PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 201 
Mr. Hall recommends close planting in rows 4x4 feet, in order to prevent 
low branching, and declares that “without severe crowding the Catalpa will 
not produce the straight pole growth necessary for best use. With plenty 
of room, it is a spreading, round-topped tree, with almost no tendency toward 
an elongated, central axis, and pruning, while it may somewhat improve the 
form, will not sufficiently change it to make the tree of much use. At best, 
pruning can only remove the branches within eight or nine feet of the ground. 
Above that height it is entirely impracticable in a commercial plantation.” 
Mr. Brown, on the contrary, declares that planting closer than 8x8 feet 
will not give the young trees sufficient root space to afford them necessary 
CATALPA RAILWAY SLEEPERS, STILL SOUND AFTER THIRTY-TWO YEARS’ SERVICE— 
L. & N. SOUTHERN, ILLINOIS CENTRAL AND BIG FOUR RAILWAYS. 
CATALPA EXIUIBIT OF THE INTERNATIONAL 
SOCIETY OF ARBORICULTURE 
nourishment for a vigorous start; that in two to three years all should be cut 
back in order to get a strong, straight sprout. In eight years three-fourths of 
the trees should be removed, leaving a stand of one hundred and seventy to 
the acre. He says that close planting is the chief cause of failure of the several 
large Kansas plantations to produce large numbers of trees suitable for tele- 
graph poles and cross-ties in fifteen to twenty years’ growth; that experience 
has proven that the roots of each Catalpa speciosa tree three years old requires 
sixteen square feet surface space; at eight years, sixty-four square feet; at 
sixteen years, two hundred and fifty square feet; and that with less space 
the trees are dwarfed and stunted for lack of food and water; that if close 
