68 



THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



season of the year, one of the most momentous questions for 

 the gardener is that of the effect of the winter on many of 

 the most prized garden favorites. One can never be sure, 

 until buds are well along, as to what he may expect from his 

 rhododendrons, cornuses, wistarias, early clematises and many 

 other things which because of their precocity are so easily 

 started into activity by a few warm days in early winter, and 

 their flow^erbuds, divested of their protecting overcoats, doomed 

 to be ruined later on. The problem of winter and spring 

 effect is full of puzzling contradictions and one year's deduc- 

 tions are quite likely to be overthrown by the experiences of 

 the next year. But one thing is sure — deep snow, long tarry- 

 ing, is the garden's best winter friend. — Horticiilfiirc. 



Reproduction in Trees. — I read in the February. 1916, 

 number of the American Botanist some astonishing state- 

 ments under the above caption, viz., ' the oak begins to bear 

 when it is between sixty and seventy years old, the ash between 

 forty and fifty." The statements are taken from B. Beach 

 in Tree Talk. I do not know where the writer is so unfortu- 

 nate as to have his residence where he can expect to see so 

 little of the "fruit of his labors" in tree planting, but I assure 

 him we do not have to wait au}^ such length of time in fertile 

 Nebraska. There is an English oak (Qiicrcns pedunculata) 

 on the campus of the Universit}- of Nebraska that bore acorns 

 ten years ago when the tree could not have been over 25 years 

 old. The University was founded in 1869, so that ten years 

 ago it was 35 years old. The tree is very thrifty and has 

 no marks of age except its acorns. The mossy overcup oak 

 (Q. nia^crocarpa) is common over most of Nebraska and bears 

 w^hen it is eight or ten feet high, possibly fifteen to twenty 

 years old. Oucrciis acuminata bears at about the same age, 

 and 0. pvinoidcs when three feet high. The white ash of 

 eastern Nebraska and the prairie ash {Fraxinus canipestris) 

 of all Nebraska make six to ten inches of growth a year and 



