FORESTRY ON THE COUNTRY ESTATE 



265 



go on during the first warm days of 

 early spring. Any tree attacked by 

 canker worms, elm beetles, pine and 

 spruce beetles; gypsy, browntail and 

 tussock moths, and ants, should be so 

 banded. 



One more mechanical weapon, the tree 

 torch, for tent caterpillars and cocoons. 

 The iron basket with asbestos filler 

 costs twenty-five cents and can be 

 attached to any sort of pole cut in the 

 forest. Saturate with kerosene oil and 

 pass quickly along twigs and branches 

 where there are cocoons or webs of the 

 tent caterpillar. A heat of 140 degrees 

 Fahrenheit reached in the cambium 

 layer of any twig or green branch will 

 ruin it, but, as the specific heat of 

 sap is nearly as large as that of water, 

 the flame can hover for nearly a minute 

 if need be in any one locality without 

 raising the sap temperature to that 

 point. Bark injury, with its attendant 

 fungus troubles, is more to be guarded 

 against in the use of the torch than sap 

 injury, and on thin bark, as a rule, 

 ten seconds of flame will kill any pupa 

 or burn up the cocoon, and is long enough 

 for the torch to remain. 



Lichens, mushrooms, toadstools and 

 fungi will attack any dead or decaying 

 tree, and any exposed wood or wound 

 on a live one. As soon as the fungus 

 has effected a lodgement, the mycelium 

 or, as it were, root fibres of the fungus, 

 fight their way down into the wood, 

 rotting it as they go, and what was at 

 first a minor injury soon becomes a bad 

 wound. The remedy for all this is 

 clean cutting the wound, disinfecting 

 with one of the standard formaldehyde 

 solutions sold at any seed store, and 

 painting with tar or white lead paint, 

 the latter of course being colorable to 

 any shade desired, as in house painting. 

 The living part of the tree is the sap 

 layer only ; one should get to regard the 

 heart wood as a carpentered structure 

 and treat it accordingly. How would 

 you go about stopping rot in your 

 house trim, your barn timbers or your 

 fence posts? By cutting down to fresh 

 wood and repainting, of course — and 

 that is really all there is to tree 

 surgery. Be sure and go deep enough 

 to get out all infected wood, or you might 



as well not start at all, and if the result- 

 ing work will leave a rain pocket, fill 

 with Portland cement mortar, two 

 parts sand to one cement, and cap it 

 off with neat cement or one-and-one 

 mixture. In a big forest much of this 

 sort of work is entirely unnecessary, for 

 nature is doing it very well herself. 

 All the shade-killed branches are self- 

 pruned by the fact that the rot begins 



COTTONWOODS iNtbclia' Willi BijKhK^. 



right close to the trunk, and the wind 

 soon breaks off the dead branch. Year 

 by year the cambium layer closes over 

 on the decayed stub, until finally the 

 closure is complete. After that the sap 

 layer flows completely over the spot, 

 and we get the well-known bark knob, 

 so common on maple, elm, dogwood, 

 cherry and gum trees. With large 

 limbs, however, which from one cause 

 or another have been shade-killed and 

 later break off, the fungus attack is 

 likely to get a firm foothold, and as the 

 closure cannot be made by the bark 

 growth on account of the size of the hole. 



