410 r.oAK'D <>)•■ A(;iM( ii/rn.'K. 



hideous sijilit lluow out a inultitudo of small hranclies about the uu- 

 sightly stuuip. and thus give a round top that to me was much like 

 flowers laid upon a ooflin. call my attention to the improvement in the 

 shape and appoaranre of tlie tops. They did not know enougli to realize 

 that they were like wliited sepulchers full of dead men's l)ones. They did 

 not know that inside of the round top there were scores of places of decay 

 that must as certainly kill the tree as if they had been girdled at the root. 

 I can take you, if desired, to hundreds of trees in this city that have thus 

 been started on the road to death. You can not fail to see them almost 

 everywhere if you will observe as you pass along our streets. You will 

 find them in every stage of progress in their passage to the wood yard. 

 It is a good time now to observe them. They are not covered now with 

 the apparel with which nature covers the ravages of death. Look at theru. 

 The water has. at the cut end of the limbs, entered between the wood and 

 the bark and, assisted by the invited insects, has sent a decayed streak 

 from the end of limbs thirty or forty feet high down one side of the limlj 

 to the trunk, down the trunk to the grass at the roots. Everywhere you 

 can see these mutilated limbs with one side dead, while on the other 

 side is a strip of live wood from wliicli has spi'ung bunches of small liml)s 

 ill the vain effort of the life power in the tree to reitnir ilit damage done 

 or to compensate the loss that has occurred. 



Such a sensless and ruthless cutting of shade trees is almost criminal. 

 The life power of no tree is alile to stand it. It will not kill the tree in 

 one season, but it starts decay in so many places that the vitality is 

 exhausted in vain effort to repair the damage done. Every wound^ be- 

 comes a home for insects and worms by the hundred, and year after year 

 the struggle is harder as iimlj after limb dies and the usefulness and 

 beauty of the tree is gone, although it may linger crippled and decrepit 

 for eight or ten years or longer, but in many instances they are dead in 

 three or four years or become so unsightly that they are cut down and 

 replaced by young trees. I have lived in this city to see in some places 

 the third set of trees, and these are now on their way to the woo:l pile, 

 victims of ignorance and thoughtlessness. Will it never be remembered 

 that trees are living things and that the structure of them can not be 

 wounded and multilated without limit any more than can the body of a 

 man? Being living things it is all-important that the life force should be 

 conserved and assisted. 



In trimming a tree the horticulturist should know enough about his 

 business: about growth. al)0ut vegetalile life and the peculiarities and 

 tendencies of each tree to begin his trimming at a time in the life of the 

 tree when it will not be necessary to cut large limbs. - If it becomes 

 necessary for any cause to remove a limb it should be cut in a way to 

 make the smallest possible wound. Avoid the use of a saw. It tears the 

 wood and bark and leaves the wound rough and more or less ragged. 

 Use a sharp knife or chisel. Cut close to the part from which you re- 



