374 PRACTICAL ARBORICOLT URE 
profitable investments, as he declares. He recently sold $30,000 worth of fence 
posts from the thinnings of this tract, yet has as many remaining which are for 
sale. 
Several more recent plantings have been made by private parties, ranging 
from fifty to five hundred acres. 
NATURAL GROWTH OF CATALPA SPECIOS.\ 
Three years ago the more modern system of planting at greater distances was 
begun, the plantation of the Illinois Central Railway Company, at Harahan, La., 
eight miles from New Orleans, being prominent. This tract was formerly a 
sugar plantation, the land having been left in high ridges seven feet apart, with 
many deep ditches for drainage. This distance seemed too close, and part of 
the tree rows were planted on alternate sugar-cane ridges, while in the rice land 
