1 84 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



is now Plainville. A town meeting held 

 in New Haven in 1822 endorsed the canal 

 and a few years later a stock sub- 

 scription of $100,000.00 was voted. Alto- 

 gether the canal was an expensive pro- 

 ject for New Haven. The story is told 

 that the only stockholder to receive a 

 dividend annually mowed a piece ot 

 the towpath and sold the hay. For 

 nearlv twenty years the canal was a 

 popular route of travel. There were, 

 however, many difficulties of main- 

 tenance and when in 1846 a charter 

 was granted for a railroad the active 

 existence of the canal ceased Nature 

 in reclaiming her own has touched 

 this once famous highway of com- 

 merce with many beauties; water 

 lilies add their beauty to its sur- 

 face ; cattle wade in the cool shade 

 of overhanging boughs, and in some 

 places a cautious peep will be rewarded 

 by the glimpse of a trout as he flashes 

 under a stone or the overhanging bank. 



Lessons from a Storm, Regarding the 

 Care of Trees. 



BY l<. R. GORTON, YPSILANTI, MICH. 



The notoriously poor care that is 

 given to shade trees throughout the 

 country was forcibly brought out by a 

 recent windstorm which passed over 

 southern Michigan. Although the 

 wind was merely a straight blow, and 

 by no means a tornado, no one who 

 gave the fallen trees even the most 

 cursory examination could fail to be 

 impressed with the large part played 

 by lack of care in selecting, trimming, 

 and repairing weaknesses in the case 

 of trees destroyed or injured. 



Fully one half of the trees which 

 were seriously affected by the storm 

 revealed large half-hidden cavities be- 

 tween the main branches, in which 

 water was caught in every shower, 

 thus creating there a mass of decay and 

 growing roots. Many left standing 

 have been split in this manner and de- 

 mand immediate attention if they are 

 ever to regain their former strength. 

 The remedy of such a condition is well 

 understood by the tree surgeon, who 

 places bolts through the main branches, 

 nerhaos five feet or more above the 

 break and ties them together by means 

 of strong wires, which may be tight- 

 ened by twisting, or joins them with a 

 taut chain. In no case is it wise to 



pass the chain or wire arounel the 

 branches. Of course the crack should 

 be filled with soft wax if necessary to 

 prevent the entrance of water. A large 

 elm in the vicinity of the writer's home 

 was saved in this manner by treatment 

 administered only a few days before 

 the storm. Defects of this kind of long 

 standing require a more thorough 

 treatment of the decaying cavity, and 

 should be turned over to the tree sur- 

 geon. 



Another source of weakness that was 

 unlooked for was revealed by a half 

 dozen fine specimens of maple, around 

 which the soil had been raised a foot 

 or more in grading. The growth of the 

 trunk at the former level of the ground 

 appeared to have been greatly restric- 

 ted, thus leaving the tree supported by 

 a section no larger than the tree was at 

 the time the grading was done. Of 

 one tree examined, this section was of 

 less than half the area of the present 

 section of the trunk. A vivid lesson is 

 here taught. In raising the level of the 

 ground around a young tree provision 

 should be made to prevent the earth 

 from coming in contact with the trunk. 

 This can be done by surrounding the 

 tree with a cement ring or a substan- 

 tial hoop of galvanized iron encircling 

 the base at a distance of several inches 

 from the trunk. 



The evidence of weakness arising 

 from faulty trimming and lack of at- 

 tention to broken branches was mani- 

 fest on every hand. Many large limbs 

 which gave way to the force of the 

 wind were inwardly decayed by the 

 entrance of water through old scars. 

 It was plainly obvious that many fine 

 examples of elms and maples might 

 have been preserved intact by a little 

 careful attention. A break should in 

 every case be cut as smooth as possible 

 at a point where the wood is sound 

 and then coated with a durable paint 

 or asphaltum. 



The most overwhelming evidence 

 was probablv against the selection of 

 such trees as the ash maple or the Car- 

 olina poplar. Many enormous speci- 

 mens of the latter were torn up by the 

 roots and several dwellings narrowly 

 escaped serious injury from their huge 

 trunks. In one case the cornice was 

 swept from a house and a porch badly 

 wrecked. The ash maple is apparently 

 too brittle to offer great resistance to 



