The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-07-03
CATALPAS
 IN ALABAMA Great Forestry Experi- ment Under Way. JOHN P. BROWN DESCRIBES IT He is the Famous Indiana Tree
 Expert. More Than . Million Cataipus Have Bees Planted in Alabama within
 the Past Year.

John P. Brown, of Connersviile, In- dianas Editor of Horticulture whose interest in forests and trees is we'll known throughout the county-was In the city yesterday on his way to the forest plantations in Baldwin county.
 Mir Brown is enthusiastic on the sub ject of forest planting and believes in the South as the region where the growth. is most rapid and where forests are Of greater necessities than else where.
 Discussing Forestry Mir. Brown said:
 The central states of the north are Tor the most part agricultural In char acter the land all being occupied in rather moderate. or small tracts, while the agricultural productions are of the character that cannot be produced in excess of the. demand.
 Lands are high in price, often $l0o to Si5o per acre, and cannot be well spared for growing timber. Although the manufacture of wood products Is in the immediate vicinity of these rich farm lands, they cannot be proftably devoted to the production of wood On the contrary population in the Southern states is sparse, vast areas Of lands are unused. and must be for many decades hence.
 ITO increase the cultivated area Of cotton, beyond the worlds demand. means material reduction of price. and ruinious disaster to the farmer.
 Tobacco Growing.
 '"The experience of farmers in Ken lucky and some other states, recently in the tobacco region, has shown how seriously an overproduction of this staple crop has affected the people. Even causing illegal night riding, burn ing of fGhaPNn ffH FnA efr q great loss to all the community.
 'aThe potato crop In the south where the tubers cannot be kept for future use. rotting in short time is another illustration of the limit of area which this crop can be grown. Peaches. peanuts. watermelons. and general truck growing, while profitable in a moderate quantity, will be entirely lost if the area is increased beyond the ship ping demand
 What can be done with the enor- mous tracts in the southern states which have bat recently been covered with forests-but are being so rapid ly denuded of the same.
 Demand For Naval Stores.
 Where will the south produce the revenue for the state and individual necessities when the timber industry ceases, as cease 1t must in a remark ably short period.
 The demand for naval stores is so great as to induce the owners of pine lands to box everything that will fur nish these materials, and the result can only be the total destruction of the pine forest because there are no young trees spared to produce lumber in the future. Lands are low in price, hence the interest of capitalists is not so great as elsewhere. The soils of the south aGnARf01Ixy aI@ <S..ga and Atlantic coast, are of sandy char acter, which produces the quickest growth of wood, and the climate Is favorable to almost continuous for est growth.
 Tt should be patent to every one that under these conditions the great est scheme which can be obtained from the surplus land areas, not spe- cially demanded for cotton and other farm crops, must be from lumber and timbers of such trees as will thrive and mature in. the quickest possible time.
 cypress grows slowly, trees which are six feet diameter have been in existence for six hundred years. White oak cannot make trees for quarter saw Ing under two hundred years.
 The best yellow pine takes a hum dred years to grow. Tupelo gum seiIl longer period.
 NASOS t4SSS SEOWlnK In the lands. and have twenty-five or fifty years of a start, they should be pre- served for future necessities, but no one is going to plant any of these trees as an investment.
 The catalpa speciosa, from Indiana, grows in e few years to size suitable for making crossties and saving Ium- Der, only twelve to twenty years needed to product climber. The trees grow better in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas than in Indiana where they are indigenous.
 Numerous instances have been found where the trees have grown two inches diameter each year since plant ing. The Louisville and Nashville rail- road have thousand acres in Baldwin county with nearly a million trees growing. Another tract at Red Level Ala, with probably 200 acres, all in the catalpas which are proving profta- bie. On this tract cotton Is being grown between the rows of trees of ten with excellent results"
 Mr. Brown has 200 acres of land in Baldwin county, Ala, which he has planted as an individual experiment or model farm. He has planted this year more than a million catalpa trees in Alabama. walnut. butternut, oceans. hickory. magnolia, and other trees have also been planted for experiment.