ARBORICULTURE 



115 



THE DESTRUCTIVE TEREDO. 



In the warm waters of sub-tropic 

 countries ocean piling, wooden ships, and 

 various articles of wood are soon de- 

 stroyed by the work of the teredo, a 

 boring worm which is classed as a mol- 

 lusk or shell-covered worm in saline 

 waters. These borers are very abun- 

 dant in Pensacola Bay, where the great 

 ocean docks become undermined, the 

 piles being eaten and hollowed out bv 

 their boring, while great expense must 

 be met in frequent replacement of these 

 foundation timbers, or in some way pro- 

 tecting them from the mollusks. 



But few woods will resist the attacks 

 of teredos ; palms, which have little 

 strength to support great weights, being 

 the principal wood which is exempt. 



Some years ago we conceived the idea 

 that a timber which resisted the efforts 

 of borers on land, and which was anti- 

 septic by nature, would also be able to 

 resist the gnawings of the teredo in the 

 ocean, and so we arranged with the offi- 

 cials of the Louisville & Nashville Rail- 

 way Company to make a practical test 

 beneath the company's coal docks in 

 Pensacola Bay. 



We procured a small tree of Catalpa 

 speciosa in the Wabash Valley, Indiana, 

 and sent it to Mr. M. E. Batts, Road- 

 master of the Pensacola Division, L. & 

 N. Ry. Co., who placed it in the water 

 underneath the coal docks in the spring 

 of 1904, where it has remained ever 

 since, in company with many other speci- 

 mens of wood. In April, 1906, Mr. 

 Batts wrote me that so far the wood had 

 not been penetrated by the teredo. 



Usually timbers are attacked within 

 six months, during the warmer season, 

 and as this Catalpa tree has safely passed 

 through two seasons of hot weather, it 

 is fair to presume that our theory is cor- 



rect, and that the wood will prove ex- 

 empt from puncture by worms of land, or 

 worms of the sea, as it is from the subtle 

 fungus germs of decay. 



Should this eventually prove to be cor- 

 rect, it will add another most valuable 

 quality to this important Indiana tree 

 which the United States Government is 

 spending so much money to dissuade 

 railways from planting. 



SOUTHERN SWAMP JUNIPER. 



The juniper family is quite a large 

 one, comprising several trailing varie- 

 ties, the savin, etc., which never rise to 

 a height greater than four feet. The 

 red cedar* or Juniperiis virginiana, is 

 well known, and has often been, men- 

 tioned in Arboriculture;. In the Dis- 

 mal Swamps of Virginia and North Caro- 

 lina is a valuable swamp growth of the 

 juniper. 



In Southern Alabama and Western 

 Florida we find the swamp juniper in 

 considerable quantities, which is being 

 cut for telegraph poles. At Flomaton 

 Fla., recently we examined a large num- 

 ber of these poles, the trees being along 

 the Escambia River near by. 



One pole, 11 inches diameter at butt, 

 and 6 inches at top, 22 feet in length, 

 we found to be 40 years old ; another, 

 12^ inches at butt, was 35 years' growth. 

 One, 10 inches diameter, 25 feet long, 

 had grown in 30 years, while in 38 years 

 another had grown to 12^ inches diam- 

 eter, making a pole 25 feet long. This 

 tree, at 10 years, was 4^ inches diam- 

 eter. Several 60-feet poles, 24 inches 

 diameter, had grown in 50 years. 



Here we have the data for a problem 

 in timber planting: given a swamp of 

 little value, how much money can be 

 profitably expended in planting Juniper 

 trees for a thirty- to fifty-year invest- 



