Tree Doctoring. Science Versus Practice 



By W. M. O. Edwards. 



The "Country Gentleman" recently stated that "gen- 

 uine disaster faces many ni our shade trees, three of 

 our valuable species are threatened with extinction, 

 the chestnuts frcim the blight, hickories and birches 

 from borers working undt-r the bark, for which there 

 is no visible means of salvation."' This is now an old 

 story, which regularly reappears in the press and re- 

 peated at every opportunit\- by the experts, who take 



f IIKSlXri" III- \-l'i ■114. I'lKiTii, 1..1II. 



a gloomy view of the situation because they them- 

 selves are absolutely nun[)lused in their efforts to 

 find ways and means thai will successfully save in- 

 fected trees, and the chestnut blight bogey has been 

 carried on with such persistence and constancy as to 

 lead all lovers of these beautiful trees into the belief 

 that they are doomed. P. T. I'.arnum used to say that 

 the public liked to be humliugged. and is it not pa- 

 thetic to observe how the intelligent public are being 

 humbugged all the time and hiAd such mysterious ven- 

 eration for the expert who is doing it. and the woods 

 are full of them, who think and act with one accord, 

 that whatever one of them knows, the)' all know, b(u 

 they are afraid to plow intu unknown seas, because 

 they have no faith in themselves or initiative to grasj) 

 the problems and concpier tln-m. May we ask. whither 

 are we drifting? Ha\e \\ c as a people become so 

 helpless in these enlightened times, with our thousand--- 

 of experts, with the deluge of talk by state, national 

 and local organizations to encourage the planting anrl 



preservation of treo. liut whose work actually van- 

 ished into thin air, like the "flowers that bloom unseen 

 and waste their fragrance in the desert air," because 

 our trees are dying by the thousands all over our 

 broad land ? 



At the 1910 convention of the S. A. F. :\Ir. \V. X. 

 Rudd pertinently asked, what has the experiment sta- 

 tion done for our benefit? Insect and fungoid diseases 

 we always have with us, what are they doing to check 

 ihem? Broadly stated, they have not measured up to 

 their opportunities and the necessities of the times. 

 True, they have accomplished much, but is there not 

 too much science, too great a gap between the scien- 

 tific theorist and the practical and intelligent work- 

 man? Does not too much government make us help- 

 less? 



In the presence of such a destructive disease as the 

 chestnut l)light, is it not extraordinary to find that, 

 notwithstanding the fact that our professional friends 

 ha\-e failed to find or to devise methods of control for 

 the back disease, as well as the hickory and the birch, 

 and many others, it is nevertheless actually a physical 

 impossibility to get a rational response, or any con- 

 sideration whatever, when they have been notified that 

 these diseases can be kept in check and infected trees 

 saved. They are evidently reactionaries of the first 

 water, and instead of being liberal enough to give en- 



nUKOKV— RUST .A.M) IIOKER. PRUNIvI) .Wl' TUK.\r£D 190^. 

 PHOTO. 1910. 



