24 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[January , 



particular variety of Catalpa ; and it leads us more 

 than ever to suspect that there is something be- 

 neath it all that does not appear on the surface. 

 The common Catalpa, to our personal knowl- 

 edge, is entirely hardy up to latitude 43'', which 

 is pretty well north, and longitude west 113°, or 

 one thousand miles inland from the sea coast, 

 which is tolerably well west. The line of its 

 perfect hardiness may probably tend . a little 

 southwesterly, after this cutting off, perhaps a 

 portion of Wisconsin and Iowa, in which per- 

 haps the common form will not stand. But be- 

 cause it will not stand out well in this out of the 

 way little corner, it is to be called " the tender 

 Catalpa." If everything in the Union is to be cal- 

 led '■• tender," that will not stand the Winters of 

 Iowa, weo cannot to soon revise our lists of hardy 

 things. In the statement that there is a variety 

 of Catalpa which is hardier in Iowa than the 

 common form, we have heard no one object, and 

 we do not see why more than this should be 

 urged. 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



Price of R. R. Sleepers. — A correspond- 

 ent from Boston, says : "You must take a more 

 ros}' view of the numljer of trees that are going 

 to be planted, than I can, if you think the price 

 is going down. Unless time steps in, I expect 

 to see their average all over the country, S2.00, 

 within twenty-five years. The number used up 

 annually, will soon be ten times as great as at 

 present, both on account of increased mileage, 

 and also, and more especially on account of in- 

 creased traffic. I have been giving much study 

 to this sleeper question, of late, in behalf of 

 Western R. R. planting, and 1 think I begin to 

 see daylight ahead." 



And another says : "I would call your atten- 

 tion to the fact, that already we have over 85,000 

 miles of railroad track in the country, which, at 

 the very lowest estimate, consume 34,000,000 

 sleepers every year, or the growth of something 

 like 60,000 acres. Now how long do you sup- 

 pose it will be, before the American people will 

 plant annually 00,000 acres for sleepers? If 

 they don't do it, the price will rise, and rise 

 enormously, as you will live to see. But very 

 soon now, either the railroads themselves, or 

 companies of capitalists will go into tree plant- 



ing on a large scale ; and then we shall have- 

 an American forestry, for which so many people 

 are setting out, without the slightest idea of what 

 they want, or what forestry means." 



[We are very glad that our remarks have 

 called out these observations. There is nothing 

 likely to be more profitable in the future than 

 timber for railroad supplies, and it is well worth 

 while to do what is done, understandingly. 

 There is nothing truer as a principle in business, 

 that the moment anything is found to be scarce 

 and high priced, there is a rush to supply it 

 that pulls down prices. It takes of course, 

 longer to supply the deficiency in a short timber 

 supply than almost anything else ; but still a 

 judicious selection of trees to suit soil and clim- 

 ate, would give our country all the sleepers 

 wanted in ten years' growth. Railroad Com- 

 panies are already looking forward, in many 

 cases, to their timber supplies ; and some of 

 them are planting largely ; and this will tend to 

 cut down our friend's annual 60,000 acres. One 

 of the leading Eastern railroad lines, as we are 

 credibly informed, had this matter before it 

 last year, and the appointment of some one to 

 look after the interest talked of, and it only fell 

 through because it appeared that the gentleman 

 they had thought of to work up the matter was 

 not disposed to accept the position for the honor 

 of the thing. But we are quite sure that long 

 before ties bring $2.00 each, such a thought will 

 take some practical form. And then there is 

 this to be said, that the 60,000 acres annually cut 

 over for ties, are not all cleared. An immense 

 area of this acreage grows up again in timber, 

 and especially is the case along the great Alle- 

 gheny ridge. In Pennsylvania, nearly one-fourth 

 of its whole area is in timber \ and it always will 

 be in timber because the land is too steep and 

 rocky for anything else. To our knowledge 

 there are many tracts of timber land that have 

 already been cut over twice since the settlement 

 of the State, and have now timber fit for the axe. 



It has been the writer's good fortune to form 

 some acquaintance with the forests of Vir- 

 ginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and other States, 

 wherein there are now millions of acres of 

 timber, the greater portion of which will not 

 bring S5 per acre to-day. Long before ties 

 bring $2 each would it be to the interest of 

 railroad companies to carry tracks through this 

 Avooded region, if for no other purpose then to get 

 from these arboreal mines the rich treasures they 

 offer. And this region will always be in timber 



