Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1886 [PAGE 274]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

266 from seed) the average height was two feet. In the autumn of 1876 the trees were ten feet six inches in height, and they now (1886, autumn), average thirty feet four inches, with a diameter of trunk of seventeen and one-fourth inches. The soil is rather wet yet not too much so for corn growing, except in specially wet seasons. Probably the trees would have done better on dryer land. As it is no kind except the Larch on wet land has shown so much disease. But there is nothing in common wTith these two as to the manner of destruction. With the Larch the whole tree assumed a sickly appearance, growth became slow, the foliage thin and fruit (cones) abnormally produced. Finally the dry branches failed to respond to the stimulating influences of springtime and death occurred. In the case of the Butternut the difficulty apparently began with the trunk and seemed to be due to frost. The living bark was forcibly separated in patches from the wood, or not unfrequently cracks occurred through bark and wood toward the center of the trunk. In some cases, however, patches of bark on the trunk or larger limbs died without apparent separation, and various fungi afterward grew out of the decaying parts. Indeed, the trees seem to suffer just as orchard Apple trees have done throughout the Northwest during the last decade. Trees of this species are not usually healthy or long lived in the native woods of the vicinity. It is not common that good saw-logs can be had from them on account of the irregular growth or unsoundness of parts of the trunk. In deeper woods on richer but better drained land the trees appear i n much better condition and not unfrequently free from any apparent defects. These trees for the first five years received good cultivation and were twice trimmed, the lower branches being heavy and spreading. The widest spaces caused by the death of trees as described were filled by transplanting from the thicker rows, but the distribution is still uneven, and not seldom the vacant spaces are now too wide. The shade has never been very dense and considerable undergrowth exists. Altogether the prospect is not favorable for this tree in timber plantations. (Catalpa Bignonioides.) This is the southern or eastern variety, sometimes called the tender Oatalpa. The seed from which the trees were grown were gathered by Hon. W. C. Flagg, from trees planted by himself upon his farm at Moro, Illinois, At this time (1869) and for several years afterward the distinctions which are now known to exist between trees of this genus had not been made out. Since eastern nurserymen supplied the western parts of the country with most of the nurserygrown trees, and since this tree produces within sii to ten years &n abundance of seed, it need not be surprising that even in the areas in which the hardy Catalpa naturally existed the seeds for planting were mostly gathered from cultivated trees and so from the eastern or tender kind. This was the case with Mv. Flagg and similarly with the University. The Catalpas planted in the early years were .all of the tender kind.

OATALPA,