December 20, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



529 



tivation, but plenty of room to malce the best possible growth, 

 and it made a log ten inches in diameter at the butt when cut. 

 The tree was cut early in the spring of 1893, and was sent to 

 the World's Fair, where it was set up in the Kansas Building, 

 after which it was taken to one of the large railroad-shops in 

 Chicago, cut up and made into the writing-desk. The wood 

 is beautiful ; in fact, it is excelled by few other kinds ; it is light 

 in weight and color, takes the finest polish, and willendurefor 

 years either in the ground or exposed to the weather. 



Thousands of these Cataipas have been planted in Kansas, 

 but only a few have averaged a growth of an inch in diameter 

 a year. Ten years ago we were told to plant Cataipas four feet 

 apart each way, cultivate for three or four years, and in from 

 eight to ten years every tree would make a post. Then we were 

 to remove three-fourths of the grove, leaving the remainder for 

 eight or ten years more. Now, that advice has not proved 

 good, at least for small plantations. Trees, when planted four 

 feet apart each way, will not make posts in ten years. The 

 better way would seem to be to plant the trees in rows twelve 

 to fifteen feet apart, and five to six feet apart in the row. Tlien 

 crop the ground between the rows with Corn for at least three 

 years ; after that time three or four crops of Potatoes could be 

 raised. The ground for both Corn and Potatoes should be cul- 

 tivated thoroughly, for nothing makes a tree grow like good 

 cultivation. It may be argued that if the trees are planted so 

 far apart they will not grow straight and tall, and will have 

 more top than trunk ; but any one can grow Catalpa-trees 

 almost perfectly straight, even though they be not planted 

 very close. With proper care for ten years a grove of 250 

 Cataipas per acre would, at fifteen years from seed, average 

 one foot in thickness at the butt, and ten to twelve feet to the 

 first limb, with a stem almost as straight as an arrow. Such a 

 grove need not cost very much money, but would be a bless- 

 ing to the boy or girl whose father started and cared for tliem 

 until a money value could be realized. 

 Topeka, Kans. George W. Tincher. 



[No doubt, cultivation improves trees, but whether it 

 would pay to cultivate in the vi^ay our correspondent 

 recommends a hundred or a thousand acres planted with 

 forest-trees is another question. Long straight trunks are 

 always desirable in timber trees, and we should like to 

 have the experience of Mr. Tincher, or any one else who 

 has trained Cataipas into an upright habit of growth in 

 any other way than the natural one of close planting, 

 with an explanation of the precise process of growing 

 Cataipas with tall, straight trunks when they are set twelve 

 feet apart, and an estimate of its cost an acre. — Ed.] 



Meetings of Societies. 



Annual Meeting of the American Forestry Association. 



THE twelfth annual meeting of the American Forestry Asso- 

 ciation opened on Friday, December 15th, in the Agricul- 

 tural Department Building,' at Washington, with Assistant 

 Secretary Willets in the chair. At the business session Secretary 

 Morton was re-elected President ; Dr. H. M.Fisher, Treasurer ; 

 B. E. Fernow, Chairman of Executive Committee, and J. D. 

 W. French, Secretary pro tem. It was resolved, in view of the 

 amount of money on hand, to secure as soon as possible the 

 services of a paid permanent Secretary, and the Executive 

 Committee was empowered to make the selection. A resolution 

 •was adopted favoring the McRae bill, which authorizes mili- 

 tary protection for the forest-reservations, and provides for the 

 saleof timberonGovernmentland. It was also resolved to print 

 the papers read at the Forestry meeting at Chicago. Colonel W. 

 F. Fox, Forest Warden of New York, and a delegation from the 

 Forest Commission of thatstate, invited the association to hold 

 a meeting at Albany this winter during the session of the Legis- 

 lature, and the invitation was accepted. The meeting is in- 

 tended to be educational in its character, and it is proposed to 

 have a careful discussion of questions relating to the best 

 forest-policy for New York, at which members of the Legisla- 

 ture will be invited to assist, and it is hoped that, by concerted 

 action, some more efficient laws for forest-preservation can be 

 passed. 



On Friday evening Mr. Fernow delivered an illustrated lec- 

 ture, entitled "The Battle of the Forest," at a joint meeting of 

 the association with the National Geographical Society, in 

 which he gave a rapid sketch of the development of trees 

 from the lowest forms of vegetation, and showed how the 

 forest, by its various powers of aggression and defense, had 

 gradually throughout geologic time gained possession of a 



considerable portion of the earth's surface. He also showed 

 how in the various changes of the surface and climate of the 

 earth certain species had been exterminated, and how some of 

 them had retreated before the advancing ice and again occu- 

 pied their old homes after the ice had retired. Another form 

 of the forest-battle is the struggle for supremacy between dif- 

 ferent species of trees after they had overcome opposition 

 from without, and many illustrations were given to show how 

 some varieties, like theTorreyea, for instance, had become re- 

 stricted to a very limited habitat, while others had spread from 

 ocean to ocean, and how each varying condition of moisture 

 and dryness, of altitude and latitude is taken advantage of by 

 particular trees, which by some power of adaptation can suc- 

 ceed in crowding out their less fortunate competitors. What 

 we call the virgin forest, then, is nothing more than the result 

 of a struggle which has extended over thousands of years, in 

 which the forest has not only conquered its way over untoward 

 conditions, but after long internal warfare the stronger trees 

 have assumed their position of supremacy over; their fellows. 

 Finally, the forest found its most inveterate enemy in man, 

 who has taken sides against it throughout all historic time in 

 the struggle to occupy the soil for agricultural purposes, and 

 to use the wood for his necessities. Besides this, he has reck- 

 lessly destroyed what he did not need, and has made no 

 preparation for a future supply. The lantern pictures which 

 illustrated this part of the lecture showed in a very striking 

 way the desolation which wasteful cutting had made in the 

 Adirondacks and other parts of the United States, while other 

 slides showed the desolating effects of the axe in the French 

 Alps, and the expensive and laborious character of the work that 

 is now going on there to restore these mountains, as far as 

 may be, to their original condidon. It would be a fortunate 

 thing for the country' if the latter portion of this lecture, with 

 its accompanying pictures, could be delivered in every town 

 of the country as an aid in educating the public as to the 

 necessity of good forest-laws, and their energetic enforcement. 

 On Saturday the Public Lands Committee of the House of 

 Representatives gave a hearing to a delegation from the so- 

 ciety. Secretary Morton presented the resolutions of the 

 society endorsing the McRae bill, and Mr. Bowers, the Assist- 

 ant Commissioner of the General Land Office, urged its 

 passage, as did Colonel Fox, Mr. Fernow and others. The 

 bill is already on the calendar, and the conmiittee directed 

 Mr. McRae to call it up on Monday. 



Recent Publications. 



American Woods. Exhibited by Actual Specimens. 

 Romeyn B. Hough, Lowville, N. Y. 



This is Part IIL of a work whose earlier numbers have 

 been noticed in former volumes of Garden and Forest. 

 We remind our readers once more that these specimens 

 are very thin slices of wood, cut in three directions, that 

 is, transversely, radially, and tangentially, so as to show 

 the grain both of the heart-wood and the sap-wood. These 

 sections are beautifully mounted, and when held so that the 

 light will shine through them they give a very complete 

 idea of the structure of the wood and its appearance when 

 worked. A pamphlet comes with the specimens which 

 contains a good deal of descriptive matter concerning the 

 trees, besides three keys which are used as an aid in iden- 

 tifying the species which are represented in the first three 

 parts of the book. One of these keys is based mainly on 

 the flowers, another on the leaves, and a third on the fruit. 

 We repeat what we have said before, that this collection 

 ought to be in every public school and library in the coun- 

 try. It may be added that Mr. Hough, whose address is 

 Lowville, New York, also has specimens of these woods 

 mounted for use in stereopticons in; slides of standard size, 

 which show a circular field two and three-quarter inches 

 in diameter, and besides this he has most of the species 

 prepared for the microscope, each slide containing tiie 

 three sections and labeled with both the scientific and 

 common names. 



Each one of these parts contains the woods of twenty-five 

 trees. Part IIL contains, in addition to the regular wood 

 specimens, sections of a burl of the Black Ash, as well as 

 the wood of that tree. The sections are not all taken from 

 native American trees. This last part contains the wood 

 of the Lombardy Poplar, English Cherry and the common 



