532 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Courtesy the Missouri Botanical Garden 



TREE IN NEED OF REPAIR 



in which was growing a 

 young horse-chestnut tree 

 with a bundle of roots 

 fully two feet long and 

 six inches through. In the 

 crotch, opened by wind 

 and snow, a mature root 

 had lodged and findins^ 

 germinating conditions, 

 had begun literally to eat 

 the heart of its own 

 father-and-mother tree. 



When fully explored, 

 and the decayed wood re- 

 moved, the cavity in this 

 tree was found to embrace 

 all of its main bole but a 

 bare inch inside the bark 

 and cambium, and to ex- 

 tend more than ten feet 

 up the main branch. The tree was nothing but a 

 shell, and the first gang of "tree surgeons" which 

 had opened its wounds and diagnosed its injuries 

 was aghast at the situation, being afraid to undertake 

 final treatment. As the horse-chestnut occupied a 

 strategic position on my lawn, and I was not of an 

 age to calmly contemplate waiting twenty years or 

 more for the gradual replacement of its effective 

 beauty, I was willing to call in a consultant. 



His conclusion was that the tree might be saved ; 

 and he prescribed an interior arrangement equivalent 

 to the artificial leg my father tried to wear after his 

 heroic experience at Gettysburg in 1863. Two lengths 

 of flat iron, 2i/$ inches by yg, inch, each eleven feet 

 long, were inserted and cross-braced. The clean 

 cavity was made aseptic ; a curious drainage lip was 

 carefully cut around its edges, and then the whole 

 of it was concrete-filled. 



No, not the whole of it ; for the concreting stopped 

 short or inside of the bark surface at the drainage 



Courtesy the Missouri Botanical Caidcu 



BOLTED AND BRACED 



lip, or "water-shed," as I was informed it was called 

 in the terminology of the trade. There must be no 

 obstacle in the way of the rolling over of the cambium 

 layer, if the operation was successful and the patient 

 also lived. 



All this trouble had arisen because of the original 

 split in the crotch of the tree. To avoid a recurrence 

 of this split when the winds should again blow, the 

 surgeon braced the big limbs above, not by rigid, 

 unyielding iron, but by easy chain links, connecting 

 the parts of the tree, but permitting wind movement. 

 These chains were anchored by bolts run clear 

 through the solid wood above the cavity, the heads 

 being recessed into the central structure inside the 

 cambium layer. 



To provide an outlet for any moisture that might 

 leak through, a drainage tube was inserted at the 

 lowest level of the excavation. 



There were five of these horse-chestnut trees, all 

 of them important to my 

 home, and all having been 

 growing about it some 

 thirty-five years before I 

 came into possession. All 

 were in trouble from 

 crotch splits, though not 

 to the extent described 

 above. All were treated 

 as seemed necessary, be- 

 ing cleaned out to sound 

 wood, braced above and 

 below, and duly filled with 

 concrete. The work was 

 expensive, as well as ex- 

 tensive ; but when I con- 

 templated the bill on the 

 basis of putting the trees 

 into prosperous health, as 

 compared with their im- 



^.. :^-iCS5E3 



Courtesy the Missouri Uotanicat Garden 



FILLED WITH CONCRETE AND PAINTED 



