214 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Secretary and Mr. G. A, Marshall, who so ably helped install 

 the exhibit and eai'e for it during the exposition. 



Mr. President : The next topic on our program is a dis- 

 cussion of the fence posts of the future. 



Mr. Youngers was called for and spoke as follows : 



THE FENCE POHTt^ OF THE FUTUKE. 



I didn't know that 1 would be called upon, and I wasn't 

 expecting to speak on this subject. 1 believe it is a good idea 

 to plant for fence i^osts and I don't believe it is very material 

 what kind of a tree we plant. I want to say that when I was 

 at St. Louis a few years ago I had the pleasure of viewing a 

 lot of experiments by the Government. They used the wil- 

 low, maple, and cottonwood. They had tested them by bury- 

 ing them six or seven years under the ground and those posts 

 were taken up and used there in that experiment. They were 

 perfectly sound at that time. It did not seem to make much 

 difference what kind of a tree you used, whether it was' the 

 willow, ash, maple, or cottonwood, provided you got the ma- 

 terial thoroughly saturated. The catalpa seems to be a good 

 kind of fence posts. We have records in Indiana where that 

 tree has been used for forty to sixty years, and the fence posts 

 are still solid without any form of treatment. 



Mr. Brown : In the Government tests were the posts buried 

 completely under the soil? 



Mr. Youngers : Some of them. The tender point of the 

 fence post is right at the ground. Some of the posts were 

 completely covered, others were not. They had different ex- 

 periments on them. 



Mr. Stevens : Some years ago I saw planted two miles of 

 catalpa trees on contract, and I had to carry with me to show 

 samples of fence rails that had been in use for fort}^ years — 

 sections of trees from southeast Missouri. In our own plant- 

 ing we found that west of North Platte the tree is liable to 

 grow up rapidly and don't know when to quit in the fall of 



