66 THE HUMAN SIDE OF TREES 



It pays to put careful work of this nature in the 

 hands of a tree expert. 



Nature is sometimes her own physician, and, 

 when her ills are not too severe, can cure herself 

 without consultation. Her surgery is bloodless, 

 and, as far as we know, painless. Poplars and 

 willows sometimes become too ambitious, and, in 

 the stimulation of spring, send forth more twigs 

 and branches than they can support in the sluggish 

 days of summer. Finding themselves with a sur- 

 plus of twigs, these ingenuous trees perform a num- 

 ber of amputations. By a special cell formation of 

 cork-like growth the nutrition is gradually cut off 

 from the part to be eliminated. These abscess cells, 

 as they are termed, form up close to the parent 

 limb or trunk and completely encircle the branch 

 to be discarded. When the cork circle is complete 

 the twig drops off by its own weight. 



There is no question but that, as a class, the fruit 

 trees are the best educated members of their race. 

 Because of the delicious tuition they are able to 

 pay, man has made them his class-room pets. They 

 have been very apt pupils and in his skilful hands 

 have undergone many marvellous transformations. 

 We are in the habit of thinking that it must have 

 been a very luscious apple indeed which caused 

 Adam and Eve to sin. Yet all the findings of 



