INDIANA IIORTICUT.TURAL SOCIETY. 409 



insects have destroyed much of this new growth and that water has got 

 under the bark and that the last condition is worse tliaii tlu> lirst. Some- 

 times, as in the case to which 1 have referred, you will be comiielled to 

 cut into a limb on the other side to give it drainage, or cut into the body 

 of a tree below the decayed place so that the water can have free exit. 

 Keep this place open until the one on the top closes ui). Above all ihing.s 

 do not if you can get drainage till a wound in a tree wltli some foreign 

 substance, such as i)laster of paris or cement. It would be just as sensible 

 to till an open wound in an animal body with such foreign substance. 

 Kow and then, however, you are up against a situation wiicre you Hnd it 

 impossible to get drainage. Of course if you can attend to it often 

 enough to keep the part clean and roasonalily dry and keep the insects out 

 of it you may succeed under most unfavorable circumstances. 8uch daily 

 care as this is very likely to be neglected or the labor may be mure tlian 

 the value of the tree warrants. Under such circumstances 1 know of no 

 better plan than, after the decayed wood is removed, to fill the hole with 

 oakum saturated with balsam of Peru. Care should be taken, however. 

 not to put anything in the way of the new growth that will be tluown out. 

 If it is so situated tliat it can be done crowd the otikum in loosely, but 

 crowd the hole full, and then pour the place full of the balsam. If the 

 tree is of sufficient importance to justify such expense .-nitl trouble you 

 will sometimes succeed in closing up the wound. 



You will readily see, of course, how what I have said so far applies 

 to the trimming of trees and to the wounds caused by trimming. It would 

 seem that any m.an who has sufficient intelligence to be allowed to run 

 at large ought to know that the cutting of large limbs can not be justified 

 as consistent Avlth the preservation of the tree. All trimming ought to be 

 done at a time and in a way that it will not be necessary to cut limbs 

 of any considerable size. If this period in the life of a tree is allowed to 

 pass it is gone for good. 



What shall then be. said of a man who will go up into a shade tree 

 (or who will allow some one to do it for him) after it is thirty or forty feet 

 high and saw off every limb he can reach, from one inch to four or tive 

 inches in diameter and leave the stumps sticking straight up in the air? 

 There is no excuse for such ignorance. No man who knows anything at 

 all of life and growth would think of doing so foolish a thing. "Year after 

 year I have seen this foolish and wicked thing being done in the city of 

 Indianapolis by people who are so thoughtless and nonobserving that they 

 never learn anything liy cxiuTicncf. Did any man since tie- wnrld liegan 

 ever see a limb that had been cut off where it was three, four or five 

 inches in diameter, and the stump left standing straight up in the air 

 heal over? If there has been such an instance, then it is worthy of a place 

 among curiosities with the two-headed calf. Under smb circumstances 

 a limb one inch in diameter will not do it. I have had foolish people after 

 they had their trees thus mutilated and when nature trying to hide the 



