86 General Care of Trees 



Besides the trimming for form and equilibrium, all broken 

 branches must be at once pruned in proper manner, to pre- 

 vent location of fungus spores, for, as we have seen, branch 

 stumps are the most prolific causes for the beginning of 

 rot. 



The rules for proper pruning, although simple and based 



on a knowledge of tree physi- 

 ology, seem most generally un- 

 known or overlooked, because 

 Fig. i6. — Solid steel pruning the operation is left to ignorant 



shears. , ry^, . i i_i 



workmen. Ihere is probably 

 more loss of tree life due to unskilful pruning than to any 

 other cause. 



Nothing can more pithily and impressively express the 

 public attitude still prevailing to a large extent on this 

 subject than Lowell's words in a letter directed to the Presi- 

 dent of Harvard University in 1863, a letter containing so 

 much common sense on tree management that we quote 

 fully from it. 



" Something ought to be done about the trees in the col- 

 lege yard. . . . They remind me always of a young author's 

 first volume of poems. There are too many of 'em and too 

 many of one kind. If they were not planted in such formal 

 rows, they would typify very well John Bull's notion of 'our 

 democrac}'' where every tree is its neighbor's encmv and all 

 turn out scrubs in the end, because none can develop fairly. 

 ... I think Hesiod (who knew something of country 

 matters) was clearly right in his 'half being better than the 

 whole,' and nowhere more so than in the matter of trees. 

 . . . We want to learn that one fine tree is worth more than 

 any mob of second-rate ones. We want to take a leaf out 

 of Chaucer's book and understand that in a stately grove 

 every tree must 'stand well from his fellow apart.' . . . 



