220 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



he will get comments from several members on the 

 subject and questions and answers will be published 

 later for the benefit of all. 



Your problem is most likely some other member's 

 problem, and yet one that has been solved by other 

 members. A question box will bring out things which 

 are bound to be helpful to many. Now send in your 

 questions and we'll start a question box next month. 

 It's up to you. 



If you have not paid your dues for the current fiscal 

 year, do so promptly, so that the association may con- 

 duct its business on a cash basis. 



Many of our members have deferred paying their 

 dues until the end of the year or at the convention. 

 To illustrate what this means, it may be mentioned 

 that several hundred dollars of last year's bills had to 

 await the convention receipts before being paid. 



This system is all wrong and impairs the credit of 

 the association. Our income is not sufficient to accu- 

 mulate a surplus as our dues are nominal, and as it 

 does not cost an\ more to pay them in advance or 

 early in the year, members should try and remit early. 



The secretary has sent a due bill to every member 

 nut paid up. and hopes for a prompt response. 



If you did not attend the convention at Newburgh. 

 you did not get one of those neat five color enameled 

 official buttons of the association. The secretary has a 

 supply on hand, and they will be mailed out to all mem- 

 bers who remit fifty cents, the cost price. They were 

 sold at this rate at the convention, and all proceeds 

 go to the association funds. 



Members of the association who have severed their 

 connection with park work or otherwise, and have re- 

 quested that their membership be discontinued, are as 

 follows : 



C. H. Guengerich, former park commissioner, Jt)p- 

 lin, AIo. ; Herbert Greensmith, former superintendent 

 of parks, Cincinnati, Ohio; Phelps Wyman, landscape 

 architect, Minneapolis, Minn. ; Myron H. ^Vest, park 

 Ijuilder, Chicago, 111.; E. W. Robinson, former park 

 commissioner, Denver, Colo.; J. F, MacPherson, for- 

 mer jjark commissioner, .Springfield, 111. 



PARK DEPARTMENT PERSONALS 



Charles A. W'hittet, for ten 3'ears superintendent of 

 parks at Lowell, Mass., is disengaged and on the look- 

 out for an appointment, as is Richard Iwerson, former- 

 Iv superintendent at Calgary, Canada. 



Frank Brubeck, for many years superintendent of 

 parks at Terre Haute, Indiana, has severed his con- 

 nection with the park department, owing to a political 

 situation brought about liy a partisan mayor who evi- 

 dently is not bniad enough or wise enough to know 

 that park administration and politics should not be 

 coupled together. 



Mr. Brul)eck was a regular attendant at our conven- 

 tions, one of last year's vice-presidents, and an honor 

 to the profession and the association. 



He has entered another line of work for the present, 

 but it is to be hoped that he will sooner or later return 

 to park work and in anticipation of this he intends to 

 retain his memljership with the association, as does 

 Secretary Wood Posey who. with Superintendent 

 Brubeck, was also a victim of the political changes. 



TREE SURGERY DEMANDS RELIABLE MEN. 



A cavity in a decayed tree is something like a cavity in 

 a decayed tooth. If an unreliable tree surgeon only par- 

 tially removes the diseased part of the wood, uses no 

 antiseptic coatings in the cavity and fills it up with cement 

 the tree is no more cured than is a person whose decayed 

 tooth has not been properly filled by the dentist. The only 

 difference is that after the tree cavity has been covered, 

 if the- work has not been properly done, the tree has no 

 way of making its trouble known except by further decay. 



\\'ithin the last decade there has been a great increase 

 in demand for surgeons to repair decaying shade trees, 

 but the possibilities of practicing fraud in this profession 

 like the instance just cited have tem[jted so man)- unre- 

 liable people to double in the science that tree surgery has 

 fallen somewhat into disrepute. The U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture realizes that tree surgery should occupy 

 a high place in the estimation of the public, and has re- 

 cently issued a pamphlet entitled, "Practical Tree Sur- 

 gery," wherein suggestions are made for improvement 

 along these lines. 



As in all professions, there are reliable and unreliable 

 men and firms competing for contracts in tree surgery. 

 In recent years so many occasions have arisen when prop- 

 erty owners felt the necessity of calling in commercial 

 tree surgeons to attend to their trees that there are now 

 numerous firms, both honest and dishonest, engaged in 

 the work. 



Besides the careless filling of decayed cavities in trees, 

 there are other practices of certain so-called "tree sur- 

 geons"' that do the trees more harm than good. Many of 

 these "surgeons," as well as the people who employ them, 

 do not realize the danger arising froniTre'sh injuries to a 

 tree. The tree owner should realize that prompt attend- 

 ance to fresh injuries will largely do away with the need 

 of tree surgery 15 or 20 years hence. The tree sur- 

 geons must realize that if they make fresh injuries in the 

 living bark, when treating decayed portions, they are lay- 

 ing the tree open to more dangers of infection that will 

 result in further decay. 



Just as a person is subject to infection through cuts 

 and scratches, trees are rendered subject to infection by 

 having their living bark torn. Notwithstanding this, many 

 tree surgeons use pruning hooks and climbing spurs and 

 cut fresh gashes in the tree. To break off small dead 

 branches a workman may use a long pruning hook as 

 though it were a club. In doing so the hook usually 

 causes injury to the young bark near by. Every new 

 wound may furnish a new point of entrance for decay, 

 even though the old dead branch may have been removed. 



The use of climbing spurs shotdd be particularly avoid- 

 ed on trees in vicinities where there is a contagious in- 

 fection. Thev simply render the treated tree all the more 

 liable to catch the disease which is "in the air." 



The U. S. Department of Agriculture is suggesting a 

 plan that may help put tree surgery on a better basis. 



( 1 ) No climbing spurs shall be used on any part of 

 a tree. 



(2) The shoes worn b\- the workmen shall have soft 

 rubber bottoms. 



(3) Ordinary commercial orange shellac shall be ap- 

 plied to cover the cut edges of sapwood and cambium 

 (which is the soft formative tissue from which the new- 

 wood and bark originate) within five minutes after the 

 final trimming cut is made. 



(4) All cut or shellacked surfaces shall be painted with 

 commercial creosote, followed by thick coal tar. 



(5) All diseased, rotten, discolored, water-soaked, or 

 insect-eaten wood shall be removed in cavity work before 

 it is filled. 



