INDIANA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 'Mi) 



will attain useful s<ize years before other varieties are of sutiieieiit 

 size to be of any utility. Their trees in this plantation have now 

 attained such size that the catalpas are being cut for railroad ties, 

 and the company find thoy have an abundant supply for their road 

 for many years to come. 



It is well known that catalpa speciosa timber makes the b.°st railroad 

 ties of any timber found in the United States, unless osage orange should 

 be found superior. 1 believe this has not yet been thoroughly tried. 



Messrs. Binckley, near Dayton, Ohio, planted a small grove of 

 catalpa of less than an acre, setting the trees 4x5 feet, and left them 

 to do their own pruning. In twelve years the trees stood thirty 

 feet high and over, and four to eight inches in diameter. A low 

 estimate showed that the trees would make posts worth .?500, besides 

 the smaller stuff for stakes, poles, fuel, etc. That is over $40 per year 

 per acre for the time the trees were growing, which is a pretty good 

 profit on farm land where no cultivation is required after the first year. 

 I would also recommend the osage orange as a valuable timber tree. 

 This tree, found native nowhere in the wide world except along the 

 Red River, in Texas and Indian Territory, grows well in nearly all 

 parts of Indiana. It is always healthy, hardy, vigorous and free from 

 disea.se or insect pests, grows easily from seed, and transplants readily. 

 In its native locality it attains the stature of a medium sized tree. 

 The timber is highly prized for building wagons, the wood being very 

 strong, elastic and durable. It is claimed that wagon wheels made 

 from this wood Avill not shrink to loosen the tire until the latter is 

 worn out. The Indians of the southwest consider bows made from 

 osage wood more elastic and strong than from any other. Compar- 

 atively few farmers who have overgrown hedge rows of Osage where 

 they once intended to have hedges realize what a valuable plantation 

 these unsightly thickets may become by a little trimming and trainirg. 



Some recommend the coffee nut or Kentucky coffee ti'ce and honey 

 locust as valualde timber for posts. I am convinced, from considerable 

 ob.servation. that neither 's durable when in contact with the soil. 

 The coffee nuts are very difficult to collect, very difficult to get to 

 grow, not easily transplanted, and of doubtful value when obtained. 

 There are thousands of wet waste places in our State where Carolina 

 poplar and white willow can I)e profital)ly grown for wood pulp, fire- 

 wood and cliarcoal, white willow iiroducing the best charcoal for powder 

 making of any known wood. 



These trees. ])oplar and <willow, grow readily from cutings, which, 

 if planted in oarly spring in good soil, setting the cuttings deep, so 

 that otdy aliout an inch of the top end reaches above the soil, often 

 grow (5 to 10 feet high the first year. The cuttings may be planted 

 where the grove is desired, setting tln'iii 2x4 feet, to be thinned out 



