ARBORICULTURE 



17 



Trees Growino- From Fence Posts. 



A friend in Kentucky sends us photo- 

 graphs of several catalpa trees which 

 have grown from posts which were set 

 on the Hne of the Louisville & Nash- 

 ville Railway, one of which is repro- 

 duced on page 16. The gentleman 

 writes as follows in regard to this pe- 

 culiarity : 



"I am sending you by mail photo- 

 graphs of sprout growths from your 

 right-of-way fence near here. You will 

 note the sprouts only grow on the St. 

 Bernard side ; perhaps do not take kindly 

 to railroad monopolies. 



"The incident of the growth referred to 

 is most interesting. The sprouts are 

 larger than the parent post, and within 

 two or three years will cut two posts, 

 each equal to the mother posts. The 

 best I can learn about the right-nf-way 

 fence is that it was built in the winter. 

 The location is just south of our Ar- 

 boretum, and probably }'0u can learn 

 wdien the posts were set. I presume the 

 posts were cut the previous fall. 



"Experiments are now in order to 

 duplicate what two adjacent posts have 

 •done. Make each post on your system 

 do what these posts have done, and you 

 will soon have to buy more railroads to 

 use up the crop of posts in fencing new 

 rights of ways. One photo shows dis- 

 tinctly the root of the sprout, now far 

 larger than was the mother post. 



"Note other sprouts growing from one 

 post, having escaped so far this }ear the 

 cleaning-up habit of the section man, 

 who devotes his time to killing sprouts." 



The habit of growing from "cuttings'' 

 is common to many shrubs and to some 

 forest trees, but by no means all trees. 

 The willows take root quickly when 

 placed in moist earth or sand. The pop- 

 ulus or poplar family, quite a large fam- 

 il\-, ton, mostly grow from cuttings, al- 

 though some varieties require careful 

 manipulations to induce them to take 

 root. 



Some }'ears ago, in the city of Topeka, 

 Kan., a cottonwood telegraph pole 

 budded as did Aaron's rod, and took root 

 in the streets, growing into a fine tree. 



Probably, however, no species of forest 

 tree grows so readily from cuttings or 

 posts set in the ground or from blocks 

 of wood lying on top of ground, as does 

 the catalpa tree. Throughout the entire 

 range of the catalpa this is a common 

 occurrence. Horse blocks, chunks of 

 wood placed under the corners or foun- 

 dation of houses, as well as fence posts, 

 have thus produced large trees. 



In one locality of Indiana there is a 

 row of catalpa trees half a mile in length, 

 some of them now two feet in diameter, 

 evcrv one of which was produced from 

 the posts set in the fence. One view of 

 this avenue is shown on page 18. l\ach 

 post in this line may still be seen, the 

 living tree having grown around and 

 partly enclosed the mother post. 



Near Hutchinson, Kan., is a large 

 grove of catalpa which were grown from 

 cuttings of the branches. This is a wise 

 provision of Nature where seeds, such as 

 willows and cottonwoods, are so difficult 



