ARBORICULTURE 



385 



Catalpa, One Season's Growth, Yaggy Plantation. 

 Height, 12 Feet. 



There are many other large catalpa 

 farms, while many farmers have from five 

 to ten acres each, to keep up a supply of 

 posts and firewood. 



It was at Hutchinson that S. T. Kelsey, 

 thirty-five years ago, planted one of the 

 experimental forests for the Santa Fe Rail- 

 way. In these experiments a large variety 

 of timber trees were planted. Long years 

 of neglect have caused the loss of almost 

 every kind except cottonwood, catalpa and 

 honey locust, which have vitality to main- 

 tain existence under unfavorable condi- 

 tions. 



The phenomenal success of the catalpa 

 in these early experiments have led to the 

 planting of so many forests and groves in 

 Kansas. 



Richmond, Ind., Sept. 5, 1903. 

 Mr. John P. Brown: 



I am glad to know that the work in 

 which you are engaged is receiving atten- 

 tion from many new sources, and I cer- 

 tainly hope that our State of Indiana will 

 be benefited especially, from this agitation. 



I have just returned from a trip through 

 Europe and after seeing that beautiful 

 country with its fine forest and parks and 

 splendid roads almost invariably lined with 

 trees I am more than ever impressed with 

 the need of our country in that line. 



I enclose a contribution to help the work 

 along. A. H. B. 



THE MENACE OF THE FOREST. 



The climatic history of the Old World 

 will repeat itself in America. If forest 

 destruction, at its present rate of reckless- 

 ness, should continue much longer, our 

 continent will have to dry up. So will an 

 orator who should venture to urge that 

 fact upon a boodle legislature, in this era 

 of lumber trusts. But the fact remains, 

 and its significance may be inferred from 

 the experience of the Mediterranean coast 

 lands, where thousands of god-gardens 

 have been turned into Gehennas of wretch- 

 edness and desolation. By tree destruc- 

 tion alone a territory of 4,500,000 square 

 miles has been withdrawn from the habit- 

 able area of our planet. The physical 

 history of the Eastern hemisphere is the 

 history of a desert that originated some- 

 where near the cradle of the Caucasian 

 race— in Bactria, perhaps, and, spreading 

 westward and southward, has blighted the 

 Edens of three continents like a devouring 

 fire and is now scorching the West coast of 

 Africa, and sending its warning sand clouds 

 far out to seaward. — Dr. Felix L. Oswald, 

 in National Magazine. 



The value of the forest is illustrated 

 during the present summer by the flow of 

 water in the Platte which is now only 103 

 cubic feet per second, whereas normally 

 this season of the year the flow is 350 feet 

 per second. There has been no cutting of 

 ditches and as the snow fall was as heavy 

 as usual the only explanation lies in the 

 destruction of the mountain timber with 

 the result that the snow was exposed to 

 the sun and melted early in the year. — 

 The Colorado Real Estate News. 



