PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 37! 
ident Benjamin Harrison and Governor James A. Mount, of Indiana, General 
Lew Wallace and many eminent citizens of this and other lands have been 
members of this society. Elon. J. Sterling Morton, of Nebraska, was our first 
president, continuing as such ts the time of his death. 
General William J. Palmer, of Colorado, succeeded Mr. Morton, and is still 
president of the society. No other person has done so much to advance the inter- 
ests of the society, by moral encouragement and financial support, as has Generai 
Palmer, who as a railway president has enabled the society to reach and interest 
the great railway systems of America in forest planting and management. 
At the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 1904, the society made an exhibit of 
the catalpa which attracted the attention and secured the admiration of the world, 
and for which we were awarded the grand prize. Even the residents of the re- 
gion of which the catalpa was indigenous, and who were familiar with it from 
childhood, were amazed at the many uses for which the wood could be employed, 
the beauty of finish, the clegance of the furniture made from the wood, the mag- 
nificent carvings, handsome veneers and inlaid panels. Until now they had valued 
it only for its durabilitv, having known it as good for fence rails and posts. 
Railway officials and engineers here learned that catalpa was the peer of ma- 
hogany for passenger-car finish, and par e.veclience for telegraph poles and rail- 
way sleepers, for here were numbers which had served their purpose in the tracks 
for one-third of a century with no indications of decay, this being four times the 
life of white oak, seven times the durability of pine, and twice as long as creosoted 
ties. 
Paper manufacturers found a new value in catalpa for wood pulp and book 
paper, both of which were in this exhibit. 
Botanical writers had published that catalpa wood was not strong. This was 
disproven at the St. Louis exhibit by practical and most severe tests. 
Objectors had pronounced the trees to be small, crooked, and without material 
value. In answer to this a dozen large-sized photographs of natural trees in for- 
est showed the true habit of Catalpa speciosa as being very tall and straight, while 
actual trees by their presence gave their own evidence, and proved that these pe 
pie were mistaken in the variety of catalpa which had come under their observa- 
tion. 
Railway presidents visited the exhibit and were convin 
sent special officials and engineers to examine the exhilit, some of whom also 
visited the native forests on the Wabash, and found they had not been misrepre- 
cot Other companies 
sented. 
Foreign governments sent representatives to investigate the subject, and from 
their reports have begun the extensive planting of this American tree. 
Tleretofore manufacturers had used only those woods which had required 
more than a century to grow, and after these forests have been consumed, will 
require an equal period for their reproduction. Never before had a rapidly ma- 
turing tree been found suitable for any purpose of the manufacturer other than 
as fuel, and these have slight value in heat units. 
It was a revelation to see a railway car of such magnificence entirely con- 
structed from a tree which had been produced in less than two decades. The 
problem of forest reproduction for lumber, paper, cross-ties, for the uses of 
