of vegetable mold, which has clothed 

 the heights, is torn and diminished more and more. Every 

 year the gravelly bed of the torrent is enlarged, and its debris 

 encroaches upon the fertile plains of the river valleys. Every 

 year some poor family sees its modest patrimony reduced, 

 and it is small wonder if a population, with its means of sub- 

 sistence ceaselessly threatened, becomes discouraged and 

 emigrates to more hospitable regions. The ruinous condition 

 of our frontier Alps produces the same painful impression 

 upon all who see it. Every one is impressed with the neces- 

 sity of making a vigorous struggle against these causes of im- 

 poverishment and depopulation." 



Statistics furnish mournful information in this respect: In 

 1846 the population in the Department of the Lower Alps 

 reached 156,675 ; in 1886 it was only 128,295. This shows a loss 

 in forty years of 28,380 inhabitants, or eighteen out of every 



hundred. The population to-day is not more than 18.45 per 

 square kilometer (247 acres), and there are districts like Bar- 

 celonette where it is reduced to 12.75 over an area of 1,716,800 

 acres. More than one-third of the land consists of abandoned 

 fields and worn-out pastures. 



Besides these districts, where formidable torrents develop 

 into their highest activity, there are many other regions in 

 which torrents of the first rank give place to myriads of smaller 

 ones, which cover the hill-sides like a leprosy, and although 

 their ravages appeal less strikingly to the imagination, they are 

 quite as disastrous to the country. 



The recent inundations, which caused in the lower valleys 

 of Isere and of Durance a damage of thirty million francs, 

 prove this only too well. Later rains only affected the lower 

 part of the mountain-sides, and, fortunately, gave place to 

 heavy snows in the higher part, but this only gives cause for 

 apprehending a more sweeping destruction in the future. A 

 rise of two or three degrees in the general temperature of the 

 higher regions, a warm wind like the Foehn of Switzerland or 

 the " Chinook " of North America, would melt the snow or 

 change it to rain, and would more than triple the volume of 



(To be continued.) 



Correspondence. 



The Korner Oak. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir, — In my Garden and Forest of August 19th I read 

 a brief notice of the great "Wurtemberg Linden." This 

 notice had already attracted the attention of a gentleman now 

 here, General W. J. Palmer, President of the Rio Grande West- 

 ern Railroad, whose interest in the preservation of forests led 

 to the recent withdrawal from sale and impending destruction 

 of some 90,000 acres of woodland around the beautiful Rocky 

 Mountain watering-place, Manitou. Our conversation about 

 the Linden led to the discovery that one of Germany's cele- 

 brated trees, the Korner Oak, was but two miles from Carls- 

 bad, and soon thereafter we visited it and made the enclosed 

 measurements and photograph (see page 583). 



The tree is 27 feet 10 inches in circumference six feet above 

 the surface of the ground, 30 feet two feet above the surface, 

 and by approximate triangulation is 75 feet high. One of the 

 larger branches has recently fallen, and the giant evidently 

 feels the weight of years. It is the largest of a group of pri- 

 meval oaks that adorns the park of Herr Von Riegel, a gentle- 

 man connected by marriage with well-known New York fam- 

 ilies, and stands near his country-seat on the left bank of the 

 Eiger.* It spreads its roots through the rich soil but a few 

 hundred feet above the seams of brown coal, from which 

 German students of fossil plants have drawn such an abun- 

 dant harvest of specimens. From an inspection of the foliage 

 I believe it to be Q. pedunculata. 



It is widely, in Germany, known as the Korner Oak, and a 

 tablet bearing the name of that " hero of the lyre and sword " 

 is attached to its bole. The poet occasionally visited Carls- 

 bad during his brief but remarkable career. He studied at 

 the mining academy in Freiberg, and was familiar with the 

 silver-bearing mountains that rise in rough serrations north of 

 the Eiger on the Saxon horizon. His last visit to the neigh- 

 borhood was in 1813, a few months before his tragic death. 

 Beneath this Oak he is said to have composed his poem ending, 

 Deutsches Volk du herrlichstes vor alien, 

 Deine Eichen steh'n du bist gefallen ! 



In that admirable combination of scientific exactness 

 and pleasing art, Henry Brooks' " Typical Elms and other 

 Trees of Massachusetts" (which is praisefully introduced to its 

 readers by the life-long lover of plants, Oliver Wendell Holmes), 

 I find recorded the dimensions of some New England Oaks 

 that will give the reader of these lines a basis for comparison. 



The Eliot Oak, Dedham (Q. alba); girth, five feet above 

 ground, 15 feet 11 inches ; height, 80 feet. The Society Oak, 

 Charlemont village (Q. rubra) ; girth, five feet above ground, 

 14 feet 6 inches ; height, 58 feet. The Carter Oak, Lancaster 

 (Q. rubra) ; girth, five feet above ground, 18 feet 5 inches. 

 The Beaman Oak, Lancaster (Q. rubra) ; girth, five feet above 

 ground, 17 feet 8 inches ; height, 70 feet. 



May I suggest to the amateur photographers in each of our 

 four and forty states, six territories and the Federal District 

 that they would earn the gratitude of a large and increasing 

 circle of their most intelligent fellow-citizens if they would se- 

 cure for publication and preservation the portraits and dimen- 



* Cuttings from the Korner Oak are growing in the gardens of Oswald Otten- 

 dorfer, at 135th St., New York.— R. H. L. 



