FOREST AND STkEIAM. 
245 
- — • 
Scientific Forestry. 
Editor Forest and Stream: i ! ■ i^iHi 
It is quite apparent to one who observes things with 
any kind of careful attention, and at the same time has 
some degree of practical knowledge of things, that what 
I we call science is now very much of a fad. We have had 
I now about forty years of scientific agriculture which has 
I cost many millions of dollars, and in spite of all this vast 
expenditure the average of the farm crops has not in- 
! creased to any extent sufiicient for the statisticians of 
the Government, working at a cost of millions of dol- 
lars, to base any figures upon. The agricultural col- 
leges, so expensively maintained, after thirty years of 
gradually increasing expense, charged to the public, have 
not, so far, had the slightest ef?ect in increasing the av- 
erage yield of any crop, and the only good, so far, ap- 
' parently done is the providing managers for the show 
farms of the wealthy people, which are kept up at ex- 
cessive cost, and, as one owner of such a farm recently 
said to me, every egg laid on his farm cost him twenty- 
five cents, and his butter two dollars a pound. But he 
remarked it is something to show to my friends and brag 
on. And now we have a forestry fad on the stage, and 
thousands of dollars are spent in teaching the boys, 
who never before knew one tree from another, the 
science and practice of forestry culture. All this time, 
without the slightest fuss or noise, the French and 
German people and Governments have been improving 
I their forests, private and public; planting the wind- 
I swept ocean beaches to prevent the inroads of the sea 
I on the land, and, just as if it were some new thing, some 
Yankee invention, we are taking this ancient thing up 
and claiming it as such. There is in fact nothing new 
or strange in this thing. The student of this new art, 
owners of wood lands, and others interested in it, may 
procure plenty of literature, new and old, in the German 
French and Dutch special journals, and by making a 
few trips to the European sea coasts, to the private 
wooded estates in any European country, or to the 
English coasts and prominent .show estates of the 
I wealthy land owners, as well as the ancient Government 
fore.sts there, they may. see samples of this work, which 
■ will show what has been done for many years back — 
centuries in fact — with such success as to have made 
these private and pubhc woods most profitable property, 
' paying as good interest on their high values as the beau- 
tiful fertile farm lands do, and these, too, showing a 
good profit from their crops, far greater than any of our 
show-farmers can do. In fact, the most notable of the 
show places of Europe, England included, pay a large 
income in spite of the fine gardens, great glass houses, 
clean, well-tended woods and forests, these all in fact 
being turned to practical use, and managed by appar- 
ently common-place workmen who never heard of an 
agricultural college or a scientific forester. 
In fact, the art of forestry is a very simple thing. 
Simply to let trees grow, which nature planted, and when 
these are mature and harvested, to replant from a nur- 
sery, kept for the purpose, a new generation, to fill the 
place of the old and mature trees, which are cut and 
sold. It is just precisely what agriculture is, with the 
only difference that trees are grown instead of potatoes, 
corn or other crops. It is orchard culture on a large 
scale. I saw once in eastern New York an orchard 
of over three hundred acres, mostly in apples, from which 
some thousands of barrels of fruit were shipped annually 
by the owner; and it was one of the finest examples of 
forest culture- to be seen. There were the trees grown 
in the most skillful manner and with exemplary profit. 
There was no fuss about it. The owner of it was un- 
known to fame, and his name had never been in print 
in connection with this enterprise, until it was intro- 
duced by me in an account of his grand orchard. A 
noted peach grower has a forest of these trees in the 
South which is annually extending its boundaries, as 
well as the bulk of the owner's bank account. And 
there are ample opportunities of getting information in 
* the peach and other orchards — forests in fact — of the 
' same kind in Maryland and Delaware, as well as in other 
localities too numerous to mention. 
Indeed, there is nothing new in this thing. Over forty 
years ago I cut the timber off a section of pine land in 
northern Michigan, and it has been so well reforested 
since then by the simple preservation of it from fire, that 
the second crop is now in course of cutting, and it will 
make easily four times the profit it made in i860. Be- 
I side this, there will be sufficient young hardwoods of 
great value left to bring a still more valuable crop in 
years to come. 
I might mention the fact which appeared to me when 
in that region engaged in a sort of pioneer lumbering, 
which is of great interest, I think, as an instance of the 
natural rotation of crops applicable directly to the sub- 
ject of arboriculture. This is that I there discovered, 
through a most striking occurrence, that there is as 
■ strict a rotation of crops or growth of plants in forests 
as there is in fields. I have found the same thing here 
in the North Carolina woods, which, I think, I may 
have mentioned in a letter some time ago. But it may 
be worth repeating in this connection, which is one 
more conspicuous instance of what may be called rota- 
tion of crops in nature. This former dense pine forest 
above mentioned, as it was in i860, is now one-half 
covered with maple — some beautiftil birdseye quite 
largely — bass woods, white oaks and other hard woods, 
and among these the white pines are growing. The tall 
pines force the other trees to a high straight growth of 
stem, free of low branches, the very best condition for 
the most valuable timber. This seems to me one of the 
most important features of our future forest industry, for 
it is, as I have observed continually, that the same kind 
of growth covering the soil gives place to a different 
one when the first has been removed. And in regard to 
forest culture as a science and an art, it is well worth 
notice, as it is in ordinary agriculture. , 
H, Stewakt. 
The Frolics of Nature. 
In mood most debonair, just as though to convince us 
of unused power held in leash, staid Mother Nature often 
fashions her wonted material in unwonted guise. On 
rocks we have her carvings of faces human; some so 
finely chiseled and impressive as to make us suspicious 
that mortal hands had offered no aid to her design; here 
and there we find structures of stone and earth resem- 
bling the most capable of man's building, and everywhere 
can we discover her wonders, if we do but have a watch- 
ful eye. Small odds, therefore, if she seems occasionally 
to frolic in patterning after the superior animal creations. 
Among the second forest growths (or maybe third, for 
all we know accurately), bordering on Lake Kenoza, in 
Sullivan county. New York, a seedling dropped by bird 
or blown by the winds, took root, and in the period of 
its uprearing, even as the slender limbs commenced to 
feel for neighboring comfort among its kind, our Mother 
Nature selected this sapling for a demonstration of her 
ability to mock at the usual oi'der of things. A spot on 
the spreading thickening bark commenced to bulge, and 
wonder must have gripped the heart of that sapling, for 
there on its trunk was growing an excrescence that 
gradually took the form and shape of a climbing bear. 
As our tree became larger, this representation increased 
in size, and the accompanying photo will easily show 
^Al Greatl*WesternirMeteorite. 
Mexico has long been interesting for the meteorites 
which have fallen there, and the naturalist Humboldt in 
his great work on New Spain, published in 181 1, de- 
scribes some of them. 
Some of the Mexican meteorites are of astounding 
size, weighing many tons. A dozen years ago the Mexi- 
can Government brought five of the largest to the City 
of Mexico, where they may still be seen mounted on iron 
pillars in the entrance court of the School of Mines. In a 
recent number of Science, Prof. Henry A. Ward, the 
veteran student of meteors, describes the largest known 
meteor of Mexico, which is perhaps exceeded only by one 
other, the great meteorite of Greenland. The actual size 
of this last is not definitely known, and it may be that 
the Mexican meteor is the largest. Prof. Ward says: 
Through Sefior Jose C. Aguilera, the Director of the 
Instituto Geologico, we obtained from the Minister of 
State I'etters to the Governor of Sinaloa and to the 
Director of Mines in that State. Western Sinaloa is prac- 
tically impossible to reach in a direct line from the capi- 
tal. The northern route through Arizona and Sonora in- 
volved a journey of over 2,000 miles. We took the shorter 
but harder route across the Cordilleras to the port of 
Manzanillo on the Pacific, and thence by steamer up the 
coast of the Gulf of California. There at the adjacent 
THE TREE OF THE CLIMBING BEAR. 
Photo by A. Haddsdl. 
how true to life the animal of pith and pulp is. The 
tree has weathered the storms of many years, and unless 
some other decaying weakened friend topples over and 
carries it down amid a battle of the elements, it bids fair 
yet for many years to stand an attraction and wonder to 
sportsmen and the summer tourists who visit that por- 
tion of Sullivan county in largely increased numbers 
every year. 
Kenoza Lake, or Pike's Pond, as it used to be called, 
is reached via Cochecton or Callicoon stations on the 
route of the picturesque Erie. The distance to these 
points is about 135 miles, and a matter of four and a 
half hours' traveling, the only discomfort is the abun- 
dant soft coal dust that smuts, distinguishes and dis- 
gusts Erie passengers.- By stage from Cochecton or 
Callicoon one goes over the mountains to the lake, nine 
miles in a general northerly direction. Accommodations 
in the summer and the fall have to be secured in ad- 
vance, and both at Miller's Lake View House and at the 
Gedney House, clean, cool rooms and good board at 
reasonable prices is obtainable. 
Kenoza is within easy driving distance of Liberty, 
White Lake, Sulphur Springs and the neighboring re- 
sorts. Every one around Kenoza will point out the 
road to the bear tree, and as the roads thereaoouts are of 
uncertain nomenclature, inquiry is easier than direction. 
There is good fishing to be had in the lake, and 
quail, partridge and woodcock are reasonably abundant. 
The last abiding place of this frolic growth of nature 
should be in the Museum of Natural History in New 
York. Rumor has it that the owner of the property re- 
fused a substantial smri for the tree. 
A. Haddsell. 
Gkeat Kills, S. I., Sept. 8. 
Old Tfees. 
Pike's Peak, Colo., Sept. 14. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: I read with much interest an editorial in a 
recent number of Forest and Stream, entitled "The Old 
Oak." In my younger days I myself knew such a tree, as 
no doubt many of your readers have known one or 
more. 
An interesting occurrence bearing on the age of trees 
took place near here, not long ago in the Garden of the 
Gods, during a visit of Prof. Chas. E. Bessey, of the 
University of Nebraska, who is so well known as an 
authority in botany and a student of trees. 
On the slopes of the mountains hereabouts are many 
cedar trees, of the species known, I believe, as the brown 
cedar (Juniperus monosperma) . Many of these are very 
large, and in August last Prof. Bessey while here counted 
the annual growth rings in the stump of one cedar which 
had recently been cut down. These rings were counted 
with the care peculiar to the scientific man, and from the 
count the number of rings calculated for the whole stump, 
the result of this calculation gave 800 or 1,000 years as the 
age of the tree. Thus, this tree may have sprouted about 
the year 1000 A. D., or not far from the time when Lief 
Erikson, the Norseman, is supposed to have discovered 
Vinland the Good. C. O. P. 
city of Cuiiacan we took a carriage with a four-mule 
team and an American photographer, who accompanied us 
with his camera. A drive of ninety-five miles to the north 
and west took us in three days far up among the foot- 
hills of the Sierra Madre. Bacubirito is a small but 
very old mining town, situated on the road to Sinaloa in 
latitude 26 degrees, and in west longitude 107 degrees. 
The elevation above sea level is some 2.000 feet. The 
meteorite is seven miles nearly due south from there, near 
the hamlet called Palmar de la Sepulveda. Here we 
found it oa a farm called Ranchito, which £lls a narrow 
mountain valley beneath two spurs of the main range. 
It was there struck by the plow of Crescendo Aguilar in 
the summer of 1871. He soon uncovered enough of its 
bright surface to satisfy himself that he had found a 
silver mine. Its surrounding is now a cornfield with a 
black vegetable soil of some two yards in thickness. In 
this soil we found the great meteorite deeply imbedded. 
Its surface was but little below the surface of the ground, 
but with one end slightly projecting above the level. It 
was a long, monstrous boulder of black iron, which seemed 
to be still burrowing to hide itself from the upper world. 
Its surface form was something like that of a great ham. 
We could walk for many feet along and across its surface, 
surveying these dimensions, but knowing nothing of how 
far the mass penetrated the soil beneath. Our first work 
was excavation. We soon got twenty-eight able-bodied 
persons for this. We undertook an area of thirty feet on 
a side, with the great meteorite lying within. In a single 
day we passed down through nearly four feet of soft 
vegetable soil, and the meteorite began to show in its 
entirety. The general form of the mass seen from the 
side was that of one ramus of a huge jaw. The surface 
was entirely covered with "pittings," very regular in size, 
and about two or three inches across; shallow, but with 
well-defined walls. There were no areas which showed 
the devastation of deep rust; a fact due both to the dry- 
ness of the soil and to the large alloy of nickel in the 
iron. On one side there was a deep crack, running hori- 
zontally through half of the mass. At its inception this 
crack was too narrow to insert a knife blade ; at the other 
end it was nearly three inches wide. Our Mexicans were 
astonished at the result of their own labors ; they marveled 
alike at the size of the mass, and at our credulity in be- 
lieving that it had ever fallen from space above. 
By the end of the second day we had carried our ex- 
cavation to an average depth of six feet. Over the area 
the vegetable soil wa* from three to four feet deep, while 
below it was a porphyry rock, common in this part of 
the country, much broken up by natural cleavages and 
decomposed in situ. Immediately around the meteorite 
we had dug much lower, leaving the great iron mass 
poised on a pillar or pedestal of the undisturbed rock. 
Finally we performed a feat of moving the great block. To 
lift one end with heavy tackle or machinery would have 
been impossible for us; but it needed little mechanical 
aid to make the mass move itself. We attacked with our 
long iron bars one side of the supporting pedestal. After 
long chiseling away on one side of this, the center of 
gravity was reached, and, with a slow, almost dignified, 
movement, the great met»orite sank at one end and as- 
sumed a partially vertical position. Looking beneath itj 
