A FORESTER WHOSE FIELD 

 IS THE CITY 



By C. D. MELL 



THE time is coming' when the work 

 of caring for trees in city parks 

 and streets will call for men with 

 a professional forester's training. In- 

 deed, this time is already at hand. More 

 big cities than one have foresters em- 

 ployed, and the work these foresters 

 have to do can be efifectively done only 

 by men who have gone through a tech- 

 nical course of study such as prepares 

 a man to handle trees in the mass for 

 profit, instead of individually for orna- 

 ment and recreation. 



One of these cities is New York, 

 where city forestry has been developed 

 more extensively than anywhere else in 

 the country. In the boroughs of Brook- 

 lyn and Queens there are 150.000 street 

 trees, forty-one parks, and forty-five 

 miles of parkways to look after, and 

 a graduate of the Yale Forest School, 

 Mr. J. J. Levison. formerly of the 

 United States Forest Service, is in 

 charge. Mr. Levison is also forester 

 of the recently organized American As- 

 sociation for the Planting and Care of 

 City Trees. 



It would be a great mistake to sup- 

 pose that the work of a city forester is 

 simple, merely because he has to deal 

 with single trees and not with whole 

 forests. Assuredly, it is no simple mat- 

 ter to be responsible for the welfare of 

 150,000 separate and distinct trees, all 

 of which are in plain sight all the time, 

 and most of which some citizen takes 

 an almost proprietary interest in. The 

 tree that stands in front of the city 

 man's gate is pretty nearly the only tree 

 that he cares a rap about ; but about 

 that tree he cares at least several raps. 

 He wants and expects it to be thrifty 

 and sightly ; he considers it distinctly 



up to the man in charge to keep it so. 



In the parks, again, a good many 

 thousands of persons have a chance all 

 the time to find fault with neglect of 

 trees, when there is neglect ; and if 

 nobod}- has ground for complaint on 

 this score, the reason is. whether ap- 

 preciated or not. that the city forester 

 is energetically holding down his job. 



So if he is in earnest, the city for- 

 ester's job will tax his lore and skill 

 to the utmost. It is a new line of 

 work, with big difficulties and a prom- 

 ising future. Mr. Levison was asked 

 to outline for American Forestry the 

 work that falls to his share as city for- 

 ester of Brooklyn and Queens. It was 

 found that this outline skirted a wide 

 and varied field. 



THE CARE OF TREES 



To begin with planting, the city for- 

 ester, in addition to knowing the gen- 

 eral principles of tree planting, must 

 be familiar with the best methods for 

 handling a much larger number of spe- 

 cies than are ordinarily used in com- 

 mercial planting, and understand how 

 to adapt trees to a variety of local con- 

 ditions that are not met with elsewhere. 

 On account of the necessarily high cost 

 of the work, as nearly as possible every 

 planted tree must be made to grow. A 

 nursery of 80.000 seedling trees is 

 maintained for Brooklyn and Queens, 

 and extensive experimental work is 

 done toward solving special problems. 

 One important branch of expert work is 

 the transplanting of extra large trees. 



In ordinary forestry, little pruning is 

 done, even in Europe, on account of the 

 cost ; but in park and street work it is 



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