102 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
rest of the way to the base of the Sierra Nevada 
mountains, I became convinced that the time was not 
far distant when this.country would regret the wholesale 
destruction of its noble pine forests. In 1868, and 
many years since that time, I have traveled in Colorado 
and other far western states and territories, and found 
many fine forests of evergreens, but the axe and the 
fires have destroyed them, and valuable evergreens will 
never grow there again. For- several years I have 
longed for a sight of evergreen forests as I saw them 
long ago, but did not accomplish it until last year, when 
in company with my son Thomas, we spent the late 
summer and fall in the forests of Washington, Oregon 
and Northern California. Day after day for two weeks, 
in the forests around Puget Sound, going out mornings 
on steamboats to different localities, and returning 
evenings, spending the daytime in the immense forests, 
trees one to two hundred feet taller than the tallest 
trees on the Atlantic slope. Here history is repeating 
itself, and I was laughed at for my prognostications, 
same as I had been laughed at on this side of the con¬ 
tinent a generation ago. 
Where will you find your evergreen forests on the 
five hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America ? 
My belief is that you will find them where the evergreen 
forests have been cut down and burned over, for nature 
is more provident than man, and will do the best she 
can, but the evergreens that nature will produce on 
these cut-down and burned-over forest lands will be 
neither ornamental nor useful. The same fires that 
swept away every vestige of the trees and seeds of the 
valuable and ornamental evergreens open the persistent 
cones of the scrub pines, so called, that remain un¬ 
opened on the trees for many years, apparently waiting 
for the fires to open them. I have counted fifteen years 
that some of these cones have remained on the tree 
unopened. 
You have the Wisconsin gray pine, Pinus Banksiana, 
already replacing Pinus Strobus, the white pine and 
Pinus Resinosa, the red pine, in Wisconsin and 
Minnesota. 
The pine is covering the burned evergreen lands in 
Colorado and the Rocky Mountain districts, and several 
species of worthless pines occupy the burned pine 
lands, both in the far West and in the South, but even 
these worthless pines have to fight with other compara- 
tivly worthless trees for a foothold, for the aspens and 
other poplars, the willows, birches, and like kinds pro¬ 
ducing seeds that are carried long distances by the 
winds, find the burned lands in finest condition for 
germinating delicate seeds, and divide the land with the 
thistle, which delights in burned lands. Darwin says 
the oaks are driving the pines to the sands, but without 
forest fires the oaks would make little headway. There 
are oaks in every pine forest that I have explored. 
Fires cannot destroy them, they are gaining ground 
continually, as far as my observation goes. 
There are other causes operating against valuable 
evergreens. Nature has a vast family to feed, aside 
from producing seeds to continue the species. Passen¬ 
ger pigeons, mourning doves and other birds and squirrels 
must be fed. The white pines produced millions of seeds 
when the trees were in plenty ; the birds are now taking 
all the seeds where the trees are scarce. Then, again, 
evergreens with delicate foliage are not able to compete 
with the coarse kind ; they are scorched and killed if the 
sun reaches the seedlings the first year, and they “damp 
off ” if in too deep shade. I noticed this especially in 
Eastern Tennessee and in Northern Carolina, where I 
had abundant time, and could see the advantage the old 
field pine had over the white pine. When in evergreen 
forests I always have an eye on the young trees and 
seedlings, and when they are scarce I try to find the 
cause. While passing through an extensive forest of 
Pinus Lambertiana, the large sugar pine, I noticed that 
the young trees and seedlings were remarkably scarce, 
while evergreen seedlings of other kinds were creeping 
in around the edges in vast numbers. The old trees 
were bearing cones in quantity—huge cones, i 5 inches 
long and 12 inches in circumference ; squirrels, wild 
pigeons and crows were feeding on the seeds. The 
cones hang from the extreme point of the upper branches, 
bending the branch with their weight. The large squir¬ 
rels go from branch to branch, cutting off the cones, and 
then gather them together at the base of each tree ; cut 
the cones in pieces, and leave, in many instances, over 
a bushel of cones at the base of each tree, leaving not a 
single seed that I could find. In my rambles through 
the Redwoods, I noticed the scarcity of seedlings, indeed, 
I never found ten seedlings in a six hours’ search, except 
once, where there had been new cutting and filling on a 
railway track. Examining the seeds carefully I found 
about 98 per cent, abortive, but this tree has an advan¬ 
tage over all other conifers, in throwing up a circle of 
young trees around the base of each cut-down tree, 
therefore, better prepared to hold its own than any 
other valuable conifer with w'hich I am acquainted. 
When we reached the Brewer’s Spruce (Picea Brewer- 
iana), the scarcity of seedlings and small trees was 
remarkable ; but the next morning fully explained the 
cause. Squirrels were busily engaged in cutting off the 
cones, cropbills and grosbeaks were tearing the cones to 
pieces on the trees, and the little snowbirds, that are so 
troublesome on our evergreen seed beds at home, were 
picking up the scattering seeds. 
Now all of these trees known to exist do not exceed 
100 in all. In what other way can we account for the 
scarcity ? Yes ! On the five hundredth anniversary of 
the discovery of this continent there will be choice native 
evergreens in America, but, like the buffalo, the elk and 
