Mar. 1910.] Conditions in Central and Western Kansas. 343 



distinguishing feature. It cannot be too strongly urged upon 

 catalpa planters to grow their own trees from seed. By this 

 means the danger of obtaining the undesirable species is 

 greatly lessened, since careful study of the seed characters 

 offers an additional safeguard. If the prospective grower 

 gathers his own seed, it will be well to obtain it from mature 

 trees, if possible, since the bark characters offer striking con- 

 trasts in the two species. The bark of C. catalpa is scaly, peel- 

 ing off in short strips, much as does that of the wild cherry. 

 Catalpa speciosa, on the other hand, like the ash or the box 

 elder, has furrowed bark, not separating from the trunk in 

 scales. Plates 29 and 30 show quite well these contrasting 

 characters. While the pods of the hardy catalpa are usually 

 longer, larger and straighter than those of the Southeastern 

 species, this is not an invariable rule. The seeds of Catalpa 

 speciosa, however, are quite readily distinguished from those 

 of C. catalpa, in the fact that they are wider, have usually a 

 more pronounced notch between the wings, and the tips of the 

 latter are fringed with a brush of hairs which stand squarely 

 out from the wings and are not drawn into narrow points 

 (plates 34 and 35) . Catalpa kwmpferi and its hybrids have the 

 hairs on the seeds arranged much as in C. speciosa, but the 

 seeds themselves are so much smaller and narrower that no 

 confusion is possible (plate 36). 



CATALPA PLANTATIONS AT THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



The earliest planting of catalpa by the Agricultural College 

 was made in 1872. The trees were a part of a mixed planting 

 made on the old College farm. Prof. E. Gale, in a report made 

 to the State Board of Agriculture, and published as a part of 

 the Transactions of the State Board of Agriculture, 1872, page 

 430, says in regard to the soil: "The land selected for this 

 purpose was that least adapted to the cultivation of cereals or 

 root crops of any now broken up on the College farm. This 

 selection, all things considered, was thought best, for it is, in 

 general, this quality of soil the high, gravelly and broken 

 ridges which should ultimately be planted to forest." Speak- 

 ing of the planting as a whole, he says : "As was anticipated, 

 the growth of the young trees has not been as vigorous upon 

 this soil as it would have been upon lower and richer land, but 

 still abundantly sufficient to give the most encouraging promiss 



