the air is laden with their sweet fragrance. They are found with leaves pinnate, doubly serrate, smooth, long, round; smooth above, downy beneath. Trees of straight, trim growth, ten to twenty feet high; others three to four feet, mere shrubs, but each year bearing their loads of delicious fruit. Fruit of all colors and all forms that the prune family assumes-deep red, purple, pink, deep yellow, orange, salmon, blue, green, and others almost white; the green and white varieties are almost invariably shaped like Coe's Golden Drop; and some of them are much larger in size. The yellow have more the form of Columbia and Washington; the other colors are formed like Purple Gage. All the varieties, except the red and one or two others, part readily from the stone. Where there are such immense groves of these plum trees, and millions of the young fruit set each spring, it must not be supposed that the eternal enemy of the plum, the curculio, is not to be found; here it is that their numbers may be called legion. Something over four years ago my attention was directed to a thrifty group of these trees, by finding the branches literally loaded with very large fruit, while all others were pretty effectually thinued out by the "little Turk." The fruit of these same trees has each year, since that time, withstood the attacks of this insect, and the bearing has been equal to many of the cultivated varieties. The skin is tough, not very thick, and may be pared like an apple. The flesh is firm unless very ripe, then melting and juicy. The tree, foliage, and fruit, all show a wide difference from the other native plums of Nebraska, Iowa, or Illinois. Pruning and cultivation improve size and flavor. Scions have been sent to several experienced nurserymen in the eastern States to test their qualities. When grafted upon their own stocks they require very close working, as the bark is quite thin.

As a stock, to bud or graft the plum, apricot, or peach upon, there is no better; as is evidenced by the fact that eastern cultivators, who have tested them, have sent here for their stock for the past two years. Their extreme hardihood, and their free union with the cultivated plums, will make them valuable to the fruitgrower. When grafted upon the root of this plum in winter, by setting time there is a perfectly smooth callous formed at the junction, as in apple-root grafting. A tree on my grounds, three years from the seed, bore eight hundred perfect blossoms; the same tree was pruned to an even round head, 34 feet high from the ground.

A variety with greenish white fruit has never ripened but one year in four, the fruit being green and hard when the severest cold of October came on. When picked in the fall, after the hardest frost, before the ground freezes, and put away like pears, they ripen readily. One tree that bears a round red plum, a little larger than a cherry, has invariably borne double fruit.

There are three varieties of the gooseberry indigenous to Nebraska. One, the Ribes cynosbati, a variety with prickly fruit, is of no value whatever as a fruit for man; when ripe, even birds seldom disturb it. Two other varieties are found. One bears a berry long, large, and of a deep green color, quality not first-rate. The other has been named the Nebraska prolific gooseberry. It stands two to four feet high; canes thickly set with long thin or slim thorns of a purple color; leaf very much resembling the Lancashire varieties; fruit larger than the Houghton, veined, and of a clear transparent green; nearly round, flattened very little at the ends, and possessing a rich, vinous flavor. Single specimens have been found nearly an inch in diameter. In the past four years I have examined thousands of bushes, and never found mildew upon any of

them.

A form of the Rubus occidentalis, called here the Western Black raspberry, grows along our streams and in woodlands; fruit one-third larger than the American Black Cap, where it is cultivated, the canes making a much stronger growth. Specimens sent to Pennsylvania three years ago have borne fruit, and fully sustain its superiority. Rubus strigosus, found in but one locality in northern

Iowa, and called the Elisdale raspberry, is a valuable acquisition; fruit very large, bright red, with light bloom, very sweet and rich; canes grow ten to twenty feet in a season; is quite hardy. This was first introduced to my notice by H. A. Terry, of Crescent City, Iowa.

Ribesia. There are three varieties of the currant found wild in Nebraska, none of them being of any size or flavor; but I have four varieties, found in Utah, which will compare in quality with any of the kinds in cultivation. The black and red kinds from there have borne fruit with me one inch in diameter. The white or yellow and the blue are not so large or of as good quality as the former. A lot of seedlings are showing some peculiar forms of hybridization. I received cuttings of the Utah currants from some half dozen sources; only one lot was of any value, and they were improved seedlings selected from about ten thousand plants. All of these mountain currants possess the peculiarity of being adapted to very dry soils, and make heavy crops where our cultivated kinds would scarcely fruit at all.

GRAPES.-Vitis labrusca, V. aestivalis, V. cordifolia, and many curious forms of hybridization, are found here in plenty. One or two varieties have been taken from their wild state and cultivated. They possess good wine qualities. The wine, at two years of age, is much the flavor and color of Oporto. All of these grapes are perfectly hardy. There are no varieties here that possess enough. good qualities to be called "table grapes." Some seasons many hundred gallons of the above-named wine are made from the native grape growing wild along all the water-courses. Such wine sells readily at from $2 50 to $3 per gallon. The leaf and flower of the various forms of our native grapes are a study for the botanist. A few years ago I received a letter from a gentleman of New York, much interested in fruit-growing, concerning a "tree grape," of which he had been informed by parties who had seen them on the arid plains or in the passes. It would not be out of place to state here that this grape was said to be of enormous size, and to grow upon a small shrub. I have found, by careful search, that no such grape exists there, and that what was probably taken for such, and is equally strange, is a cherry of the size of a well-grown May Duke, very sweet, melting, of rich delicious flavor, nearly oblong, and of a changeable brown purple. This fruit is set in heavy clusters, on long stems, beneath the leaves, and upon a tree never more than one to two feet high! At two years from seed it produces a most bounteous crop of these rich and luscious cherries. It is so hardy here, in N. latitude 40° 39′ 43′′, that the tips of the branches were not even killed last winter in our coldest weather. It layers as readily as the grape; will grow from cuttings and single eyes. It ripens in September. The fruit, foliage, and growing shoots, all have a waxy or varnished appearance. I have a number of these miniature cherry trees that bore fruit. the past season. Had they no other qualities to recommend them than as ornamental shrubs, there would be few finer ones; but add to this a most rich and luscious cherry, and we have a shrub of rare excellence and beauty. Plants of this dwarf mountain cherry will be sent the Department of Agriculture, to test. its quality and adaptability to that soil and climate.

14

AMERICAN FORESTS;

THEIR DESTRUCTION AND PRESERVATION.

BY REV. FREDERICK STARR, JR., ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI.

THERE are few subjects so closely connected with the wants of society, the general health of the people, the salubrity of our climate, the production of our soils, and the increase of our national wealth, as our forests; and yet no considerable interest of our country has received so little attention at the hands of the people, and enjoyed so little of fostering protection from the government.

It is my intention in this article, by a simple array of important facts and a few passing suggestions, to call the attention especially of our landholders, farmers, and mechanics to an impending national danger, beyond the power of figures to estimate, and beyond the province of words to express. If I can influence these classes but a little; if but a few facts shall be added to the present knowledge possessed by each; and if, therefore, but a slight effort be put forth by every one of them, the aggregate of interest, intelligence, and action thus obtained will be immense. There were in the United States in 1860, 2,044,077 farms under cultivation. Could each farmer, having timber on his own land, be led by the facts presented to so husband his trees, or improve their quality, or replace judiciously and speedily those removed, as to equal one-half acre of common forest each year, and if those whose lands are destitute of timber could be led to plant the equivalent of one-half acre per annum, we should either save or produce, annually, 1,022,038 acres, which would be something towards offsetting the destruction, and warding off the coming desolation.

It is feared it will be long, perhaps a full century, before the results, at which we ought to aim as a nation, will be realized by our whole country, to wit: that we shall raise an adequate supply of wood and timber for all our wants. The evils which are anticipated will probably increase upon us for thirty years to come, with tenfold the rapidity with which restoring or ameliorating measures shall be adopted. Every hour, therefore, is precious. We have, as a nation, far too long disregarded this interest. Growth is slow and restoration tedious, while destruction is rapid and injury instantaneous. Delay, therefore, is both cruel and disastrous to ourselves. Attention is, therefore, respectfully invited to the following statements:

EVILS OF PAST DESTRUCTION.

1. A great increase in the cost of fuel.-In all our cities and large towns the consumption of fuel exceeds the production of the neighboring country. It is brought from a distance, and its transportation makes its value enormous and

onerous.

The railroads consume great quantities of wood, and exhaust the supply along their lines. Steam-engines, for manufacturing purposes, are not erected in hundreds of places, simply because of the high price of fuel. The expenses of every class in the community are thus increased, but it especially oppresses the industrious poor. It diminishes their comforts, gives them imperfect cooking, inju

riously exposes their health, holds them back from a competence, and, in mere defence of life, consumes a large fraction of their earnings which else could have been used for education, purchasing personal effects, or securing for their families a home.

When the proprietors of mines will sell coal only to certain favored dealers in cities and towns, and when great railroad companies refuse to carry coal for any persons except these same dealers, their monopoly reigns supreme, and then only the presence of wood in considerable quantities can save the people from extortion, or from absolute suffering.

In any region, hamlet, or city where fuel is dear, the scarcity proves itself a detriment to happiness and an injury to business.

2. A great increase in the price of lumber and timber.-This hinders the erection of dwellings. A poor man now labors years longer to obtain the means to build a house than he did ten years ago to erect one equally convenient, valuable, and spacious. Years of his life and toil are thrown away simply to meet the enhanced price of lumber. The growth of our cities is retarded by it; small and often uncomfortable tenements are built where larger, more substantial, and costly ones would have been erected. Landlords not only charge high rents, but make the expensiveness of building an excuse for unjustifiable exactions. Tens of thousands are thus discouraged from becoming freeholders. The costliness of lumber also makes furniture very expensive, so that our countrymen must purchase poorer and less elegant articles than the same money would otherwise provide, or consume means they need for other permanent uses.

3. High rates of fares and freight charges on our lines of travel and transportation result from the increased cost of building and equipping steamboats and railroads.-Ships now cost, as regards their main material, fully double the expense a few years since. The increased price of lumber used in the superstructure of a railroad for its depots and for freight and passenger cars has added much to the capital upon which they must make dividends, or the bonds upon which they pay interest. The enhanced value of fuel also increases the ex penses of running the road, while, worse than any of these, the force and time required to move coal for the consumption of the people along the line of the road, and to convey fuel for the use of the road itself, diminishes the capacity of the road for other business, consumes machinery and labor, and interferes with more legitimate commerce. In the winter of 1864 and 1865, on the line of some of the New York railroads, the people in the villages and cities were without fire in their houses awaiting the transportation of coal, while the perishable products of farms by hundreds of car loads were lying in the depots for weeks and months awaiting transportation, and shut out from market at the most eventful times. On all the great carrying lines of our country, whether by steam-car or steamboat, this question of fuel has become one most important and vexatious as regards quantity, ease of obtainment, and price.

Among the things which are most fundamental to a nation's material growth and prosperity, we name these four-cheap bread, cheap houses, cheap fuel, and cheap transportation for passengers and freights. A nation which produces the raw material for every species of manufactures and commerce, and that at low cost-whose people provide their own houses, and raise all they consume-which can move its people, its products, and manufactures, quickly and cheaply, is in a condition to establish the most complete division of labor, and to give to every man the results of his abilities, energy, and skill. Such a nation must prosper. Its people will save and accumulate immense sums from their respective earnings; and this question of wood enters largely and constantly into each one of these four great departments of industry and living.

INCREASE OF DESTRUCTION.

The older portions of our country are, even now, drawing their supplies of lumber from the newer States. For black walnut, and some other woods used in cabinet manufactures and in carriage-building, the eastern States are already sending to Michigan and Wisconsin, while tens of millions of dollars' worth of pine are brought about two thousand miles from our upper lakes and the headwaters of the Mississippi to our Atlantic and Gulf seaboard. Foreign nations, also, are consumers of our forests. Oak and pine are exported by us to other countries for purposes of house and ship carpentry. A single gun factory in Europe, during the first two years of the rebellion, consumed 28,000 walnut trees to supply gun-stocks for the American market. This fact will give some indistinct idea of the consumption of lumber in great factories of cabinet ware, where the amount of wood required for the smallest articles exceeds that required for the stocking of a musket.

In the State of New York alone, within the ten years from 1850 to 1860, there were brought under cultivation 1,967,433 acres of land hitherto unimproved. As there are scarcely any lands in the State of New York naturally untimbered, it is probable that during those two years more than 1,500,000 acres of what had been (or was then) timbered land, was cleared for purposes of lumber and agriculture. Thus, 500 acres of land were changed from wood-bearing and timber-growing, each day, for 300 days each year, through that period of ten years, into farming lands.

During the same ten years more than 50,000,000 of acres in our whole country were brought under cultivation. But these improvements were especially made in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Texas. These States, to a greater or less extent, are dotted with prairies, or suffer from a scarcity of timber; many prairie farms were, therefore, taken up. But bear in mind, that every man seeking a prairie farm desires, in his selection, to secure small streams and as much timber as possible upon his farm, or near to it; so that, while the reckless waste which attends new clearings in forest districts has not existed in the case of these prairie farms, their owners have wonderfully diminished the very scanty supply, even while they have dealt with it with an economy almost penurious. We will allow, then, for unwooded country brought into cultivation two-fifths of the whole, (which is probably more than twice as much as was the fact;) this will leave three-fifths of the 50,000,000 of acres brought into cultivation, or thirty millions of acres, which were lands either previously or during those years heavily timbered. Assuming, as before, 300 working days in each year, 3,000,000 of acres were thus, each year, lost to treegrowing, or 10,000 acres each day.

In all regions remote from a market, and where logs and lumber cannot be readily exported, no matter how grand the forests, how excellent the timber, the trees are killed by girdling, and left to stand until overthrown by their own weight or by storms, and are then consumed by fire, yielding in return for their displacement only ashes to act chemically upon the soil, the fire often injuring the earth itself far more than the value of the ashes returned.

The land thus stripped of forests are permanently alienated from timbergrowing. In many places in the eastern States, where the mountains are too precipitous and rocky to allow of cultivation, a second growth of timber is permitted and even cherished for firewood and the making of charcoal; but arable lands, once cleared, are scarcely ever permitted to be overrun a second time with forests. In fact, destructive man so utterly robs and impoverishes his lands of timber that he destroys the beauty of the landscape, and beyond the fence of his "wood-lot" leaves no shade for man or beast.

Increasing population swells these evils. Between 1850 and 1860 our population increased 8,080,785. It is now advancing at the probable rate of over