252 PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 



The Illinois Central Railway made careful investigations in regard to 

 prospects of obtaining cross-ties by planting Catalpa trees and decided to 

 make some experiments. A tract of 200 acres at Harahan, La., eight miles 

 from New Orleans, was selected and 110,000 trees were planted in spring of 

 1902. They are now twenty-five feet in height. This location was an old 

 sugar and rice plantation. The trees were planted to correspond with the 

 peculiar method of laying out sugar land in this low alluvial country. The sugar 

 rows are seven feet apart, on ridges, deep furrows between the rows carry off 

 the water. The trees were planted on alternate ridges, being fourteen feet 

 apart, and seven feet distant between trees. 



DECAY OF THE CATALPA. 



Discarding all scientific explanations a little common sense will show 

 why a tree, the wood of which is so extremely durable, often decays while it 

 is growing. As shown by the chemical analysis of Catalpa wood, there are 

 antiseptic substances gathered from the soil and built into the tissues of the 

 wood which resist the action of those fungii which cause decay. While the 

 tree is full of sap and these resinous and oleaginous materials are greatly 

 diluted, they have not such resistive powers as when concentrated and have 

 dried or become fixed in the wood, as when so fixed they can only be dissolved 

 with alcohol or other powerful dilutent. Water will not dissolve them. 



It is a peculiarity of the Catalpa that the dead branches remain on the 

 tree for many years, each annual growth enclosing them. Gradually these 

 branches admit air and moisture bearing germs of decay which attack the 

 diluted sap, and a rotten heart is the result. A wound made at the time of 

 flowing sap does not heal quickly, while in winter the same wound dries and 

 with next season's growth it becomes covered with new wood. 



Posts made from young timber, if cut while full of sap, decay sooner than 

 those cut after cessation of flow. 



Well matured wood, thoroughly dried, and even young trees well sea- 

 soned are remarkably durable in other words resist decay. 



Catalpa speciosa trees in the forest show little symptoms of disease or decay. 



SUMMARY OF THE CATALPA SITUATION. 



From thirty years' study of the Catalpa speciosa as an economic tree, 

 making a thorough examination of the various plantations of the United 

 States, investigating conditions under which this tree is growing in almost 

 every state, and thoroughly searching the remaining forests in which the 

 Catalpa is indigenous, my conclusions differ very materially in many important 

 particulars from those expressed in the recent publication of the U. S. Forestry 

 Bureau. 



(1) First in importance, and a point ignored in the authoritative Govern- 

 ment Report, is the absolute necessity of securing good and true seed of 

 Catalpa speciosa. Otherwise there can only be dismal failure. 



(2) No trees succeed as well on poor soil as on that of good quality, and 

 it is economy to plant on land of fair fertility, if one has a choice of locality. 



(3) With the best of soil, under the most favorable conditions of climate, 



