512 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 357. 



political science. Professor Bailev read tin's paper, which 

 showed, in the first place, why this weed has spread with 

 such virulent rapidity. The reason is simply that weeds, 

 like other plants, grow where they can find room, or rather 

 can find conditions of competition into which they can 

 enter prosperously. They may grow in land that is already 

 occupied, just as climbing plants will flourish in dense 

 thickets of shrubbery, or pumpkins grow in a corn-field. 

 What is needed to exclude weeds is not only occupation 

 by other vegetation, but a rotation in which the weeds 

 which come in with one crop may be destroyed by the 

 cultivation of the next. This simply means that the con- 

 ditions of successful agriculture are those against which 

 weeds can never prevail. The Daisies have not ruined the 

 good meadows in the east, but they usurp control of soil 

 which has been already exhausted and where the grass is 

 not properly encouraged in the struggle. It is along road- 

 sides and in neglected fields that Canada Thistles flourish. 

 In the unfilled plains of Dakota or over the leagues of 

 tilled land where wheat follows wheat, yielding in endless 

 succession year after year eight or nine bushels to the acre, 

 the conditions are just such as invite such a sturdy intruder 

 as this Russian weed. There are more weeds in the west 

 than in the east because there is more waste ground. 



New countries always suffer more from weeds than old 

 ones do, because the felling of the woods and the breaking 

 up of the prairies disturb the equilibrium of things, and 

 every plant begins to make a fight to occupy and possess 

 the land. Agriculture in these recently settled regions is 

 usually one-sided, and this makes an easier conquest for 

 the invading army. The Russian Thistle will never get 

 any dangerous lodgment in a well-tilled farm, and where 

 it now exists proper agricultural practice will quickly sub- 

 due it. Indeed, the only way to subdue any weed is to 

 keep profitable crops growing. Taking this view of the 

 case, what sort of a warfare could the Government wage 

 against this Russian Thistle with a million dollars ? If it 

 should hire men to pull up and burn every weed they found 

 there would be some seed left, and in a year or two the 

 crop would be as abundant as ever. The only way to rout 

 the weeds is to revolutionize the prevailing agriculture, and 

 since Government is not conducting the farms of the 

 west it is hard to see how the owners of these lands 

 can be compelled to practice a rotation of crops that 

 would secure them from evil. The fact is, that this 

 trouble, like the plague of rabbits in Australia and 

 the cardoons on the pampas, is one of those evils 

 which always come to a new country where established 

 conditions are overturned. It comes to remind settlers of 

 the weak points in their agricultural systems, and although 

 the lesson is pretty painful in the outset, it will, perhaps, for 

 this reason be remembered longer. But, after all, the 

 settlers in new countries take these chances, and they 

 must help themselves. No doubt, Government can do 

 something in the way of instructing farmers how to im- 

 prove their farm methods, but, in the terse words with 

 which Professor Bailey concluded his paper, "Weeds are 

 beyond the reach of the sheriff ; laws cannot control a 

 vacancy in nature." 



The Hardy Catalpa in the West. 



IN the earlier days of tree-planting on the prairies the 

 hardy Catalpa, C. speciosa, was recommended without 

 reserve for the entire region beyond the Mississippi River 

 south of the latitude of Minneapolis, but experience has 

 proved it to be of more limited adaptability, and its range 

 of satisfactory growth is about the second or third tier of 

 counties from the southern line of Iowa and Nebraska. It 

 can resist neither cold nor drought, hence it is not worth 

 planting west of the ninety-ninth parallel. Within its 

 range, however, it is a tree of peculiar value to the 

 western planter. In south-eastern Kansas, at Farlington, 

 there is a plantation of over five hundred acres, most of 

 which is Catalpa, which was set between 1878 and 18S2. 



The trees were planted four feet apart each way, and now 

 average about twenty-eight feet high, with trunks four inches 

 in diameter at three feet from the ground. This is a pure 

 growth, and it illustrates some of the peculiarities of this 

 tree. Unlike Black Walnut grown in close mixed planta- 

 tion, and Wild Cherry, Catalpa does not clean itself 

 well ; the small lateral branches are very persistent. In 

 October, while going through the Farlington plantation, I 

 observed that these dead branches were very difficult to 

 break off, and they will probably adhere to the tree at least 

 two years longer. The trunks are straight and tall, as grown 

 at Farlington, but these dead lateral branches, clothing 

 the boles of the trees almost to the ground, are sure to 

 make knots or faults in the timber. The Catalpa is a 

 light-demanding species, and it leaves out late in the 

 spring and drops its foliage at the first frost, so that even 

 when planted only four feet apart there is quite a weed- 

 growth beneath the crown. It is very dense-foliaged in 

 midsummer, but the grass and weeds get a hold before the 

 trees are in full leaf; hence the Catalpa is not a soil-im- 

 prover, and should always be planted with some shade- 

 enduring species. I am not aware of its having been tried, 

 but I should think the Russian Mulberry a good tree to 

 alternate with Catalpa ; if additional kinds were desired, 

 a good mixture would be one-fourth Mulberry, one-fourth 

 Catalpa, one-fourth Wild Cherry, one-eighth Black Locust, 

 one-sixteenth Burr, or White Oak, one-sixteenth Black 

 Walnut. 



At the Kansas Agricultural College the Catalpa has been 

 used as a nurse-tree for Oaks, but it is not satisfactory ; it 

 not only fails to keep down weed-growth, but at seven 

 years from planting the Oaks are completely overtopped 

 by the Catalpas. 



At the State Forest Experiment Station, Ogallah, Kansas, 

 in longitude ninety-nine degrees, forty minutes west, lati- 

 tude thirty-nine degrees north, the Catalpa grows very 

 poorly, the climate evidently being too dry for it. At Des 

 Moines, Iowa, it kills back quite badly in severe winters, 

 but there are good-sized trees in several lawns. 



The Catalpa was given a thorough trial at the South 

 Dakota Agricultural College, but it proved altogether too 

 tender for that locality. 



In the Farlington plantation, Catalpa Catalpa occu- 

 pies several acres, but it cannot compare with the hardy 

 Catalpa as a timber-tree ; it has a sprawling habit and is 

 not forced into tall growth when planted four by four feet. 

 Washington. Charles A. Keffer. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



Judging Plants was the subject of an interesting and 

 timely lecture, last week, by Mr. James Douglas, one 

 of the very best all-round gardeners in England, and, per- 

 haps, the most experienced of judges at flower-shows. To 

 judge collections of garden produce, whether it be plants 

 or flowers or fruit or vegetables, and to award the prizes 

 satisfactorily one must know a great deal not only about 

 the capabilities of the plants, but what art and skill are 

 necessary in their production, and even then he is apt to 

 make awards which will be unpopular unless his sympa- 

 thies are in line with the aims of the growers. I have 

 known capable judges who have been severely criticised 

 for giving most points to size when form was considered 

 of first importance, or to color when size ought to have 

 had first place. Then it is so easy to make a mistake by 

 calling something a fruit which the exhibitors call and 

 show as a vegetable, or a plant herbaceous when it is 

 popularly, although not strictly properly, excluded from 

 that class. For instance, it is not permitted to show 

 Lilies or Hyacinths or Tulips in a collection of her- 

 baceous plants. Old hands know the limitations well 

 enough, and do not lose points through mistakes which 

 the beginner among competitors can easily make. As Mr. 



