no 



A hedge <>f Osage orange \vas planted around the entire section, and is 

 doing well. 



The catalpas have made the greatest improvement, especially the year- 

 lings, and in my judgment it is economy in time and expense to plant 

 none older than one year. The Qsage orange tree does very well in this 

 climate, but is of slow growth. 



I planted seeds enough last Spring to grow 30,000 plants; 5,000 came to 

 maturity, and have grown from one to four feet. 



European larch all dead; do not think they will prosper in this climate. 



The box elders look well, but I do not know that they are of much 

 value when grown. 



The catalpa has certainly proved to be the strongest grower and most 

 tenacious, standing the dry weather better than other varieties, and at 

 present rate will come to maturity years before other varieties are of suf- 

 ficient size to be of any utility. 



The evergreens planted were too large, being 3 to 4 feet high, and the 

 wind having such pressure on the large foliage, caused them to become 

 loose in the ground, which allowed the air to circulate around the roots, 

 thereby killing them. 



A limited number of ornamental trees would be desirable, and I think 

 if very small ones were set out they would thrive. 



(Signed) J. M. BUCKLEY, R. M. 



George H. Nettleton, Receiver of the road, writes that in 

 November last, 128,000 more trees, purchased by the president 

 of tbe road, were being planted ; of these, 100,000 were catalpa, 

 of the early blooming, Speciosa, or hardy variety. 



CATALPA IN ICE. 



A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer, writing from Stillson, Cherokee 

 County, Kansas, says that region has been visited by a severe storm that 

 loaded' all the trees with ice. Many trees and shrubs, too tender to 

 "stand the pressure," broke beneath 'the enormous weight of ice. "In 

 the forests," says the writer, "the Lombardy poplars arid the cotton 

 woods suffered the most; they are badly broken. The ground is well 

 strewn with their tops and branches. The maples being more elastic, 

 would bend without breaking. Some of them, twenty feet high, bent 

 until* their tops touched the ground. A row of Lombardy poplars along 

 the road-side were so stripped of their branches and tops that they looked 

 more like telegraph poles than trees. The catalpa seemed to be the only 

 tree that escaped the injury. The weight of ice seemed to have no effect 

 on them. They neither break nor bend, in my forest, where they have 

 grown tall and 'straight; they stand perfectly upright, while the trees all 

 around them are bent or broken. The power to stand up under such a 

 great weight of ice is another thing that will recommend them as a tim- 

 ber tree." 



The following letter from 1). Axtell, Sup't of the Missouri 

 Division of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain cv; Southern Railway, 

 is of much interest : 



CHARLKSTOX, Mo., Ffh. /,', '79. 

 E. E. BARNEY: 



Dear N/'r: There is nothing to indicate that the catalpa tics in our 

 track, near Charleston, Mo., do not hold spikes sufficiently well. Nearly 

 all the spikes are in the same holes originally made when driving them, 



