348 PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 
5 
and tests will demonstrate that the wood which all insect lite avoids will also 
prove to be proof against teredo attacks and thus ocean piling be made from the 
timber. 
Extensive practical plantings of Catalpa will be made in and about the ever- 
giades the coming season, and but a brief period will prove its nature and adapt- 
ability to this locality. 
THE INSIDIOUS RUBBER TREE. 
There is a peculiarity of a variety of the Ficus which is abundant in southern 
Florida, that its seeds becoming lodged among the branches or scales of the palm, 
or in a protruding piece of bark of other trees, takes root, far from the ground. 
It is probable that like the mistletoe the seed is picked into the bark by birds. The 
little string-like roots gravitate downward until they reach the earth, although 
often that may be twenty feet below. Entering the soil the roots extend rapidly, 
and being gross feeders, the aerial roots, or those connecting the roots proper 
with the growing plant above, rapidly increase in size and in number, spreading 
out like a veritable piece of rubber, forming a network of roots about the original 
tree to which it has attached itself, and tightening its coils like the anaconda 
crushing an ox, gradually checking the growth of the slower growing palm or 
other tree, while it expands its branches fast becoming the main tree, using its 
victim for a support. 
SIMILARITY TO THE FLOATING GARDENS. 
These are in many respects similar to the everglades. They were reclaimed 
from a swamp or lake adjoining the city of Mexico, by a system of drainage 
canals, the Viga Canal being the principal outlet into which numerous ditches let 
the water, leaving the black muck soil dry for tillage. 
There is no reason why the people of Florida should not accomplish greater 
results with a far less expenditure of money. 
CATALPA SPECIOSA A TAP ROOTED TREE. 
Secret of its wonderful growth. One season's growth from seed, three feet 
above the ground and five feet deep. 
Doctor J. F. Corrigan of St. Leo, Florida, who is planting large forests of 
Catalpa speciosa from seed which we sent him, sends us a tap root of a seedling 
which was pulled up, breaking off some at the bottom, the entire portion secured 
measures five feet and two inches in length, vet the tree and root were but quarter 
inch thickness. The seed was planted in March one year ago, the average 
growth above ground being three feet. 
There is no question about Florida sands being an ideal place for Catalpa 
speciosa. One tree near Jacksonville, nine years old, measures eighteen inches 
thickness at six feet above ground. We cannot affirm how deep the roots of this 
tree extend. 
