1879. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



83 



That your attention will not be confined exclu- 

 sively to those trees which yield orchard fruits, 

 but may embrace also those which are simply 

 ornamental, with foliage and flowers, or those 

 whirli have their claims upon our respect 

 founded upon their many values as the source of 

 <uir timber supplies. 



It is with trees that present themselves as can- 

 did Ues for our favor in both these latter catego- 

 ries, that your attention is now solicited. You 

 are asked to consider a tree that has long been 

 familiar to you on account of its showy inflores- 

 •cence, and of another very nearly allied to it 

 which has still more showy flowers and a superior 

 habit, making a more beautiful object in the 

 lawn or on the avenue, and also constituting a 

 more noble tree in the forest and providing a 

 most valuable material as lumber, which, like 

 that of its congener, with which you are familiar, 

 is of a more durable character. Besides being 

 light, sufficiently strong, and also of great beauty 

 for joinery, cabinetware, furniture, and inside 

 finish of your houses, it is equally enduring, per- 

 haps more so. 



You may already have guessed that the tree 

 to be introduced will be the Catalpa bignonoides, 

 which will be alluded to more particularly in its 

 Western form, described and named in 1853 as 

 the variety speciosa, on account of its very showy 

 inflorescence. This may not be so familiar to 

 my Eastern friends, who will now be so good as 

 to allow it the honor of a formal presentation 

 and of a brief audience. 



"We have twocatalpas, both native, an Eastern 

 jxnd a "Western form. Our Western tree has a 

 wide habitat, stretching, according to Michaux 

 and Nuttall, (neither of whom, however, seem 

 ever to have differentiated it as our Western tree 

 planters have learned to do), from Yincennes, 

 Indiana, to southern Illinois ; the western low 

 lands of Kentucky and Tennessee, to the swampy 

 lands of south-eastern Missouri and the adjoin- 

 ing region of Arkansas, and on most of the 

 lower tributaries of the Mississippi. This tree 

 was accidentally or purposely introduced into 

 Ohio, and into at least two different and widely 

 separated localities. At first it was only known 

 as the catalpa, and meanwhile the Eastern or 

 the normal, the specific form, had been widely 

 distributed by the nurserymen and others all 

 along either side of the 40th parallel until it had 

 transcended the father of waterg. Here both 

 trees were planted together, and here it was that 

 the superior hardiness of our Western tree was 



first observed and made public by Suel. Foster, 

 of Muscatine, Iowa, on whose grounds the cru- 

 cial test of such a Winter as that of 1855 and 

 1856 was made, with the escape of the speciosa 

 and the destruction of the species. The speciosa 

 has stood for years on the high exposed bluffs of 

 the Missouri at Omaha, Nebraska, and has been 

 planted at various places on the open plains of 

 that State where the species is apt to be killed 

 more or less every Winter. 



In a few words the diflerentiation or diagnosis 

 of the variety may be presented to you. Pos- 

 sibily this newly appreciated tree may already 

 have found its way among you, though trees like 

 men, are apt to follow the star of the empire in 

 another and opposite direction. Xewly appreci- 

 ated is the word, but it was most highly appreci- 

 ated in the early part of the century by the French 

 settlers on the Wabash, and long before them by 

 the Indians who utilized it as the favorite mate- 

 rial for the construction of their canoes, some of 

 which were clear three feet wide between the 

 gunwales and proportionally long, perhaps thirty 

 to forty feet. The observant Gen. Harrison, 

 afterwards President, when acting as governor 

 of the ITorth-west Territory, fully appreciated 

 the Shavanon Tree of the Indians and used it. 

 Some posts of his planting were in good condi- 

 tion when removed after having done service in 

 a fence during forty years. Some of them were 

 re-set in another fence, and others which have 

 been chopped off for kindling, are said to have 

 their stumps still sound in the soil of the river 

 bottoms subject to overflow ; though since they 

 were planted large trees have sprung up beside 

 them having a diameter of three feet. 



I^ear the old gubernatorial mansion at Yin- 

 cennes are catalpa trees probably of Harrison's 

 own planting, one of which recently measured 

 is three feet in diameter, with a tall, erect stem 

 bearing its top branches fifty feet above the 

 ground, and having branch-width of equal 

 breadth. This is called the Treaty Tree, under 

 which he may have cemented the compact with 

 Te-cum-the, which has been followed by the 

 peace and prosperity of a wide extent of country, 

 now the great States of Indiana and Illinois. 

 The verification of this is left to the historians. 



Though a great admirer of this tree, the gov- 

 ernor knew it only as the catalpa, without botani- 

 cally observing it, and so it was reported to Mr. 

 IS'uttall, who, in his Genera, pp. 10, on the gov- 

 ernor's authority, gives this region " an indubit- 

 able habitat," for up to 1830 that distinguished 



