310 

FOREST AND STREAM. 


MMoodland, Zan and Garden. 
SHELTER PLANTING. 
2 ‘ 
N recalling memories of woodlaad camps that have been 
tenanted through fair weather and foul, the sheltering 
effect of the unbroken forest always comes among the most 
gratefully remembered of all the camp associations; as hav- 
ing disarmed the blast of its fiercest power, and taken 
from sleet and storm their keenest sting, and we are in- 
clined to feel that when the pioneers came, axe in hand, to 
establish lawns in the new country, that in the great arms 
of the old trees they found a source of protection and shel- 
ter that their later ‘“‘betterments” have hardly compensated 
for. Yet very few saw itso. The leaves hid the sunshine, 
the roots were so many obstacles to the plow, and down 
they came. The bark went to the tanneries, a little of the 
timber was used, while the main part was burned in heaps 
and the ashes sold. Of course it was necessary to clear 
land, but the woodman, proud of his skill with the axe, saw 
only an enemy to agriculture in the forest, and nothing but 
complete extermination satisfied him, and with untiring 
energy the work was pushed, until from corner to corner of 
many~*a farm every branch was trimmed, no shade remain- 
ing for man or beast, no shelter for the friendly birds, nor 
cover for any covey of game. All clear, bleak, storm-swept 
and bald; with the springs dried up, the meadows brown 
and baked, the wheat smothered under drifts or frozen out 
on wind swept knolls. Many and many such a farm now 
lies bare and dreary under winter’s cold and August heat, 
and the buildings stand on some hill side with no tree, shrub 
or friendly vine to clothe their nakedness. If a tree has 
been planted in a moment of inspiration aroused by some of 
the excellent rural papers, it has been used as a hitching 
frost, a hen roost, or a scratching stick for lean-ribbed 
cattle, and brier-tangled horses, and it assumes a dis- 
couraged form, bent and hopeless, showing as little grace 
or adornment as does the farmer’s wife, who is expected to 
get early breakfast, work all day, and do the mending in 
the evening while the lord of the sé/e takes a preliminary 
snore before the fire. 
Heaven may temper the wind to the shorn lamb, but not 
to the shorn land, 
The storm spirit revels over such a scene; it is justsucha 
barren as with windfall and flame he makes in his wiidest 
moods in the proad forest, and roaring and wailing at win- 
dow and door, he tells of discomfort and disaster, until -the 
farmer often comes out from a sleepless night to gather his 
scattered rails, nail up his broken fences, or long disabled 
gates and doors, and feed the unsheltered animals that 
waste their nourishment in resisting exposure. 
Graceless indeed are such homes, and yet they are all 
about, lived in from youth to age by men who exult in 
claims to represent the civilization of the century, and they 
are satisfied with an outlook that would have driven away 
the very Indians whose rude tools are often turned up to 
provoke comment and contempt. 
The glorious inheritance from the ages when benificent 
nature was untrammled has been wasted, squandered, and 
only the years that lay generations low will undo the ignor- 
ant work, which is still going on, going on because coal is 
coming in as cheap as wood, and the farmer says there is 
no use in his acres of woodland. 
No use intheir beauty! Talk not of beauty to him who 
hates a tree for the land it covers; he would shave his eye- 
brows and apply guano if the space would produce at the 
rate of one ton of nice grass per acre, and let hens roost on 
his nose if they would lay hard dzled eggs in his mouth! 
Talk not to him of the free rifts that cannot be replaced if 
once wasted. He will no. tearn the value of a tail even if 
he loses it, and until his sterile farm drives him west, out 
on some forsaken prairie, where trees three feet high cost 
fifty cents each from agents, with illustrations of how they 
will look to his children in thirty years; he will not see 
money or anything else in a tree. 
Pass such a man’s home in winter, button up your coat 
and drive fast, get home and take something to drive the 
chill from mind and marrow! Has the home of any bird 
or animal but man such a wealth of desolation? See the 
drifts that defy the shovel, and note the sod swept bare 
just by the corners. Hear the scream of the gale about the 
close cut eaves, and the rattle of the sash that clatter until it 
were better were they all filled with old hats that would 
keep quiet and veil the dreariness from the eye as well as 
ear. See the snow creep and crawl on the surface of the 
crust like a visible shiver, driven carelessly onward, and 
don’t see anything more over your wrappings until you 
come to the home of one who loves a tree and cherishes it. 
Willingly will your steed halt and be patient in the lee of 
an evergreen grove. All about from tre light undisturbed 
snow, resting like a beautiful cover ove. grain and grass, to 
the sleek animals that are ignorant of exposure, is suggest- 
ing repose and shelter. The wind whispers a more gentle 
tale in the pine tops, and when snow ‘akes fall they drop 
gracefully and coyly down, resting on branch and vine, till 
each seem again clothed in a new and more beautiful 
foilage. Winter and summer it is always a place to linger 
when the forest is near, and thrice *>rtunate is he who has 
some woodland between him and th. cold north and west. 
In summer it is a cool and shady retreat, a place for quiet 
Sunday rambles, and one where he who runs may read 
lessons of deeper teaching than may he hammered into the 
pulpit of some unsheltered church. 
From it children bring bright red willow wands and 
“pussies,” the first harbingers of our tardy spring. From 

it when the damp thawing air bears all sound with double 
richness, comes the warble of the blue bird and the whistle 
of the robin, and as the season advances, the partridge will 
drum to his mate, and myriad voices will cheer the busy 
workers on the farm. 
Sheltered among ferns the spring will glisten all through 
the long summer,and about it an unpaid gardener will bring 
flowers of the rarest hue and perfume, and even in the short 
days when the trees snap with frost, the squirrels will come 
out and print their little tracks for the childrens’ tracing, 
and the downy woodpecker, the Canada jay, and chicade- 
de-de, will give life and animation. And such a place for 
trapping when there is little to keep the boys amused, is the 
farm wood lot; how many trips will be made to it at dawn 
to see what luck? When indeed on the homestead farm 
will more memories cluster to deepen the wish—‘‘ Would 
I were a boy again,” than about the forest with the spring? 
The farms are not all bleak and bare, although too many 
remain so. Many are in intelligent keeping, and not only is 
the woodland drawn from with care for the young growth, 
but groups of strong evergreens are planted to meet as out- 
posts the most sweeping winds, and as they assume size a 
look of homelike comfort settles all about, and no one looks 
upon the cosey house free from a feeling that here the good 
offices of the forest are known and gladly welcomed. 
The lessons are spreading, and speed the day when the 
exposed farm dwellings will shrink from our gaze into the 
shadow of protecting groves. To have these valuable trees 
cattle must be kept from them; some land must 
be given up; but the grove will give more 
warmth standing in the path of the gale, than it would 
burning in the stove; the blight of the May winds will pass 
over the sheltered land, and the beautiful home will 
rank in the market many dollars higher per acre than the 
bare farm that cannot spare any land for brush and 
timber. 
No more importans question lies before us than the pre- 
servation and extension of the woodland. It meets not 
only the mind of the farmer, but is forcing itself upon the 
manufacturer in the form of fearful floods and equally ex- 
treme droughts; upon the commercial men in dry canals and 
shrunken rivers; upon the railway king with regard to ties 
and fencing, and upon us all with extreme changes in 
climate that may render our fair State almost uninhabit- 
able. 
Legislatures, selfish as they are, must face the question, 
but in the mean time let us honor and encourage him who 
plants a shelter, and brings back a little of what has fled 
before ignorance and waste. is DW du: 
oo 
—England imported last year the enormous amount of 
£14,603,479 of lumber. From Russia she received timber 
to the amount of £2,148,973, and from the United States, 
fully one-fourth of the whole amount, representing timber 
to the vast sum of £4,221,420. The timber used specially 
in England for mining purposes, is alone an extensive busi- 
ness; this wood comes principally from Sweden, Russia and 
France. : 
—_ ro 
A DISEASE-DESTRORING TREE.—M. Gimbert, who has 
been long engaged in collecting evidence concerning the 
Australian tree Eucalyptus globulus, the growth of which 
is surprisingly rapid, attaining besides gigantic dimensions, 
has addressed an interesting communication to the Academy 
of Sciences. This plant, it now appears, possesses an ex- 
traordinary power of destroying miasmatic influence in 
fever-stricken districts. It has the singular property of ab- 
sorbing ten times its weight of water- from the soil, and of 
emitting antiseptic camphorous effuvia. When sown in 
marshy ground it will dry it up in a very short time. The 
English were the first to try it at the Cape, and within two 
or three years they completely changed the climatic condi- 
tion of the unhealthy parts of the colony. A few years 
later its plantation was undertaken on a large scale in var- 
ious parts of Algeria. At Pardock, twenty miles from 
Algeria, a farm situated on the banks of the Hamyze was 
noted for its extremely pestilential air. In the spring of 
1867, about 13,000 of the eucalyptus were planted there. In 
July of the same year—the time when the fever season used 
to set in—not a single case occurred; yet the trees were not 
more than 9ft. high. Since then a complete immunity 
from fever has been maintained. In the neighborhood of 
Constantine the farm of Ben Machydlin was equally in bad 
repute. It was covered with marshes both in winter and 
summer. In five years the whole ground was dried up by 
14,000 of these trees, and farmers and children had excel- 
lent health. At the factory of the Gue de Constantine, in 
three years a plantation of eucalyptus has transformed 
twelve acres of marshy soil into a magnificent park, whence 
fever has completely disappeared. In the island of Cuba 
this and all other paludal diseases are fast disappearing 
from all the unhealthy districts where this tree has been in- 
troduced. A station house at one of the ends of a railway 
viaduct in the Department of the Var was so pestilential 
that the officials could not be kept there longer than a year. 
Forty of these trees were planted, and 1t 1s nuw as healthy 
as any other place on the line. We have no information as 
to whether this beneficent tree will grow in other than hot 
climates. We hope that experiments willbe made to deter- 
mine this point.— Medical Times and Gazette. 

—The skin of an animal, whether cow, calf, colt or 
horse, that dies on the farm, is worth more at home than 
at the tanner’s. Cut it intonarrow strips, and shave off 
the hair with a sharp knife before the kitchen fire, or in 
your workshop on stormy days and evening. You may 
make them soft by rubbing. A rawhide halter strap an 
inch wide will hold a horse better and last longer than an 
inch rope. It is stronger than hoopiron and more durable, 
and may be used to hoop dry casks and boxes, and for 
hinges. Try it on a broken thill, or any wood work that has 
been split. Put it on wet and nail fast. Thin skins make 
the best to use it in its natural state. For other purposes it 
may be dressed. 


dlatural History. 
TRAPPING A CUNNING FOX. 


Weston, VA., December 13, 1873. 
Epivror Forrest AND STREAM :— 
Some time last summer I saw a copy of your paper, and 
was greatly pleased with it, but being poor (an invalid sol- 
dier of the Mexican war) I was unable to subscribe for it. 
Iam a trapper, and as the season is over, and I am shut 
up with snow here in the mountains, I thought I would 
try my ‘‘’prentice hand” on a sketch for your paper. 
Not many years since I was trapping foxes and other 
game in Londonderry, a town in the Green Mountain State, 
and the following account of my experience with a cun- 
ning fox may perhaps intesest some of the readers of For. 
EST AND STREAM. My style of trapping foxes at that time 
was to set in water, preferring a warm cpen spring, placing 
the trap beneath the surface and near the shore. The best 
of springs will sometimes crust over near the shore in very 
cold weather, especially if there is no snow upon the 
ground. Itwas on such an occasion I one morning discov- 
ered that a large dog fox had got into one of my traps, and 
the ice prevented the jaws closing tight enough to hold 
him. I felt somewhat chagrined, as any sportsman will 
readily believe, and came to the conclusion that the old 
fellow would give me trouble; nor was I mistaken. He 
soon commenced springing that trap, apparently by reach- 
ing over and under and throwing it out upon the shore, 
and after a while would spring it by dropping pieces of 
wood upon the trencher, and before the season ended I 
found sticks standing upright between the jaws, showing 
plainly that he knew how it was himself. On every occa- 
sion he would regale himself with the bait, or at least drag 
it out upon the shore. His visits were not very frequent, 
so that I had opportunities for getting other foxes. 
The next season reynard plagued me as usual, and still the 
third season found him alive, as mischievous and cunning 
asever. Now, it must not be supposed that I was not alive 
to the necessities of the occasion, for in fact I exercised all 
my skill in trying to outwit him, and I enjoyed it, too. In 
truth, there is nothing a trapper likes so well as meeting 
with a cunning fox. There isan excitement about it that 
lends an additional charm to the sport, for you are com- 
pelled to draw on your every resource and originality, and 
when you have triumphed, asin the end you must, you 
feel a greater pride than in taking a dozen ordinarily. 
But to my story. Whenever he visited my trap he inva- 
riably crossed my route, and as I well knew his track I 
could tell in advance when my trap was to be sprung. Of 
the many ways I adopted to catch him it were needless to 
state; suffice it to say that I used’ several traps at the same 
time, and he invariably sprung them all. But one day, as 
I stood gazing at his work, a plan occurred to my mind as 
if by inspiration. I set one trap, and at the next visit I had 
my game. When he saw me approaching he commenced 
to bark and jump furiously towards me. It seemed to me 
he felt enraged that I had outwitted him, and although I 
felt elated, still [could not but regret his fate, for he seemed 
so human in his intelligence. He had gnawed the trap till 
his jaw was worn through in front. That he was a patri- 
arch among foxes was evident. Not atooth had he left. 
His weight was fourteen pounds, and he measured four 
feet six inches from tip to tip. C. L. WuHiTmMan. 
——————————~e——____ 
—Tue Rocky Mounrary Hare.—The Rocky Mountain 
hare is arare species in Colorado. I saw but four during 
four months collecting in the Rocky Mountains. I do not 
know of any live specimens in a state of domestication. In 
the winter they descend the mountains and feed in the quak- 
ing aspen groves on the side hills in the valleys. During 
the summer months, they are found feeding on the out- 
skirts of thick heavy timber, generally on the high- 
est mountains. They breed in June, and do not burrow; 
and are very shy animals. Perhaps C. W. Derry, of 
Granite Lake county, Colorado, can trap one alive. They 
are known to him as the Mountain Jack Rabbit or Hare. 
Yours, truly, J. H. Barry. 
Baru, Krine’s Co., N. Y. 
ee _____. 
DO SNAKES HISS? 
ee ge 
BautmmoreE, Dec. 17, 1873. 
Eprror Forest AnD StREAM:— 
In reply to the question, ‘‘do snakes hiss?” I can assure 
your correspondent they do. In September, 1864, I twice 
heard it, and each time had my attention directed to the 
snake by the sound, and then saw and heard him repeat it. 
The snake was the Heterodan Platirhinos, vulgo, hog nosed, 
snake, and in the country where I saw it, Baltimore Co., 
Md., viper. Dr. J. E. Halbrook, in his Herptology, 4th vol., 
sixty-ninth page, says of this species, that when irritated it 
coils itself as the rattlesnake does, erects its head, which it 
waves to and fro, and hisses. I think I have heard other 
species hiss, but cannot remember time and place. 
Yours, truly, G. H. Moran. 
Oo 
—Connected with the new citadel at Strasburg is a pigeon 
house, with accommodations of the most approved deserip- 
tion for 500 carrier pigeons, to be ready in event of war 
Are we in England, asks Broad Arrow, to rest so well satis- 
fied with the omnipotence and omnipresence of telegraph 
wires as to neglect entirely the homing pigeon? In Ger- 
many, the War Department is wise enough to organize a 
pigeon loft in its important garrisons, but in England it is 
evidently to be left to private enterprise to encourage 
pigeon flying in Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Chatham. 
Some time since we endeavored to provide the means of 


