600 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



This New England village is located on about the highest point of the 

 public road between New York and Montreal, and if approached from 

 either side, the incline is just enough to permit the traveller to take a 

 good look at the magnificent elms and sugar maples which line the es- 

 pecially wide street through the center of the town. In this line of trees 

 we can find grand elms that spread 110 feet and their trunks will show 

 a circumference of as high as 14 ieet, 2 inches. These elms have good 

 high trunks, and still the tips of their limbs droop most gracefully down 

 into the road, almost low enough so that a carriage top might touch them. 

 I know of no other street that will please the eye of the horticulturist as 

 much as this one, and it is all to be credited to the American elm with its 

 great, arching branches. One of those trees has, as already said, a cir- 

 cumference of 14 feet 2 inches, with a spread of 102 feet, and a second 

 one is 14 feet in circumference, spreading over 110 feet of ground, and 

 still another covers 95 feet of earth and it requires 10 feet 6 inches of the 

 tape line to reach around it. All those gigantic elms are over 100 years 

 old, and no care as to pruning and cultivation of soil has been bestowed 

 upon them, and still I am fully convinced that the proper application of 

 the knife with a loose and deep earth mulch will hasten the growth 

 sufficiently to repay the busiest man for the time he may put into it. 



I am not much in favor of heavy top trimming at the time of planting, 

 but judging from the amount of root that has been cut off, I like to cut the 

 leading branches back just enough so that the remaining roots will be 

 strong enough to support a good growth of leaves. If the first year's 

 growth is weak but every twig produced good leaves, I am satisfied, be- 

 cause I know that with a heavy pruning the second year I can produce 

 a good and often an extra heavy growth because the young rootlets estab- 

 lished in the previous season are strong enough to push the sap up to the 

 top and open the tight bark, pushing the young bud to a vigorous branch. 

 The pruning hereafter usually consists of thinning out only, unless a 

 strong wind from one direction forces the growth all to one side, when 

 the leader must be repeatedly cut back, sending an equally strong growth 

 against the wind, which is easily done with the elm. Here again we 

 find the elm the most obliging of all shade trees for the union of those 

 limbs that have been forced out by pruning is so perfect that it is not 

 easily disturbed, and the cut or wound is soon covered with young wood. 

 There is no need of having any sprawling or one sided elm trees since it 

 responds so well to the knife without sacrifice to its growth. I wish to 

 emphasize that after each pruning of the young elm its roots are forced 

 down into the earth where there is more moisture, acting the same 

 as a night's rest on the daily toiler. 



On the elm as well as the ash, and in fact on all deciduous trees, 

 with perhaps the exception of the willow and tamarix, the renewal plan 

 of pruning is far preferable, and all stump cutting should be avoided. 

 Under the renewal plan I understand the method by which the operator 

 in his desire to shorten an out of proportion, strong growing limb by 

 carefully selecting a side branch — usually one on top of the main limb — • 

 for its future leader, exercises particular caution to make his selec- 



