r TACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 439 



Severe rain storms which occurred in early spring also tended to prevent 

 complete fertilization of the Catalpa spcciosa. 



At no time is speciosa as free to seed, nor does it ever produce nearly as 

 much as the hybrid sorts or bignonioidcs, and it can never be sold at the prices 

 quoted by the U. S. Forestry Bureau of twenty cents per pound. For several 

 years the seed has cost from $2 to $3 per pound, some land owners demanding 

 fifty cents per pound for privilege of gathering the crop. 



As an instance of the difficulties in the way of procuring pure Catalpa 

 spcciosa seed, at Evansville, Ind., I was told by a gentleman in Vanderberg 

 County that upon his farm were a thousand Catalpa seed, and that I could 

 load a steamboat with the seed pods. 



This farm is just opposite the mouth of Green River, in Kentucky. I 

 took passage on a small Green River steamboat and went to see the Catalpa 

 trees. I found just what the gentleman had told me, several thousand trees 

 so laden with seed that I could in two or three days have loaded the steamboat 

 twice over. But they were bignonioides and hybrids. 



From far up the headwaters of Green River, in Macon and Summer Coun- 

 ties, Tenn., only a few miles from the Cumberland River where Catalpa big- 

 nonioides was found by the French and called "Bois Shavanon," in 1725, the 

 seed has floated down the Green River, catching, here and there, and as seed 

 from those trees again floated downward, generations of trees sending the seed 

 further down stream, they finally reached the Ohio River, and were cast upon 

 the shore where my friend's farm is located. 



Only five miles away were native forests of pure Catalpa speciosa, a few 

 of the trees still remaining. 



