PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 373 



ing by railways would in time become necessary, and that the catalpa had all the 

 essential qualities for railway timber, and two hundred acres were devoted to this 

 experiment. 



The road had largely been constructed upon ties of catalpa, all the telegraph 

 poles of this wood were used so far as they could be procured, while no other 

 timber was purchased for fence posts in the region where they existed. 



Seeds of Catalpa speciosa from the Wabash Valley had floated down the Ohio 

 and Mississippi rivers, and been carried to the interior by the overflowing back 

 waters, and some of these trees were growing along the railway line ; while the 

 southern or bignonioides catalpa existed in Arkansas and Missouri. Thus both 

 varieties were present in this locality, and, of course many hybrids. At this 

 period the varieties had not been classified ; they were called indiscriminately 

 catalpa. 



Unfortunately the seed for this first experiment were purchased from seeds- 

 men, who had imported from Japan the small ornamental variety, kcmpferii, and 

 after years of waiting, obtaining only shrub growths, the plantation was aban- 

 doned and .nostly destroyed. While this Japanese variety yet remained a seed 

 firm gathered thousands of pounds of seed, which was distributed throughout 

 Europe and America under the impression that it was the great forest tree, 

 Catalpa speciosa. 



The demand for catalpa seed which followed the agitation about thirty years 

 ago also caused the distribution of vast quantities of bignonioides seed, while the 

 difficulty and expense of gathering seed from large trees, a hundred feet in height, 

 discouraged the distribution of the true variety. 



The next plantation, six hundred and forty acres, was made at Farlington, 

 Kans., by Mr. H. H. Hunnewell, for the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Gulf Rail- 

 way Company, now part of the Frisco system. The mistake was made here of 

 too close planting, twenty-seven hundred trees per acre, and the constant refusal 

 of the manager to thin them and allow sufficient space for the trees, although I 

 have urged them to do so frequently during the past eight years. 



During the past year, under a new management, $100,000 worth of fence 

 posts have been removed. Instead of $100,000, which has been the income after 

 twenty-five years' waiting, had the trees been planted at a greater distance, so they 

 could develop, five hundred and forty-four thousand first-class cross-ties should 

 have been produced, worth half a million dollars. 



The next experiment was made by the Pennsylvania Railway Company 

 eighteen years ago on the lines in Indiana, the wrong varieties being purchased. 

 They were planted in hard, unplowed ground along the track, on right of way, 

 where the telegraph linemen destroyed their usefulness by cutting to prevent in- 

 terference with the wires. The prominence of this row of two hundred thou- 

 sand trees, mutilated, struggling against both man and nature, has been a serious 

 drawback to the progress of timber planting, and has deterred the engineers of 

 the Pennsylvania Railway from making other more rational efforts at catalpa 

 growing. 



Mr. L. W. Yaggy planted five hundred acres of catalpa some dozen years ago 

 on his farm near Ilutchinson, Kans. This has been one of Mr. Yaggy's most 



