56 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
Fclsengarten ; Our Mountain Garden, 
by Mrs. Theodore Thomas ( Rose Fay). 
The Macmillan Co., New York, 1904; 
price $1.50: 
Perhaps the best thing about the 
women’s garden books, of which a 
number have been reviewed in these 
columns, is that so many women who 
make gardens get such inspiration from 
the work that they feel obliged to write 
a book. This latest of the charming 
volumes tells of the improvement of 
the mountain home of Theodore 
Thomas, the well-known musician. It 
makes no pretensions to professional 
knowledge, and does not seek to give 
instruction in garden-making. It is a 
very simple, entertaining story of how 
a woman experimented with nature, 
learned some of her secrets, and used 
them to make a rough mountain home 
more beautiful. The story in brief is 
this : A frail woman with nothing but 
a “dear little spade” attacks a wild, 
uncultivated tract of 25 acres “sus- 
pended halfway ’twixt heaven and 
earth on the southern slope of a New 
Hampshire mountain,” just to show 
what one can do “without a hot-bed, 
hose, greenhouse, or gardener, on a 
wild, rock-strewn mountain side, un- 
tamed by the hand of man, and in a 
climate where frost can come every 
day in the year ; where the mercury 
goes 20 degrees below zero in winter ; 
and where water and fertilizers are at 
a premium.” Her first task was to 
screen a boulder wall ; a few unsuccess- 
ful attempts at this taught her some- 
thing of “The Secret of the 'Soil,” 
which is the title of the first chaper. 
The successive stages by which she 
became further acquainted with nature 
are entitled : The Secret of the Seed ; 
The Secret of Cuttings ; Painting the 
Landscape ; Elementary Pruning, and 
Wild Gardening. The other chapters 
are : Some Practical Hints ; Conclu- 
sion, and List of Plants, Shrubs, Etc. 
The book is illustrated with a number 
of attractive photographs, showing the 
mountain scenery of the Thomas home, 
and will contain inspiration and sug- 
gestion for the amateur garden-maker. 
Forest Fires in the Adirondacks in 
1903, by FI. M. Suter; Circular No. 26, 
Bureau of Forestry. Between April 
20 and June 8, 1903, over 600,000 acres 
of timber land in northern New York 
were burned over. About $175,000 was 
spent in fighting the fires, which never- 
theless were finally extinguished only 
by the help of heavy rains. The total 
direct loss was approximately $3,500,- 
000. No less serious, though incapa- 
ble of money valuation, is the indirect 
loss due to the destruction of young 
growth which was to form the future 
forest. To this must be added the in- 
jury to the forest soil caused by the 
burning out of the vegetable matter in- 
dispensable to healthy tree growth. The 
results of a study of the extent, causes, 
and effects of these fires made by the 
Bureau of Forestry are presented in this 
report. Agents of the Bureau traveled 
extensively through the region, made 
careful examinations of many of the 
burned areas, and gathered informa- 
tion from guides, cruisers, lumbermen, 
pulp manufacturers, and superintendents 
of private preserves. Reports were also 
obtained from the fire wardens of all 
the towns within and near the Adiron- 
dack Park. 
Bulletin of the New York Botanical 
Garden; Vol. 3, No. 10. The perma- 
nent funds of the garden were increased 
during the year 1903 by $5,000, and 
the number of members is now 1,894, 
an increase of 45 during the year. A 
large collection of hardy conifers pre- 
sented to the garden by Mr. Lowell M. 
Palmer was set out as a beginning of 
the Pinetum, which is to be increased 
as the desired trees are obtained. Ad- 
ditions have also been made to the col- 
lection of deciduous trees in the arbore- 
tum tract east of the Bronx river. The 
number of kinds of hardy trees now in 
the garden is about 450. The total 
expenditures from funds of the garden 
were $29,874.10, and the city main- 
tenance appropriation of $70,000 was 
expended as follows : Salaries and 
labor, $54,574.39; supplies and repairs, 
$15,425.61. The bulletin contains re- 
ports of officers and records of ex- 
penditures and improvements. 
Missouri Botanical Garden; Four- 
teenth Annual Report, St. Louis, 1904-. 
Contains reports of officers and of the 
Directors, four scientific and two library 
contributions. There are now 11,357 
species and varieties in cultivation at 
the garden, an increase of 41.8 per cent 
since 1898. The total number of per- 
sons who visited the garden during 
1903 was 79,039. The new synoptical 
tract of about 20 acres to be devoted 
exclusively to North American plants 
promises to be one of the most at- 
tractive features of the garden. This 
area will be treated as an open park, 
with a liberal use of hardy perennials. 
Nearly all of the material for this plan- 
tation is now in place, and the tract is 
supplied with water and drainage facili- 
ties, but a succession of trying winters 
has held back the development of the 
trees to such an extent that the land- 
scape effect of the planting will not 
be realized for several years yet. The 
herbarium now contains about 465,205 
specimens, valued at $69,780. The sci- 
entific papers are as follows : An Eco- 
logical Comparison of Some Typical 
Swamp Areas, by Samuel M. Coulter; 
Two Fungi Growing in Holes Made 
by Wood-boring Insects, by Perley 
Spaulding ; An Ecologically Aberrant 
Begonia, and Aberrant Veil Remnants 
in Some Edible Agarics, by William 
Trelease. The library contributions 
are : A list of books and papers pub- 
lished from the Garden or by its em- 
ployes or based on work done by aid 
of the Garden ; and a supplementary 
list of serial publications received at 
the library of the Garden, prepared by 
Director William Trelease. 
Second Annual Report of the Civic 
Improvement League of St. Louis : 
This booklet contains the address of 
President Edward C. Eliot, giving a 
summary of the work of the League 
during the year, and reports of the va- 
rious committees by their respective 
chairmen. The work of the Junior 
School of Horticulture and the Junior 
Civic League was reviewed last month. 
The other committees maintained are : 
Legislative ; pure milk ; smoke abate- 
ment ; historical tablets, and sanitary. 
The League now has 243 honorary and 
1,437 regular members, and the expendi- 
tures for the year were $8,719.01, leav- 
ing a balance of $173.58 March 1, 1904. 
The Bureau of Forestry has issued 
Circular No. 27 on the Reclamation 
of Flood-Damaged Lands in the Kan- 
sas River Valley by Forest Planting. 
The flood of 1903 did much damage to 
