MANAGEMENT OF DECAYING TREES 45 



whether whole trees, branches or bark, is the 

 only means of keeping both insect and fun- 

 goid pests in bounds. 



SUPPORTING HEAVY AND DISEASED 

 BRANCHES. The lifetime of many old trees 

 in our towns and cities has been greatly ex- 

 tended, and their natural beauty retained, 

 by the supporting of heavy and diseased 

 limbs with judiciously arranged iron bands 

 and connecting rods. This is particularly the 

 case with old specimen Elms, Mulberries, and 

 the Catalpa, the heavy branches and brittle 

 timber of which is apt to become diseased 

 and hollow and readily wrenched from the 

 main trunk during stormy weather. To 

 obviate this is a simple matter by carefully 

 joining such branches as are likely to fall 

 away either to one another, if on opposite 

 sides of the tree, or to the main stem by 

 means of chains or bands and light connect- 

 ing rods. Chains, though often used, are 

 for various reasons to be avoided, the flat 

 iron band lined with leather being far pre- 

 ferable and much less likely to cut into the 



