September 8, 1894. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
27 
PRESERVATION OF FORESTS. 
The address of Professor J. B. Balfour at the 
Oxford meeting of the British Association has scarcely 
received the attention it deserved. The subject of 
forestrygenerally has both a local and a general interest 
to Englishmen. It has a local interest, inasmuch as 
vve are annually paying foreigners some eighteen 
millions sterling for forest produce, much of which 
might, with advantage to British agriculture, be 
produced at home. It has a general interest, inas¬ 
much as a timber famine would be felt as severely 
by Great Britain as by any country in the world. 
Experts have long seen the importance of this 
question, but there has been little, if any, develop¬ 
ment of public opinion ; and, as Professor Balfour 
said, botanists have not sufficiently directed their 
attention to the encouragement of planting and the 
instructing of practical men in the scientific care of 
forests. In the United Kingdom there was more 
planting zeal of an enlightened character at the close 
of the last and the beginning of the present century 
than there has been since. In many parts of the 
world the destruction of forest without fresh affores¬ 
tation has been immense during the latter half of the 
present century; while it is probable that in no 
considerable country has the area freshly afforested 
very much exceeded that over which the forests have 
been cut down. A great part of the timber supply 
of the last half century has been derived from the 
clearing—not merely the cutting down—of forests. 
Such areas are not now producing timber for future 
consumption. This work of forest destruction has 
been going on, not only in lands that have been 
newly colonized and where the clearing of a great 
part of the land is a necessity, but also in Russia and 
other European areas which have hitherto sent large 
supplies into the world’s timber markets. There 
has been, and is still, much careless destruction of 
forests over areas where a scientific arboriculture 
would have insured a re-afforestation and a constant 
supply of timber in the future. Person who form 
their opinion upon the subject from the 
present cheapness of timber lail to take 
into account the fact that the demand for timber 
inevitably induces the irresponsible owners 
of forest land, especially in newly-colonized 
countries, to rush their timber into the market 
without regard to the consequences that must result 
from a wholesale and permanent destruction of 
forests. Unless the Governments of the world 
interfere much more than they are now doing to 
prevent it, irresponsible private owners will go on 
thus filling the market with timber without pro¬ 
viding for future supplies, until suddenly the supplies 
are stopped because no more timber exists. Not 
only do trees take many jears to grow into timber, 
but when forests are once destroyed it is not easy— 
in some cases it is impossible—to reproduce them. 
The southern and eastern seaboards of the Mediter¬ 
ranean have been converted into arid wastes by the 
destruction of forests by the ancients. The northern 
seaboard of the same sea has also, in many places, 
suffered from the same cause. Were the areas of 
existing forests in North America, Russia and else¬ 
where to become disforested such fresh climatic 
conditions would be set up as would both be 
disastrous to those countries and would make the 
work of re-afforesting practically impossible, except 
at an exceedingly slow rate. 
That the threat of a timber famine within a 
measurable distance of time is no idle one can be 
easily proved by a few figures. If the forest area of 
Europe and the United States be taken at 1,400 
million acres and the annual consumption of timber 
of all kinds clears the timber off 23 million acres the 
whole would be used up in two generations, unless 
an equal quantity was being continually re¬ 
produced. But at present nothing like an 
equal quantity is being reproduced. This 
calculation has not taken into account the 
supplies from the forests of India and Australasia 
nor the untouched resources of Siberia. But the 
Australasian forests are rapidly disappearing before 
the axe of the colonist and the careless lumberman, 
and the development of the Indian and Siberian 
supplies will be largely used up in the constantly- 
increasing demand for timber all over the world. It 
may be imagined that the use of iron and other sub¬ 
stances in the place of timber has diminished our 
need of timber, but it is not so. The United 
Kingdom now consumes five times as much timber 
as it did a century ago, and the difference is not 
due solely to the increase of the population, for the 
percentage per individual has nearly doubled. 
Thus, what with the clearing of forests for the 
purposes of colonization, the reckless and unnecessary 
destruction of forests where the land is not wanted 
for agriculture, the ever-growing consumption of 
timber, and the neglect in many countries of secur¬ 
ing any adequate reproduction of timber, the rela¬ 
tion between the demand and the supply of timber is 
yearly becoming more and more critical. 
So far the only thing considered has been the bare 
supply of timber. But there are other and very im¬ 
portant questions connected with the preservation 
of forests. Many districts, without their forests— 
or, at any rate, without some considerable areas 
of forest land—would become arid, uninhabitable 
wastes. In France the re-afforesting of the hill-sides 
has in many parts been found necessary to protect 
the surrounding districts from drought on the one 
hand and floods on the other. One important office 
in nature performed by masses of trees is that of 
holding the balance between drought and floods. 
But to enlarge upon these points would be to go too 
far into the technical details of forestry for our pur¬ 
pose here. 
Something must be said as to the domestic interest 
which the inhabitants of the United Kingdom have 
in the subject of forestry. There is, first, the ques¬ 
tion of having to buy of the foreigner what we might 
to our advantage produce at home. No country is 
better adapted to tree-growing than the British 
Isles. If left to themselves for a couple of genera¬ 
tions they would again be what they once were— 
lands of dense forests. There are considerable areas 
now under timber culture which do not pay for their 
cultivation. They were forced into cultivation in 
the beginning of the century and at various times 
since by the temporary high prices of agricultural 
produce. Those high prices are, and will remain, 
things of the past. The world has become one great 
farm, and no fiscal regulations can for any length 
of time prevent the free interchange of produce 
between the nations. It will be a century or 
more before the population of the new countries 
consume the whole of their agricultural produce. 
Until then the agricultural value of poor lands in 
England must be low. The best thing to do with 
such lands is to plant them. Several collateral ad¬ 
vantages would be obtained were this done. At 
present the modern system of draining agricultural 
land carries oft the rainwater only too rapidly, 
producing excessive flooding of the lower levels and 
an unnecessary drought on the higher levels in such 
seasons as marked last summer. Woods act as 
sponges, retaining the rains and allowing the water 
to permeate the soil and fill the springs instead of 
rapidly flowing off, while the roots of the trees act 
as so many subsoil drains. Woods judiciously 
planted would also screen the adjoining areas. 
The great difficulty, of course, is to be found in 
the fact that planting is for many years almost 
unremunerative. As is often said, a man plants for 
his heirs. But we are the heirs of former planters, 
and should have been in a poor plight if our 
ancestors had cultivated only those crops that were 
immediately remunerative. Moreover, nature has 
now no room to plant for us, as she had in the past. 
This financial difficulty makes it necessary to call in 
either State aid or to adopt an extensive system of 
co-operation among landowners. As Professor 
Balfour said, the State can do something by way of 
example on its own lands. This example would 
stimulate private planters, but such stimulation 
would scarcely be sufficient to effect all that is 
desired. Some system of State loans, repayable as 
the woodlands become remunerative, could be 
adopted. Certain kinds of planting would very soon 
give a return. Osier growing is remunerative in two 
or three years. We import an enormous and ever- 
increasing quantity of Osiers, most of which we 
could grow at home on land otherwise of little use. 
The growth of the fruit culture has largely increased 
the demand for baskets, and other industries are 
doing the same. In the case of the timber woods, 
some return would be obtained in the course of a 
few years, and local industries would spring up near 
the larger tracts of woodland, utilising the thinnings, 
&c. 
It is indispensable that the planting be undertaken 
under skilled superintendence, and that a sufficient 
body of trained foresters be obtainable. Forestry 
ought to take the place in English education which 
it takes in France and Germany, and ought also to 
have its prizes to attract a high class of students. 
We should do for home forestry what we are doing 
for Indian forestry. But before all this is likely to 
take place a well-informed public opinion must be 
created .—A Botanist, in the Times. 
-•**- 
Hardening Miscellany. 
SENECIO GALPINI. 
From the warmer and drier parts of Africa we get 
some strange and curious forms of plant life in¬ 
cluding that under notice. Although classed by 
modern botanists with the Ragworts, it is as diverse 
in appearance from the common Ragwort (S. 
vulgaris) or any of its nearer allies, as it might 
possibly be, although structurally as far as the 
flowers are concerned they are the same. The 
foliage and all parts of the plant before it comes into 
bloom, remind one of a Cotyledon or Echeveria such 
as C. secundum glaucum. The leaves are spathulate, 
slightly channelled and keeled, stalkless, fleshy and 
very glaucous. Those on the upper parts of the 
stem of old plants are rather broader. The flowering 
stems vary from 6 in. to 2 ft. according to the 
strength of the plant, and develop numerous leafy, 
elongated branches bearing a single flower head of 
large size at their apex, seldom more. The head is 
large and rayless, that is, consists entirely of slender, 
tubular florets which are five-lobed at the mouth. 
The species was introduced from the Transvaal about 
four years ago and several specimens may be seen 
flowering in the Heath House, Kew\ The large plant 
is at once showy and very curious. The form of the 
leaves and their fleshy character shows what a dry 
climate can effect in a long period of time. Several 
other species of Senecio from Africa have terete or 
cylindrical leaves which are smooth as in S. Galpini 
or hoary, with tomentum, as in those species which 
are generally known in gardens under the name of 
Kleinias. —— 
HOYA CARNOSA. 
Seeing the note upon this plant in your number for 
August 4th, it may interest your readers to hear of 
one, which was in an Orchid-house I had charge of, 
when foreman. The house in question is an old 
three-quarter span-roof, the back wall of which is 
covered thickly with Ficus repens and small ferns. 
Intertwining amongst this and obtaining its nourish¬ 
ment from the wall through roots emitted by its 
stems, is a specimen of' this interesting plant. 
Several of its shoots reach the wires under the roof, 
twine round them, and run the length of the house. 
They look very pretty when clothed with the pen¬ 
dent umbels of wax-like flowers. The plant was 
originally fastened to the wall in a cork pocket. 
This I removed two or three years ago, and since 
then the plant has derived all its nourishment from 
the wall.— A.P. - 
THE SWAN RIVER DAISY. 
This pretty little composite, Brachycoma iberideri- 
folia, looked very charming and attracted much atten¬ 
tion in a group of plants arranged by Mr. W. Chambers, 
of the Westlake Nursery, Isleworth, at the local 
flower show held on the 14th ult. in the grounds of 
Spring Grove House. It has, as its name implies, the 
light graceful foliage of the Candytuft when well 
grown and is of dwarf habit. The flowers are of a 
pleasing shade of blue, and borne in prefusion on 
erect, slender pedicels. Its adaptability for table 
decoration was also demonstrated on the same 
occasion, the flowers being very effectively used by 
a lady.— A. P. - 
LILIUM HENRYI. 
Botanically this is closely allied to L. speciosum, 
and flowers contemporaneously with it, but although 
the structure of the two is closely similar, they are 
very distinct for garden purposes and produce a 
totally different effect. L. speciosum when grown 
out of doors is dwarf (2 ft. to 3 ft. as a rule), and 
however much coloured and spotted, the ground 
colour is always white. On the contrary, L. Henryii 
is more decidedly erect, attaining a height of 3 ft. to 
7 ft. or more, according to the strength of the bulb, 
the soil, and the nature of the season. Amongst 
Lilies it may always, like L. speciosum, be con¬ 
sidered a late summer flowering one, coming in 
