ture with an assurance that its success is se¬ 
cured. A few stray weeds may appear and 
will need to be hacked away now and then, 
but the trees will now do their own cultivat¬ 
ing. 
Cultivation in the sense of care will still be 
needed, however, for the plantation. It must 
be protected from intrusion by cattle, from 
the inroads of injurious insects, and from 
vermin, among which are the different field 
mice and larger rodents, and as the forest 
becomes established, or indeed from the first 
years in the prairie countries, the trees must 
be protected from the ravages of fires. All 
these cares constitute a part of the cultivation 
or culture that will be de nauded in coming 
years. IV here cattle are allowed to run at 
large, good fences will be required to exclude 
them from the plantation, for nothing can be 
more injurious to young ti'ee? than the tramp¬ 
ing incident to the pasturing, unless it be the 
damage done by their horns or their teeth. 
No domestic auimals should be permitted to 
enter the forest, and, indeed, when the trees 
have made a good stand and have been w'ell 
managed, there is no pasture for them in the 
woodland. In the prairie countries where 
fencing material is scarce the cattle must be 
kept away from the woods by herding, just as 
the fields of corn are protected. In their ear¬ 
ly years the young trees are often seriously 
injured by field mice and by the pouched 
gophers. I he former are chiefly injurious in 
plantations that have not been well cultivated 
and where the weeds aud grasses have made a 
cover to shelter these vermin. The mice may 
be driven off by sowing some shelled corn on 
the ground in the Fall, and then turning 
loose a lot of young shoats. If gophers 
abound, let them be sh it, trapped or poisoned. 
Manv arboreal insects exist, some of which 
tain trees should be planted especially for 
their benefit, even though they may have little 
other claim to a place in the forest. Those 
producing berries and seeds of a nutritious 
character should be introduced on purpose 
for the birds. 
In the forest schools of Europe great atten- 
undergrowth, like a park, and in which be 
says there is no material for a conflagration. 
The intelligent forester would not expect, in 
such a case, to find either material to supply 
the saw-mills of the present generation or a 
supply of trees for the next, where all the 
undergrowth was subdued and no succession 
of forest trees was provided for. The true 
and appropriate forestal conditions being re¬ 
moved, the original trees must soon fall, as 
they do in the tuoods pastures everywhere 
and when they are gone whence are to come 
their successors ? Without the undergrowth 
there can be no natural succession of forest 
trees. We shall be obliged to clear the 
ground and begin again by planting de novo, 
instead of adopting the favorite plan now so 
generally pursued in the best managed mixed 
forests of Germany, and there known as 
Nahcr-verjungend, or natural reproduction, 
in which trees of every age may be found on 
each acre, and where the numbers of each 
species are in the inverse ratio of their ages. 
We have been destroyers of the trees and 
need to cultivate a love for this class of vege¬ 
tation. This love with the knowledge it begets 
will do more in producing an enlightened 
public sentiment among the people thau the 
most stringent laws and penalties, which with¬ 
out such sentiment cannot be enforced against 
the culprits that cause the terrible conflagra¬ 
tions to which reference has bsen made. 
Mr. Northrop has so well expressed this 
sentiment in one of his excellent lectures that 
a paragraph will be here introduced: “By 
leading children to plant flowers, shrubs and 
trees in the school grounds, as well as around 
the homestead, and by brief lessons in rural 
art, and especially on the beauty, variety and 
value of trees, such an interest m their study 
aud culture might be awakened as to make 
our youth practical arborists. Very little 
time wilt be required for those talks which 
would be sure to inspire an interest in arbor¬ 
iculture and in the broader subject of rural 
art and adornment. In this way our public 
name and place it. As said, I am in receipt 
of a letter from him in which he says: 
* * “Mr. M. S. Bebb, of Rockford, Ill., 
who is the highest authority on American 
Willows,pronounces the “Diamond” Willow to 
be Salix cordata i>ar. vestita. While this is no 
doubt correct, it is still desirable to have the 
leaves and twigs about which I wrote you. I 
r ,.M 
LIVING.BOOM 
PARLOR 
UjQVIXD* 
Figure 200, 
(See page 437.) 
tion is wisely bestowed upon the different 
branches of natural history, and hence we 
find all the employ 6s in the woodlands, even 
to the wachtniccnner are familiarly acquainted 
with the rocks, the soils, and the flora upon 
them, the wild animals, and the insects that 
are either injurious or beneficial, as well as 
with the noble trees that are their chief care; 
and they know where each of these species 
may find its most congenial situatiou as to ele¬ 
vation and soil or exposure, as well as its prop¬ 
er associates. All this we have yet to learn, 
but we might make a beginning most advan 
tageously by directing the attention of our 
children to natural objects, which should be 
done especially in our country and village 
schools. 
Protection from the ravages of the flames 
demands especial attention, and in all countries 
■where the forest lands are properly appreci¬ 
ated, great care is exercised for their preven¬ 
tion and stringent laws are enacted and en¬ 
forced. In our timbered regions sad losses are 
frequently incurred from this cause, and the 
destruction is occasionally fearful. The 
causes of fires are numerous; they may some¬ 
times be accidental, and they may arise from 
natural causes. More frequently, however, 
these conflagrations are caused by mere care¬ 
lessness, too often by wicked wantonness, 
for driving the game, and even for conceal¬ 
ing crime as in the case of stealing timber on 
' the public domain; but the prevalence of fires 
on the grassy plains may often arise from the 
sparks of a passing locomotive, which rapidly 
l spread over thousands of acres, sweeping 
L everything before them, not sparing the set- 
* tier’s home, his timber-claim and the enter¬ 
prising farmer’s artificial grove. 
Clean cultivation among the young trees 
prevents the accumulation of combustible 
materia] to feel the flames, but this is only 
while the plantation is new. The usual pre¬ 
vention in such situations consists in plowing 
a wide strip around the grove or the buildings 
to be protected. Another plan is to figl it fire 
with file, by burning a strip of the grass on a 
still day and controlling the flames: this leaves 
a bared surface that the fire cannot pass over. 
Those w ho have large plantations or natural 
forests exposed to conflagrations will find it 
necessary to employ forest guards, such as 
were to have been provided for by Senator 
Plumb’s bill for the protection of the forests 
on the public domain; but unfortunately this 
was not enacted. The railroad plantations in 
Kansas and other prairie States will, no 
doubt, be guarded in this way, but the small 
farmer, with bis limited grove, must look out 
for himself and depend chiefly upon watchful¬ 
ness, with the precaution of the plowed or 
burned strip around his plantation until he 
has more neighbors, who will aid one another, 
and with increasing areas of improved land 
they will afford mutual protection. The mul¬ 
tiplication of cattle will also prevent the grass 
from accumulating to a dangerously combus¬ 
tible extent. 
But there are full-grown forests to be 
burned, and, as they have already been deso¬ 
lated, they may again be so destroyed. Refer¬ 
ence was made to these disasters in one of the 
earlier numbers of this series, and the details 
of such conflagrations, with their terrible de¬ 
struction of property and even of life, have 
become familial - to all readers of the daily 
papers. Such fires are liable to occur also in 
our groves, both natural and artificial, as they 
become older and more valuable. How r shall 
they be prevented becomes an important 
question, and is to be answered as before: 
by care, by watchfulness, by guards, by 
laws and penalties enforced, and by an en¬ 
lightened public opinion, rather than by the 
clearing-up plan w'hich has been recommended 
by a popular writer in a very popular maga¬ 
zine, who cites a tract of timber land in the 
Alleghanies that is kept cleared up, without 
Gkound Plan.—(S ee page 437.)— Fro. 202. 
am now - anxious to know the extent of terri¬ 
tory over which you have observed this 
plant growing naturally; the maximum size 
to which it attains in natural growth, and 
whether it grows with a single, tree-like stem, 
or has a shrubby habit, sending up several 
stems from one root.” 
To this was implied, in substance: The 
northern limit thus far, as known, is the Yel¬ 
lowstone, and the southern, the mouth of the 
Great Nemaha, on the Missouri River. It 
grows a tree-like stem, and here to a size of 
18 inches in diameter. The Indians north 
call it “Tivat,” which means durable. 
I will ask pirtics to whom I have sent cut¬ 
tings to report to me results with them. 
Brownsville, Neb. R. W. Furnas. 
POTATO GROWING, 
There seems to be an increasing interest 
among farmers in relation to the introduction 
of new kinds of potatoes. Some of the finest 
kinds which have been grown for several 
years past are now proving very unprofitable 
with many, failing both in size and product¬ 
iveness. Upon the advent of the potato beetle, 
farmers were possessed with the single idea of 
planting only the earliest potatoes as a means 
of forestalling the ravages of that pest, and 
getting at least part of a crop. We now un¬ 
derstand so well how to defeat this enemy that 
we are beginning to awaken to the fact that 
the chances for large crops are greatly in 
favor of later kinds. The short crop of last 
year was mainly due to planting the early 
kinds the first half of that season, which 
about covered their period of maturing, being 
very unfavorable on account of the excessive 
heat and protracted drought. If the same 
acreage of Burbank had been planted, it is 
safe to say that in place of a deficiency there 
would have been a large surplus. Among the 
yearly increasing number of new kinds can 
we reasonably expect to find higher quality 
than thit of the best varieties which we have 
been growing ? I believe not; but we shall 
doubtless find some with great productiveness 
united to this fine quality, and these will be 
the coming potatoes. I notice that the Rural 
favors flat cultivation instead of hilling for 
Elkvatio.s ok Cottage.— (See page 437 .)—Fig. 20L 
schools may prove a partial substitute for the 
schools of forestry in Germany and other 
European countries, which have exerted there 
a remarkable influence in diffusing a general 
interest in arboriculture among the people. 
They regard forests as their friends, and un¬ 
derstand their climatic influence and economic 
value in staying Spriug torrents, preventing 
Summer droughts, as well as in supplying lum¬ 
ber and fuel. Germans have a passion for 
nature, and love to frequent their beautiful 
groves and gardens, for parks and woods 
abound in and near their cities and towns. 
The rural and suburban adornment, now the 
pride and glory of so many beautiful towns in 
Germany, and the fruit of this revived love 
of arboriculture, is largely due to the influ¬ 
ence and literature which have emanated 
from the schools of forestry. Hence a deep 
and general interest has been awakened in 
trees and forests, and the wanton forest fires 
so common and destructive in America, are 
comparatively unknown in Germany. The 
forest incendiary would be regarded as a com¬ 
mon enemy, like the poisoner of an aqueduct, 
recklessly destroying that which it is in the 
interest of all to preserve. Like their forest 
schools our public schools, should create that 
healthful public sentiment, which constitutes 
the best possible protection of the woods.” * 
Figure 108.—(See page 437.) 
attack the foliage where they may be seen and 
destroyed by the usual methods. Others con 
sume the woody tissues aud, working under 
cover during their larval condition, they are 
not accessible, but must be attacked when in 
the perfect state, and with some of these we 
are dependent chiefly upon other animals and 
even upon other insects to keep them in check. 
With this view of preserving the balance of 
Nature we should encourage the birds, mauy 
of which are useful aids to the forester. Of 
these we find the owls invaluable where mice 
are troublesome. So are snakes; even the 
skunk is insectivorous and useful. Rabbits 
often bite off young trees and disbark those 
that are larger; they should be destroyed. 
Many of the game birds, as well as the song¬ 
sters are actively insectivorous, and this is 
urged iu their favor by all European foresters, 
although iu the countries where the proprie 
tary rights of owners are respected, and 
where the privilege of shooting is exceeding¬ 
ly restricted, the game is protected from de¬ 
struction just as the sheep and other domestic 
ritescN noor 
THE “DIAMOND" (?) WILLOW, ETC. 
A letter just received from Prof. Sargent, 
Brookline, Mass., reminds me that I have not 
written you for quite awhile. I plead absence 
und other pressing duties. 
The Rural readers will remember that 
about September last I made note of anew 
variety of willow, found in the Missouri V' al¬ 
ley, possessed of rare characteristics for that 
family of trees, and found valuable because 
of its durability. On application, 1 have 
sent, gratis, between 1,000 and 2,000 fimall 
parcel cuttings to parties resident in nearly 
all sections of the United States and two to 
France. For two seasons I have sent Pro¬ 
fessor Sargent specimens of wood, twigs, 
leaves, bloom and seeds to enable him to 
♦From Mentlculture and Agriculture, a lecture, 
by Rev. R. G. Northrop. Page 18. 
CHAU liCS 
i;or*nr 
CHAMBER 
BATH ACbM 
4F-56- 
PORCH 
ROOT 
Peak ok Second SToxtv.—(Sec* page 4S7 .)-Fjo 2U3. 
corn and potatoes. There are some views in 
favor of hilling that seem worth repeating. 
The rain settles to the roots much more 
quickly where potatoes are hilled, as it washes 
to the bottom of the furrow all arouud the 
Figure 100—(See page 437.) 
animals arc protected, by laws which make 
their destruction by poachers a felonious act. 
You are urged to protect and to encourage 
the presence of all birds, as a rule, and cer- 
> 
