Profitable Tree Planting 



and occasional drought, and produce in the shortest possible 

 time wood that is durable in contact with the soil. The tree 

 that comes nearest to fulfilling all these requirements is the hardy 

 catalpa, native of the Mississippi Valley, which reaches its best 

 development in the Ohio Valley and in Arkansas. It needs a 

 porous soil, for its root system is large, ranging widely for food 

 and water, and anchoring the trees securely against wind. On 

 tough clay soil these trees are a failure. 



RAISING CATALPA TIMBER 



The Yaggy plantation of 440 acres of catalpa trees is the 

 best example of what a Kansas farmer's woodlot can yield. It 

 is reported in Bulletin 39 of the Bureau of Forestry, and from this 

 source the following facts are taken: 



The land lies in Reno County, near Hutchinson, Kansas, in 

 the valley of the Arkansas River. It is a rich, deep, sandy loam, 

 underlaid by soft, sandy clay. Both surface soil and subsoil 

 are several feet thick, and give free range to water and tree roots. 

 The water table is from four to six feet below the surface. 



In this excellent cultivated farm land seedling catalpas one 

 year old were set in rows, three and a half feet apart east and 

 west, six feet apart north and south. Mr. Yaggy grew his own 

 stock from seed. The planting covered three years: 120 acres in 

 1890, eighty acres in 1891, and 240 acres in 1892. Corn was 

 planted between the rows the first year, and the cultivation of the 

 corn three times served the growing trees. They branched and 

 made bushy tops and good root growth. Next year they were 

 cut off at the ground, except strips of three rows each, for 

 each twenty rows, reserved for windbreaks throughout the planta- 

 tion. Strong unbranched shoots six to twelve feet high came up 

 the second year, with no cultivation. All but the best one of 

 these sprouts were cut off at the end of the second season — this 

 one to become the trunk. Cultivation was thorough the third 

 summer. The trees branched at eight to twelve feet high, shading 

 the ground and keeping out grass. The leaves formed a mulch 

 this third winter, and cultivation was thereafter discontinued. 



After six years of growth thinning was begun, the largest 

 trees being taken out; in the winter of 1897-8 one-eighth of the 

 total number of trees were removed. These trees made two 



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