622 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 201. 



guine hopes, and the Combe has been subdued without 



damage or accident. 



CONCLUSION. 



The problem offered by the laws of i860 and 1882 is now 

 solved. Facts have abundantly proved that the solution is 

 neither long nor costly, and that it is only necessary to aid 

 nature by a series of small measures judiciously conceived 

 and carried on with system and persistence. 



The 579 square miles of forests recently created in the 

 three regions, whether by the state or by communities and in- 

 dividuals, insure quiet for the future, and demonstrate by their 

 vigorous growth how empty were the allegations of the poli- 

 ticians, who in i860 ridiculed the possibility of reforestation. 

 The task, indeed, is hard and thankless. It is on the most 

 desolate mountain-heights, or in the depths of gorges, which 

 they alone penetrate, that the foresters do their work quietly, 

 often in face of public indifference, or even the hostility of self- 

 ish interests. 



I can recall no nobler mission than theirs. Surrell was right 

 when he said: "I dare to predict that the usefulness and the 

 grandeur of this work will one day be recognized, and that it 

 will have a place of honor among the great enterprises which 

 will signalize this epoch throughout all coming time." 



[A series of heliographs were shown at the Paris Exposi- 

 tion which vividly illustrated the magnitude and difficulty of 

 the work of the French foresters in their campaigns against 

 the torrents. Copies of many of these pictures have been 

 exhibited at some of the meetings of the American Forestry 

 Association, and some of them are now to be seen in the 

 National Museum at Washington. Mr. Fernow, Chief of 

 the Bureau of Forestry, has had plates made of some of 

 them, and it is to be hoped that they will be published in 

 a future Government report. On page 620 we give an 

 illustration of a series of corrective works on the tor- 

 rent of Grollaz, which will explain itself. The denudation 

 of the mountains here was comparatively recent, and the 

 Grollaz has only been a dangerous torrent in late years. 

 In 1880 it had become a constant menace to the wagon- 

 road between France and Italy and to the Mont Cenis 

 Railroad, and at one time it seemed certain that the rail- 

 road would have to be moved to the other side of the arc, 

 to which the Grollaz is tributary. But the steep-banked, 

 narrow gulch, through which vast quantities of mud and 

 stones were carried after every rain, is now a broad open 

 bed. Its steepness is all taken up by the falls of the dams, 

 and it carries no waste into the valley below. When the 

 banks are covered with forest, the torrent will be definitely 

 extinct. Of course, only a small portion of the engineer- 

 ing work can be seen in this picture, but the result of it all 

 is, that not only are the road and the railroad safe, but 

 canals for irrigation have been dug from the different levels 

 made by the dams, and the Grollaz is now enriching the 

 very fields from 'which it had once driven their owners. 



We are indebted for the picture from which our illustra- 

 tion is made to Mr. Gifford Pinchot. — Ed.] 



Correspondence. 



In the Shore Towns of Massachusetts. — IV. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — Marshfield formerly had a common. In earliest times 

 it was the Training-field. The town ran a public road through 

 it, and a religious society has a perpetual lease of a part of it 

 as the site of its chapel. During recent years various persons 

 have obtained permission to build horse-sheds on the rem- 

 nants of the common, and there is not much of it left for 

 future appropriation. Mr. Seth J. Ventress, who was born in 

 this town, learned to lay brick and stone as they should belaid 

 in structures that are to abide and endure, and he came to 

 know more than anybody else about bakers' ovens and how 

 to build them. He had $40,000 when he came to die a few 

 years ago, and left $10,000 in trust to build Ventress Memo- 

 rial Hall here, within three-fourths of a mile of the meeting- 

 house, for a town-hall and public library. Daniel Webster's 

 grave is in this town, and it is visited by thousands of the 

 summer people. His birthplace, in the town of Franklin, 

 New Hampshire, is not marked in any way. 



Kingston has no park or common, or rights on the shore. 



Duxbury has a town-landing, perhaps two of them, not used. 

 The Standish monument is here. It stands on the slope of a 

 hill, because the top, the right place for it, could not be bought 

 for this purpose. The Monument Association owns a small 

 area around its base. It should be considerably extended and 

 improved, and made a convenient and attractive place of re- 

 sort for great numbers of people. This region is full of inter- 

 esting local history and historic places. 



Plymouth keeps its old Training-green, or some of it, a scant 

 acre now. There is a tract of perhaps five acres around the 

 great statue of Faith, and a small area about the celebrated 

 Rock, down by the water-side. Coles Hill, where a few of the 

 first burials were made, is a small, steep hill-slope just above 

 the Rock, and is used as a park or place for seats for those 

 who wish to contemplate the Rock and enjoy the view of the 

 water. Burial Hill, five or six acres, is practically a park, and 

 has many visitors. There are few interments now. 



The great possession of Plymouth is Morton Park, 150 acres 

 of unsurpassable woods, lying along the shores of Billington 

 Sea. It has been described in your pages in more graceful 

 prose than my pen can write. Mr. Morton seems to know 

 every tree and every inequality of surface in the park. The 

 city ought in time to own the shore lands entirely around Bil- 

 lington Sea. Plymouth is a very large town. It is eighteen 

 miles across it, from the Kingston line to that of Sandwich. 

 This great region is mostly woods, and is well watered. People 

 say that a man can camp by a different lake every day in t'" 

 year in this town, but I did not have time to camp by all ' 

 lakes or to count them. It is an enchanting region for su 

 mer residence, and people are finding it out in increasii 

 numbers. There will be thousands of summer dwellers 

 these beautiful lakes in a few years. Every acre outsid 

 Morton Park is a private holding. Intelligent men here 

 that the permanent reservation of a strip of woods on ea^ 

 side of the public roads would greatly improve them. As 

 much of the land is valued at twenty-five cents an acre for 

 taxation, it would probably not be difficult to make a public 

 holding of a belt a few rods wide on each side of all the prin- 

 cipal public roads. This would give to great reaches of coun- 

 try much of the aspect and character of a park. 



The method of keeping the public records of the town has 

 been brought to a wonderful degree of accuracy and conve- 

 nience. To the student of civilization these records are among 

 the chief attractions of the place. The Pilgrim Society has an 

 interesting collection of furniture, implements and other arti- 

 cles used by the early inhabitants. It is a valuable instrument 

 for awakening and fostering interest in local history, and in- 

 fluences working to this end are much needed in the shore 

 towns. 



Sandwich has no town holding of any kind for a place of 

 public resort. The Sandwich Glass Company had a small 

 common near the glassworks, with large trees and seats for 

 the operatives. It was a pleasant and valuable resting-place 

 for them, but the company has gone out of business and the 

 common is uncared for. There is a piece of remarkably in- 

 teresting scenery near the road from Sandwich to Mashpee. 

 It is a vast wooded hollow, or deep valley, which happens to 

 have just the right proportions to be impressive. It ought to 

 be defended from forest-fires, and its sylvan beauty perpetu- 

 ated. There is no place of public resort in Bourne, and the 

 boys of this town say they have no right to meet anywhere 

 out-of-doors for athletic exercises, amusement or mutual im- 

 provement. Playing ball along the public highway causes 

 complaint and is dangerous to persons passing, and if the boys 

 assemble in a field or pasture they are warned away as tres- 

 passers. The boys think there should be a Town Field, or 

 public playground, and some of the leading citizens take the 

 same view of the matter. Intelligent men here feel much in- 

 terest in the law relative to preserving ornamental and shade 

 trees on the highways of the state. It is Chapter 196 of the 

 Acts of 1890. The people here say their roads would be much 

 better if the trees along the road-sides were left standing ; that 

 the highways are often injured, and all their beauty is de- 

 stroyed by widening them unnecessarily ; and that when they 

 are straightened, and the old curving lines are abandoned, the 

 scenic interest and value of the region is impaired, and the 

 drives are rendered unattractive. Half-way between Buzzard's 

 Bay Station and Bourne are the remains of an old trading- 

 post, which was established here in 1627. The old cellar-pit 

 and its walls are still, to a great extent, unchanged, but the 

 land has been sold recently, and is likely to be improved, and 

 this interesting monument of early commercial activity will 

 probably soon be destroyed. 



There has been considerable successful tree-planting in Barn- 

 stable. I walked about a piece of woodland which was planted 



