138 Botanical Department. [Bulletin 108 



The trees are cut as a rule after reaching the size at which they will 

 make two posts to a tree, the lower post having a diameter at the butt 

 of from four to six inches, and the upper one of about three inches. 

 The lower posts sell for ten cents apiece, and the upper ones for from 

 four to six cents. Roadways are run through the plantation, along 

 which the cut trees are piled, and from which they are hauled to the 

 saw. The Yaggy forest, being on bottom land, has furnished con- 

 ditions more nearly approximating to those where the catalpa is found 

 native than does any other in this state. The plantation is especially 

 interesting for the valuable experiments in cutting back the young 

 trees and in burning the land over after cropping, the result of which 

 is given elsewhere, 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 



Acknowledgment of thanks is due numerous railway engineers of 

 maintenance of way, throughout the country, for courteous responses 

 to requests for information, and for valuable data supplied in many 

 cases ; to the Union Pacific and the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Mem- 

 phis railway companies, for transportation furnished to the large 

 plantations at Farlington, Kan.; to Messrs. Geo. W. Tincher, of To- 

 peka, L. W. Yaggy, of Hutchinson, Kan., and Mr. John P. Brown, of 

 Coniiersville, Ind., for abundant information based on actual experi- 

 ence in catalpa-growing ; and to Dr. C. S. Sargent, of the Arnold Ar- 

 boretum, Cambridge, Mass., and Dr. William Trelease, of the Missouri 

 Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Mo., for data of a botanical nature, 



SUMMARY. 



1. Historical Outline. Two species of catalpa native to the United 

 States : Catalpa catalpa ( C. bignonioides), indigenous in the South- 

 east, and Catalpa speciosa in the central West. Planting of the South- 

 eastern species in the West long caused confusion between the two 

 trees, since both were planted together indifferently, under the suppo- 

 sition that they were of the same species. The low, scraggy habit and 

 the tendency of the tops to winter-kill, seen in many catalpa trees, and 

 peculiar to C. catalpa, was a supposed characteristic of all catalpa 

 trees. C. speciosa first distinguished as a separate form by Warder 

 in 1853; first described by Eagelrnann in 1880. 



2. Descriptive Characters. Catalpa speciosa distinguished from 

 the other native species by greater stature, hardiness north of the 

 forty-fourth parallel, north latitude ; larger flowers, fewer in panicles, 

 and appearing about two weeks earlier than those of C. catalpa; by 

 furrowed rather than scaly bark ; by wider and more deeply notched 

 seeds, bearing a fringe of hairs not drawn to a point, as in C. catalpa. 



3. Durability of Wood. Wood of C. speciosa is remarkable for 



