ARBORICULTURE. 



113 



How Spurious Seed is Disseminated. 



A STATE official's INVESTIGATIONS 



Editor Arboriculture : 



Dear Sir: — If ever a publication had 

 a visible, tangible mission it seems to be 

 Arboriculture. The strenuous plea i^ 

 has made for the hardy Catalpa and the 

 prodigious amount of labor it has per- 

 formed, during the few years of its life, 

 to place this tree at the head of the list, 

 in the realms of utility, reveal its pur- 

 pose to an unmistakable degree. It ha^ 

 accorded to the Catalpa speciosa an in- 

 trinsic value beyond the merit of any 

 other for certain purposes of pressing 

 importance. 



Any one who visited the St. Louis Ex- 

 position and examined the Catalpa ex- 

 hibits made by the International Society 

 of Arboriculture, in the Forestry Build- 

 ing, must have been impressed with the 

 wonderful longevity of the timber of 

 this tree, and its special adaptability to 

 railroad and otlier kindred uses. It was 

 also shown to be adapted to many of the 

 demands our civilization is making upon 

 the forest. 



It being a fact that there are other va- 

 rieties of Catalpa of great inferiority 

 and worthlessness for economic pur- 

 poses, that are far more abundant, that 

 bear seed more prolitically, and whose 

 seeds are much easier to gather, there 

 arises the temptation for honorable men 

 to buy and sell this worthless stuff to 

 nurserymen as the pure, hardy variety, 

 who in turn plant it, grow it, and label 

 it "Catalpa speciosa," and then sell tae 

 young trees broadcast over the land, to 

 the permanent injury of all planters who 



plant for utility and profit — a loss of 

 time and money irreparable in this life. 



At the present time, when railroads 

 and other corporations are casting about 

 for some species of timber suitable for 

 their purposes, when our forests are so 

 nearly depleted, when our necessities are 

 demanding 70,000,000,000 feet of timber 

 annually, when we are menaced with a 

 timber iamine at no distant day, it seems 

 simply criminal for any seedsman or nur- 

 seryman to participate in frauds, fraught 

 with so much loss, as is being entailed by 

 the seed and nursery trade in the matier 

 of Catalpa speciosa. 



The statements made at times by Ar- 

 boriculture have been very st^rig ; 

 sometimes startling, and almost past be- 

 lief as relating to Catalpa seed and nur- 

 serv conditions — so startling as to lead 

 the writer to turn his attention in th-:' 

 direction of the seedsmen and nursery- 

 men to see what he himself could see and 

 find. 



You have asked me, Mr. Editor, as a 

 member of the Society of which Arbori- 

 culture is the organ, to give you the 

 results of my investigations. In com- 

 pliance with that request I herewith pre- 

 sent you with samples from nineteen 

 firms dealing in Catalpa seed. The pack- 

 ages are all distinctly marked, with the 

 names and addresses of Smith, Jones 

 and Robinson. You will note the wide 

 range of these firms, extending from the 

 Atlantic to the valleys of the "Kaw" and 

 Arkansas, embracing names than which 

 no better known can be found through- 



