382 



TO CURE THE BURSTING OF THE CHERRY TREE. 



On examination, I soon suspected it was 

 owing mainly, if not wholly, to the girding 

 of the " corticle," or outer ring-hark. I 

 slitted this outer .bark in several places, on 

 several trees, up and down with my knife, 

 thinking to give relief. 



To my surprise, some of the trees so slit- 

 ted burst at the very points the slits were 

 made, though all on the north side. Others 

 increased in size at every single point under 

 the slit of the knife where relief was given, 

 so as to elongate their diameters in those 

 directions, at the rate of from half an inch 

 to an inch and one-half in a single season. 

 In one case, a short slit was accidentally 

 made about one foot long, near the ground, 

 on the west side of the tree ; its eastern 

 and western diameter, at this point, was 

 increased, in a year or two, full three inch- 

 es ; while St the point of another slit, about 

 the same length made above, or higher up 

 the tree, by two feet, on the north side, 

 the northern and southern diameter was 

 enlarged almost as much, forming two 

 great bulges on the trunk ; one on the west- 

 ern side near the ground, and another on 

 the northern side higher up, with an evi- 

 dent enlargement of both diameters through- 

 out the entire trunk, above and below each 

 slit, while still the tree was in perfect ap- 

 parent health. I should also have said that 

 the trees, in all these cases, apparently 

 stopped their growth so as to be greatly 

 compressed and flattened, or hollowed in, 

 at those points where the bark was uncut. 

 From these facts I took my hint, and cut 

 up and down the north side of the trunks 

 slits within one inch of each other, or one 

 inch and even less apart ; some within one- 

 half an inch. In every case, the diameter 

 was increased rapidly and speedily, directly 

 under the slit, and compressed and appa- 

 rently bark-hound between ; even where 

 the distance between the slits was not 



more than half an inch. I also peeled ofT 

 rings of the outer bark one inch or so wide, 

 and then alternately left a strip of the same 

 width, running round the tree entire. In 

 every case, as before, the tree grew and 

 "bulged" out in rings, where the bark 

 was removed, and remained stationary and 

 compressed where it was not. 



About this time my largest, finest cherry 

 tree, (White Heart,) began to burst near 

 the ground, on the southwest side. 



I of course took my knife, and took the 

 corticle wholly off of the trunk, and all the 

 large limbs, as high up as I could reach. 

 It was not one week before the inner bark 

 cracked open once every quarter of an inch 

 all round the tree, in the natural way ; and 

 though this was three years ago, (I think,) 

 the tree is now perfectly sound and healthy, 

 and bore fruit last season. I have since 

 peeled other trees, with equal success in 

 every case. 



I fancied that with all this painstaking I 

 had made a discovery. But lo ! " there is 

 nothing new under the sun." For, as I 

 was boasting of my discovery and my suc- 

 cess, to a man from the rich valleys of the 

 Ohio, he very coolly replied, " that is no- 

 thing ; we always knew, on the Miama 

 Bottoms, that our best cherry trees would 

 die without peeling." And so went all my 

 renown, as a discoverer. So much, how'- 

 ever, for the facts in the case. Now for 

 my theory, which may be right, or may be 

 wrong. 



Almost every tree passes a certain crisis, 

 in changing from a smooth bark into a 

 rough bark tree ; that is, the original corti- 

 cle from the seed dies, and splits, and 

 sheds off, or it is glued on merely as a 

 dead outer coat. For example, the shagg- 

 bark hickory throws it off. The pine keeps 

 it on as a dead covering. 



Now this outer bark will be thin, and 



