MUTILATION OF SHADE TREES. 333 



MUTILATION OF TREES BY HORSES AND VEHICLES. 



Whole number Number Percentage 

 of trees. mutilated. injured. 



Orange St., Canner to Court 260 82 31 



Wall St., State to York 44 24 55 



Ashmun St., York to Munson 107 59 55 



Orchard St., Munson to Davenport Ave. 244 86 35 



Chapel St., Day to College 86 38 44 



Charles St., Orchard to Dixwell Ave... 18 8 44 



Howe St., Whalley Ave. to Oak 130 41 31 



George St., Temple to Winthrop Ave... 254 70 28 



1143 408 36 



Another very destructive mutilation is the necessary cutting 

 of large roots in digging for water and gas mains or sewers, 

 and worse than this the cutting of main roots close to the tree 

 or the cutting of the trunk itself in order to lay a curb-stone 

 to line or make a cobble gutter. An illustration of such mutila- 

 tion is given in figure 3, Plate IX. 



While this Report was in preparation, one of the finest elms 

 in the city was blown down by a sudden squall, carrying to 

 the ground a number of electric trolley wires, maiming a horse 

 so that it had to be killed and doing injury to the building 

 opposite. Had it fallen a few minutes earlier or later it would 

 certainly have demolished street cars and destroyed human life. 

 The tree was perfectly sound five feet above the ground, but at 

 the surface it was a mere shell, the heart wood being entirely 

 destroyed. The primary cause of this decay was quite certainly 

 a mutilation of the root which had not healed and in which 

 decay had started, spreading till the whole was gone. Figure 4, 

 Plate IX shows the decayed trunk seen from the bottom and is 

 a striking example of the damage which may result from a 

 mutilation. 



Another mutilation which has destroyed many trees or greatly 

 marred them is unskillful trimming and neglect of the scars 

 left by it. In many cases large limbs have been sawed off, 

 leaving bare wounds almost horizontally exposed, to catch and 

 hold the rain and entirely unprotected by anything like paint 

 to keep the water out. Naturally decay soon begins here, and 

 spreads into the body of the tree. 



Figure 5 of Plate X gives an illustration of this kind of 

 damage. 



