TREE SURGERY AS A 

 SCIENCE 



By MARTIN L, DAVEY 

 Davey's School of Practical Forestry 



Cemented Caviiy 



Cavity Healed 



TO HIM who has seen the glorious 

 heahh of trees in the wild wood- 

 land, where nature is the care- 

 taker, the necessity for a science that 

 deals with the weaknesses and infirm- 

 ities of the individual tree may come as 

 a great revelation. He sees the vigor- 

 ous trees survive, and the weak ones 

 perish, and he conceives the idea of the 

 "survival of the fittest," from which he 

 concludes that when a tree dies, its 

 death is inevitable. Though erroneous, 

 the conclusion is a natural one, and it 

 is not until he has seen the decline of 

 some favorite tree, one, perhaps, that 

 has shaded his home for generations, 

 that he wonders what might be done to 

 save it. 



The care of trees is not new. In a 

 crude way, it has been practiced for 

 centuries ; and it remained crude until 

 about half a century ago, when the 

 science of tree surgery was conceived. 



Like all the movements that have 

 sprung into being, tree surgery is the 

 result of an idea. McCormick felt the 

 pulse of the farming industry, and it 

 was slow. He recognized the great 

 need of labor-saving machinery and he 

 set to work to meet that need. Then 

 came his reaper, which soon demon- 

 strated its possibilities. Its advent 

 quickened the agricultural pulse, and 

 with other similar inventions has 

 served to raise the business of farming 

 to its modern plane of a science. 



In like manner, tree surgery was de- 

 veloped. Some fifty years ago a young 

 man breathed the inspiration to leave 

 the old English farm where his early 

 years had been spent, and find his life's 



work among trees and flowers. After 

 the customary careful manner prevalent 

 there, he served his apprenticeship in 

 one of the large English nurseries. Not 

 long after this he felt the call of the 

 New World, and making his way 

 hither, settled in a little town in Ohio. 

 There his work with trees began in 

 earnest ; but, in following the course 

 of his training, he recognized its limi- 

 tations, and set about to remove them. 

 The young man's name was John 

 Davey, and his were the ideas which 

 have so completely revolutionized the 

 methods used in the care of trees. It 

 was evident to him that the ordinary 

 methods were not sufficient. Trees 

 were rapidly going to pieces ; their 

 lives were shortened by adverse cir- 

 cumstances ; "tree-butchers" were 

 everywhere ; ignorance of tree life was 

 almost universal. But the worst 

 trouble was that the people hardly 

 realized the seriousness of the situation. 

 To them a tree was almost an inan- 

 imate object — a mere feature of the 

 landscape, like the little brook that 

 rambled through the fields, or the lofty 

 cliff that jutted from the mountain 

 side ; a thing that existed rather than 

 lived. 



But the tree lives, thought Mr. 

 Davey ; it has a life as real as our own, 

 subject to certain fixed laws, which, if 

 recognized, will insure its health, and 

 lengthen its life, but which, if violated, 

 will bring about its decline and pre- 

 mature death. 



It is truly fascinating to study the 

 principles which govern the life of a 

 tree, and the conditions under which it 



533 



