ical equipment, to those where the chief object is to bring a number of firemen to the ground at the earliest moment, it being argued that a few trained firemen with axes and hooks reinforced with chemical hose, arriving in season, are often quite as useful as more powerful apparatus. While for the majority of alarms a chemical engine suffices, yet there is considerable difference of opinion as to their value and of course they can accomplish little or nothing in any serious situation. FLYING SQUADRONS An interesting development made possible by the automobile is the emergency or auxiliary squad formed of firemen stationed at a central station but despatched at high speed to any district on receipt of an alarm anticipating or reinforcing the regular companies due. This plan originated in Holyoke, Mass., where a wagon drawn by horses was used for a flying squad, and now with satisfactory motor vehicles has been adopted in a number of cities where reasons of economy restrict the number of regular firemen. For all purposes but the largest fires or a conflagration this scheme has been found to work admirably, though of course it tends to reduce the total number of men to a dangerously low point in view of some great emergency. Somewhat similar to such squads are the fire patrol or salvage corps maintained by From Fire and Water Engineering the insurance companies, which respond with men and tarpaulin covers to save property and reduce the water damage. For this work the same considerations of speed and economy have led to the use of motor wagons which have an increased carrying capacity for covers, and, with no horses to be watched, release an extra man to enter the building. A COMBINATION MOTOR FIRE ENGINE AT WORK (Test of a Robinson Motor Fire Engine at University City, Mo.) The use of automobiles by fire chiefs brings to the scene of fire at an early stage the most experienced and skilled officers and their trips at racing speed through large cities are familiar metropolitan sights. LOW MAINTENANCE CHARGES While motor apparatus involves a greater initial expense, yet all things considered this is not the most serious item in connection with a fire department. The maintenance of horses and men is a large outlay and often prevents many small cities and towns from installing fire apparatus which they need most seriously. Particularly is this the case in One firm of fire apparatus manufacturers for $45,000 will install four combination engine and hose wagons, two chemical engines, and a chief's car which will cover four many of the suburbs where costly villas and cottages, country clubs, hotels, or other valuable buildings of highly inflammable character are to be found. Once a fire starts these are practically at the mercy of the flames, but prompt assistance can be rendered by automobile companies, even from some distance, and the fire, if not extinguished at once, often can be confined to the building where it originates. With the successful and extended use of the automobile and the application of the gasoline engine to so many purposes, it is not strange that in the few years automobile fire apparatus have been in use it should have gained so important a place. That this use is bound to develop seems assured, as not only is increased and better fire protection afforded to many localities, but to others it enables some protection to be given where previously nothing of the kind was possible on account of the expense. times the area covered by horse apparatus with greater efficiency at an annual saving of $16,500 over the maintenance cost of the latter. KOSTER BLUE SPRUCE, AS GROWN IN THE NURSERIES AT BOSKOOP, HOLLAND (This stock is developed from our own Colorado blue spruce. See picture on opposite page) FOREIGN-BORN AMERICAN TREES How OUR OWN NATIVE TREES ARE PROPAGATED FOR US IN EUROPE BY MABEL SMITH IT is not generally realized that a large percentage of the trees planted in this country have been imported from Europe. There are nurseries in this country which grow a few native seedlings, like the western catalpa and white pine, but these are mainly for reforestation. As a matter of fact, most of our shade trees and evergreens and all of the grafted and budded varieties come from Europe. Even our native trees, such as the American red oak and the Colorado blue spruce, are propagated abroad. The propagation of young trees is a form of intensive farming which has been developed to its highest state in France, Holland and England. Owing to the milder climate in Europe and more frequent rainfall, the cuttings and seedlings root there more quickly and make a rapid growth. The difference in the cost of labor in this country and Europe, moreover, makes it cheaper to import young trees. Planting, transplanting, budding, grafting, and weeding require a great deal of manual work. In Holland they hire boys to do the weeding for sixteen cents a day, while their most experienced men get less than our common laborers. Another advantage the foreign nurseries have is the length of their transplanting season. In France and Holland there is seldom more than six weeks in the winter when the ground is frozen too hard to dig trees. Planting is begun in the fall and continued with only this slight interruption until May. This gives the planters six months to send out orders and to do their transplanting. In this country we have only four-two months in the spring, one month late in the summer for evergreens, and one month in the fall for deciduous trees. But, while the European nurseries have the advantage of us in growing small trees, condi tions in this country are more favorable for developing large specimens. Small trees require a great deal of labor, but are grown close together and do not need much ground. Large trees, on the other hand, do not require as much attention, but they must have plenty of room to develop. Labor is cheap in Europe; good land is expensive. The largest trees in the Old World nurseries are not over eight years old. In this country they require several years of cultivation before they are sufficiently developed to be planted out permanently. If these canals are a relief to the onlooker by softening the brilliant coloring, they are more in the nature of a blessing to the nurserymen. The greenish-brown stuff on them is not scum, but a form of vegetation which when dried makes a wonderful fertilizer. As every nurseryman has as much canal as he has land, he can keep his soil enriched at no expense. The The reason for the unusual development of the small area around Boskoop is the peculiar formation of the ground. At one time it was all under water and the present soil is Last summer I began my visits to the Euro- composed of rotted water plants and other pean nurseries at Boskoop, Holland about vegetation. Evergreens and rhododendrons midway between The Hague and Utrecht. make a wonderful growth in this soil. It is We motored there from the capital, as there very heavy and clings to the roots. is no railroad and the trip by canalboat, Boskoop nurserymen can transplant their though undoubtedly interesting, is slow. We evergreens in the middle of the summer, and were fortunate in having a sunny day, for if they find that their rhododendrons are makBoskoop in the sunlight is dazzling. Think of a town of 1250 acres that contains six hundred nurseries! As far as one can see are solid masses of blue spruce, golden evergreens, red and purple Japanese maples and rhododendrons of every shade from white to dark are exceedingly prosperous, as they raise only purple. The Boskoop nurserymen are so fond of color that they even extend it to their houses, which are painted pink, blue and yellow to match the trees. The coloring would be almost more than one could stand if it were not for the little greenish-brown canals which run through the nurseries in every conceivable direction and relieve the landscape. ing too rank a growth they can put a spade under them and lift them up. In ordinary soil this would kill the rhododendrons, but at Boskoop it merely checks their growth. Although the nurseries are so small they valuable trees. Their specialty is Koster blue spruce, which is the most expensive evergreen grown. It is a grafted form of our Colorado blue spruce and has been developed in Boskoop from its natural silvery color to a brilliant electric blue. As all the Boskoop nurseries grow practically the same stock, they have, to avoid too. much competition, divided their trade. Certain nurseries sell only to America, others to Germany, others to England, and so on. One advantage of this method is that the "American" nurseries grow only trees hardy in our climate and one is spared the sorrow of admiring a variety only to be told that "it is not hardy in the States." The Oudenbosch trees seem large compared with those in the French nurseries. You buy them by the height or diameter instead of by age, but the largest are not more than ten or twelve feet high. France supplies nearly all the very young trees, not only for America, but for all Europe. The principal nurseries are at Orleans. The There is not a weed in all the nurseries. soil there is very sandy and is expecially This is not due so much, in my opinion, to the suited to propagating. The nurseries all grow Dutch habits of cleanliness as to the fact that the same stock, seedlings, cuttings and grafts there is no room for weeds to grow. The of every variety of evergreen, deciduous tree trees are planted as closely together as and shrub. Of the millions of trees grown possible even up to the nurseryman's very there, not one is more than four years old. doorsteps. The Orleans nurseries are all very much The nurseries all have propagating houses alike in appearance and are characteristically where thousands of young grafts are ready to French in their combination of economy and be planted out as soon as everything is grafted; beauty. The ten or fifteen acres belonging there is no room for common seedlings. Any- to each nursery, instead of being divided into thing is sold to make room. They cannot blocks for the different varieties of trees, as afford to keep anything in these nurseries is usually done, are planted in a solid mass more than two or three years, as they must have the ground to plant again. At one nursery I was shown evergreens two and onehalf feet high as though they were quite the largest specimens that existed! The village of Boskoop is very interesting. It is entirely given over to the nursery business. Every one not employed in the nurseries works in one of the factories where they make the packing-boxes, tubs, and labels. The town boasts of three horticultural societies, and a Royal Botanical School where embryo nurserymen from all over the world go to study. One must go to Boskoop for fancy evergreens, but to Oudenbosch for deciduous trees. About fifty years ago the Looyman Nurseries, at Oudenbosch, furnished the trees for the Bois de la Cambre, Brussels. These trees have grown to be the finest specimens in any park in Europe. Since then the Oudenbosch nurseries have specialized in growing trees for park and avenue planting. They have developed a great many new varieties, such as the red horse-chestnut with flame-colored flowers instead of the former pale pink, and a wonderful grafted form of our American scarlet oak. with one path leading through the middle. Many blocks would require many paths, and thousands of seedlings can be grown in the space occupied by even the narrowest path. But they atone for the inconvenience of having to walk sideways between the rows of little trees by the beauty of their main path. This is permanently planted with large specimens of their most beautiful ever LONDON PLANES IN AMERICA (This shade tree is used almost entirely in the cities of England. It will thrive when planted in pavement) MISS EVELYN SMITH MISS MABEL SMITH THE MISSES SMITH AMONG THEIR TREES AT AMAWALK, NEW YORK greens, green, gold, and blue,-and pillars of climbing roses. Where wind-breaks are needed they are formed by beautiful evergreen hedges. Most of the Orleans nurseries have branches twenty or thirty miles away where land is cheap, and there they grow their larger deciduous trees, from three to six years old. They are very successful in growing the American oaks and a few other deciduous trees, but they do not transplant their trees often enough and do not bestow the care upon them that is given Nor are their evergreens as fine as those in the English nurseries. scribed one variety as "a graciously weeping tree, with flowers of a violaceous rose." They have no propagating houses at Orleans as they have at Boskoop. Their cuttings and grafts are grown under glass bells like those used for ripening melons. There are about a dozen little trees under each bell, and solid acres of bells. Their cuttings are rooted under sand which they cart from the nearby river Loire. The general effect of the nurseries is that of millions of little trees, all so very small as to be hardly distinguishable. They have an elaborate system of tagging and labeling, I wrote from Paris to the principal nurseries without which I am sure the nurserymen of Orleans, France, that I would arrive on a themselves could not tell one variety from certain date. When I reached the station another. Their packing houses are arranged there was a smiling person waiting, who in- with a separate compartment for each variety, formed me that he was the English-speaking and the trees ordered are dug during the member of the firm. It appears that he is fall and winter and put into the proper comalways sent when an English or an American partments. Late in the winter the planters visitor goes to the nurseries. He proudly in- begin their packing, and, as this is their formed me that he had spent four months in busiest season, such work is usually done England, and at the end of that time had at night. translated the firm's catalogue, of more than 200 pages, into English. No wonder he dc They are nothing if not courteous at the Orleans nurseries. When I said I wished to |