August 28, 1884. ] 
JOURJ^AL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
199 
Barker. The latter was first with two Pine Apples, the remaining prizes 
going to Mr. G-. Holman. Mr. Barker had the first prize in the class for 
Peaches, staging Noblesse in good condition, Mr. Edwards following with 
good Royal G-eorge, and Mr. W. Gould was third with Grosse Mignonnc. 
In the class for Nectarines Mr. Barker took the lead with a good dish of 
Lord Napier. Messrs. Edwards and J. Green followed with Pine Apple, 
large and well coloured. The successful exhibitors of Apricots were Messrs. 
G. Holman, J. Aston, gardener to the Rev. W. E. Berkeley, and Cowan ; of 
Plums, Messrs. J. Cosnett and G. Holman ; Figs, Messrs. Barker and W. 
Gould ; Melon, scarlet-flesh, Mr. J. Aston, Rev. H. tV. Coventry, and G. 
Holman ; Melon, green-flesh, Messrs. Barker, G. James, and Cowan ; Culinary 
Apples, Messrs. Cowan, Barker, and Haynes, gardener to Mrs. Bell; Dessert 
Apples, Messrs. Barker, G. Holman, and W. H. Jones ; Pears, Messrs. Barker, 
W. Gould, and A. Edwards ; Currants, Mrs. Abell and Messrs. W. Shaw and 
T. Lawley ; and Gooseberries, Mrs. Abell and Messrs. J. Cosnett and W. 
Shaw, who in each case were deservedly awarded the prizes in the order in 
which named. 
Vegetables. —These are invariably well and extensively shown at the 
Worcester Shows, the only perceptible falling-oif in numbers or quality 
being in the classes for Peas and Cauliflowers. The best collection, consisting 
of good Green Globe Artichokes, Veitch’s Autumn Giant Cauliflowers, 
Veitch’s Ashleaf Potatoes, Dr. McLean Peas, Rtd Italian Tripoli Onions, 
and Canadian Wonder Beans, was staged by Mr. Barker, this exhibitor being 
also remarkably successful in the various classes for single dishes of vege¬ 
tables. The second-prize collection was staged by G. Holman, and the third 
by Mr. W. N. Hughes, gardener to R. A. D. Gresley, Esq., both having 
good dishes of vegetables in season. Other successful exhibitors of single 
dishes of vegetables were Messrs. T. Lawley, G. Fortey, Cowan, G. Maylett, 
T. C. Need, W. H. Jones, Freeman, gardener to E. H. Hill, Esq., J. H. White, 
Lord Hampton, Mrs. Abell, and the Rev. H. Arkwright. In the amateurs’ 
plant classes the most successful were Messrs. W. Knott, A. W. Knott, A. J. 
Beauchamp, G. H. Latty, G. Maylett, Hadley, Hughes, and Mrs. Maylett; 
while the principal prizewinners with fruit were Messrs. Maylett, W. Knott, 
A. J. Beauchamp, Pritchard, W. C. Phillips, Brindley, F. T. Firkins, and 
E. Yeates. 
Messrs. Smith ife Co., the well-known Worcester nurserymen, staged a 
collection of cut Roses and herbaceous plants, but not for competition ; and 
Messrs. Rowe & Co. and Mr. Haywood also lent a number of plants; while 
from Messrs. Cranston & Co., Hereford, came several boxes of fine cut Roses, 
including a magnificent stand of Mar6chal Niel, and Messrs. T. Hewett and 
Co., Solihull, fine Tuberous Begonias, all of which materially contributed to 
the success of the meeting. 
FOREST CULTURE. 
Teee-planting, says a daily paper, has, peihaps, ceased to be a branch 
of British agriculture. Of the old woods which once covered so much of 
England only a few patches remain. Private forests are few—the so- 
called deer forests are for the most part treeless mountain wilds—and in 
general confined to the ornamental timber in the vicinity of parks and 
private residences. The State has still, as in Hampshire, a few well- 
wooded tracts from which some revenue is derived, and of late years 
several enthusiasts have planted a considerable acreage with Larch, 
Lombardy Poplar, and the numerous ornamental Coniferm of North-West 
America, Japan, and the Caucasus. But timber as a crop does not pay. 
To plant for another generation to reap, is what Washington Irving calls 
“ heroic culture,” and even the spendthrift squire who in the plays is 
always selling the family Oaks, finds in the stern reality of everyday life 
that it takes a great many of the gnarled trunks to get clear of the Jews. 
But even from a commercial point of view, as the recent proposal to 
afforest Ireland shows, timber-planting ought to prove profitable in certain 
parts of the country, while the amelioration of the climate and the im¬ 
provement of the public health render its encouragement a question of 
national interest. 
On the Continent, however, there are still many great public and 
private forests, the preservation and regulation of which are the business 
of a department of State. As fuel and material for railway construction, 
and for various farming purposes, the forests are of no small value, while 
charcoal for the powder mills, tar and turpentine for the manufactories 
and the ship-yards, and wild beasts for the hunting parties, which, in 
France and Germany, have not ceased to be grave “ functions,” render 
the selection and planting of trees matters of scientific moment, even in 
an age when “ the wooden walls ” of the poet are buUt of iron plates. 
Thus forty-two per cent, of the surface of Russia, notwithstanding the 
vast steppes of the south, is covered with forest of some kind, thu-ty- 
three per cent, of it being land bearing marketable trees. Austria, again, 
has twenty-nine per cent, of her area forest ; Germany twenty-six per 
cent.; France nineteen per cent.; Italy eighteen per cent.; and Turkey 
fourteen per cent., though the valuable Box and other woods of the 
Ottoman Empire are being recklessly plundered, destroyed, or injured 
by reason of mismanagement, or lack of management, on the part of the 
authorities. 
A large portion of America—though by no means so large as is gene¬ 
rally supposed—is still clothed with primeval forest. Canada, popularly 
believed to be one vast forest without interruption or limit, has scarcely 
one-tenth of its surface under timber. The Saskatchewan Valley—equal 
to thirteen States of the size of New York—is chiefly prairie ; and most 
of British Columbia, east of the Cascade Mountains, is only sparsely 
timbered, though the West and Vancouver Island are for the most part 
one dense Fir forest. The Oak still exported from Quebec Dr. Lyon^, 
in the recent reports presented to Parliament, declares to be from the 
forests of Michigan and Ohio, and the Walnut and White Wood come 
mainly from Indiana, Ohio, and some other Western States. The pro¬ 
vinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia have been 
so heavily put under contribution for Pine and Spruce that unless replant¬ 
ing is undertaken a century will see the supply at an end. The timbered 
lands are still counted by millions of acres. But both in the States and 
Canada unknown quantities of coppice and s rub exist, the timber of 
which wiU not pay its own transport to the most moderate distance, while 
millions of acres still counted as forest in the statistical returns are 
strewed w'ith the charred remnants of forests or impassable by reason of 
windfalls levelled by the wild storms of former years, which have made 
mile upon mile of wood utterly useless. The recklessness of the back¬ 
woodsman and the hunter is almost incredible to those w’ho have lived all 
their life around the park-like woods of England. A camp fire is never 
extinguished ; a magnificent Cedar will be utilised for a backlog, or a tree 
will be set on fire to act as a beacon to a stray companion, with the con¬ 
sequence of acres of fine timber being destroyed before the blaze dies out. 
It is even affirmed that a fire has been ignited merely to show the 
grandeur of the scene, and allowed to burn out withoiit even a thought of 
rescue after the curiosity of the perpetrators was satisfied with gazing at 
the tremendous ravages thus wantonly produced. It is, therefore, a 
delusion to picture North America—and under this conclusion we must 
embrace Mexico, which is sulfering terribly from the improvident destruc¬ 
tion of its timber—as ready to furnish inexhaustible supplies of wood. 
The vast area drained by the Mississippi—w'hich includes more than half 
the area of the United States—is mostly treeless, patches of Michigan, 
Wisconsin, and Minnesota being the principal exceptions to this rule. 
Most of the New England and Middle States containing, until compara¬ 
tively recently, dense groves of the best Pine, are now almost wholly 
stripped of their timber ; and if we exclude Maine, which has still some 
forest, they are wasting what remains, Canada and Michigan receiving 
every year large sums for the wood which they can no longer obtain 
within their own bounds. With the exceptien of the western part of 
Vu'fiima, scarcely one of the Southern States has any White Pine, a loss 
which cannot be compensated for by an abundance of Cyprus and Pitch 
Pine. Finally, California and Nevada have—the last-mentioned State 
especially—barely enough to supply their own wants. Altogether there 
is only about 380,000,000 acres of forest land in America, while in Europe 
there is 661,000,000 acres, of which Russia represents about 469,500,000, 
with a consumption from firewood alone of probably 1,000,000 cubic feet 
per annum. 
England stands pre-eminent as the greatest importer of timber — 
290,000,000 cubic feet entering our ports every year—while we have only 
2,174,083 acres of forest, and of this Scotland alone furnishes one-half. 
No country is, therefore, so deeply interested in the forest economy of other 
lands, for in payment for timber and the great forest products—such as 
barks, paper, tar, pitch, wood oils, resin, gum, &c.—we send abroad some¬ 
thing like £20,000 000 per annum ; and if other nations on whom we are 
dependent for these articles so essential to our maritime supremacy, and 
consequently position as a first-class power, do not manage to multiply, 
and therefore cheapen, their supplies, we must make up our minds to dis¬ 
burse much more than we are doing. Timber, indeed, is one of the articles 
which have never decreased in value. It is regularly advancing, the price 
to-day being about 300 per cent, more than it was sixty years ago. In the 
United States quotations rose 100 per cent, in the eight years prior to 
1882 ; a similar advance was observed in Russia ; and in Sweden and Nor¬ 
way in thirty-five years the rise has amounted to from 150 to 200 per cent-., 
according to the kind of wood. Strenuous efforts accordingly are being 
made to re-afforest the denuded tracts, either by private or public efforts ; 
by sumptuary laws like those in Japan, which ordain that no person is to 
cut down a tree without putting another in its place, on the principle of 
the Laird of Dumbledykes, who enjoined his son “ aye to be stickin’ a tree 
—it grows while you are sleeping ; ” by bounties or during festivities, such 
as “ Arbor-day,” when the people voluntarily try to make up for the short¬ 
comings of themselves and their ancestors. Nor is this foresight taken 
one day too soon. Various regions are suffering from drought, as nearly 
every country in the world which has been improvident enough to sweep 
away its timber without thinking of the future has. The gradual desicca¬ 
tion of those once green and fertile islands of the West Indies, Santa Cruz, 
and St. Thomas, is the result of the destruction of their ancient jungles. 
The little island of Curagoa, where rich plantations, beautiful villas, and 
terraced gardens have given place to aridity and desolation owing to its 
injudicious export of valuable timber, is a striking illustration of the same 
mischief wrought along the entire coast of the Mediterranean, where a 
blight has fallen on the land by reason of the denudation of forest acres. 
The report to which we refer is full of such instances. The soil once pro¬ 
tected by the umbrageous foliage gets parched, and the rain, instead 
of sinking into the ground, rushes off in uncontrolled and ruinous 
torrents. 
In most of the German States foresters are trained for the due conser¬ 
vation and regulation of the public and private wooded areas, and colleges 
for this purpose are established in Scandinavia, Russia, France, and the 
United States, which is now so earnestly looking to the cultivation of arbo- 
ricultural science as one of the future sources of national wealth. In this 
country we have no establishment of the same character, and, considering the 
small extent of our forest^ and their almost exclusively ornamental nature, 
it would not be advisable merely to gratify an interested outcry, that the 
students selected for the Indian and Colonial forestry services should be 
kept at home instead of being sent to France and Germany, where an infi¬ 
nitely more practical instruction can be afforded them than in Scotland, 
skilful though the woodmen of the north unquestionably are. The regu¬ 
lations affecting these forests vary in almost country, though in none are 
the cutting down of even private woods in season and out of season entirely 
ignored by the State, as the various abstracts furnished by the diplomatic 
