ORNAMENTAL AND SHADE TREES 



111 



Q. Shall appreciate your advice as to the best time and 

 most desirable spray to use for the oyster scale. A very 

 interesting case has arisen here and we are considering 

 hiring a man to spray for this pest now, in January, but 

 it is my personal belief that it is better to do this in the 

 spring and that winter spraying is not so effective. W. 

 W. M., Rogers Park, III. 



A. The oyster-shell scale may be controlled by appli- 

 cations in the Spring, the middle part of May or later, 

 of a contact insecticide such as kerosene emulsion or 

 whale-oil-soap solution, making the application when the 

 crawling young are most abundant. Systematic spraying 

 with lime-sulphur wash, that is, annual applications, will 

 help considerably to keep this pest under control, though 

 for a serious outbreak you will do better by waiting until 

 spring, as described above. 



Q. How is it possible to protect beech trees from para- 

 sites that infect the leaves? They are found on the 

 undersurface and cause the leaves to wrinkle and curl 

 up and eventually to become yellow and die. J. H., 

 Baltimore, Md. 



A. You can readily destroy these soft-bodied sucking 

 insects by spraying the under side of the leaves at the 

 time the insects appear with a whale-oil-soap solution at 

 the rate of one pound of whale-oil soap to 5 gallons of 

 water. 



ORNAMENTAL TREE WORK IN CHINA 



Mr. Chang is a graduate of the Yale Forest School 

 and has gone back to interest his people in the planting 

 of parks and streets. He writes as follows : 



"Some time ago your welcome letter with a separate 

 parcel of pictures and literature came to me. Thank you 

 very much for them. I have been reading American 

 Forestry and like your articles and advices very much, 

 for they often give me just what I want. 



''Our mission has two pieces of land, one 30 acres, 

 where the college campus will be, and not far from the 

 city, and the other 28 acres, more or less, on a hillside 

 about four or five miles away from the city. The lati- 

 tude here is about that of Florida, except inland. The 

 soil is bottom land, with surface soil of fine loam and 

 subsoil of clay. What kinds of trees are best as shade 

 trees for the campus and as an experiment station for 

 the other ? At present both pieces are treeless. My sug- 

 gestions are: To plant as many willows as possible for 

 the time being, especially on the campus. To try to get 

 some young trees of ginko, plane, locust, Uku tung 

 (alcurites cordata) a very hardy and shady tree, for the 

 immediate planting. To establish a small nursery on the 

 property for replacing the willows and planting the rest. 

 ''How do you treat the ginko seeds before sowing? 

 The seed, or fruit, is a little smaller than an olive, with a 

 hard, limy cover and meat within." 



A. You certainly do have an excellent opportunity to 

 bring this new phase of arboriculture and ornamental 

 tree planting before your people, and we would be very 

 anxious to cooperate with you from time to time and 

 offer you all the suggestions we possibly can. Your idea 



of planting willows, etc., for immediate effect and inter- 

 planting trees of a more permanent character is a very 

 good one. Your selection of species is all right except 

 that I would like to suggest the addition of many more 

 varieties both for the sake of experiment and for the sake 

 of change of color and character. I am not familiar 

 enough with your conditions to dare give you an abso- 

 lute list of what you should plant, but it seems to me that 

 several of the oaks, beeches, the pines, the hackberry, the 

 birches, the tulip tree, sweet gum, magnolias, the elms, 

 the catalpas, the native Wu tung, or Chinese National 

 Tree. Would not recommend the aleurites, or wood oil 

 tree for shade planting; and some of the smaller orna- 

 mental trees and shrubs should be represented. If you 

 cannot use them all in your permanent plantations, I 

 would suggest that you at least put them in a nursery 

 for future use. 



As to the treatment of the ginko seeds before sowing, 

 I found the same difficulty that you have experienced, 

 and obtained good results by filing the edges of the seed 

 a little before putting them in the ground. That pre- 

 pares the seed for easy breaking and germination. 



MONUMENT TO A TREE 



PERHAPS one of the most curious monuments in 

 existence has recently been built in Ontario by 

 Canadians, says The Popular Science Monthly. 

 The farmers have just erected a marble pillar to mark 

 the site on which grew a famous apple tree. 



More than a century ago a settler in Canada named 

 Mcintosh, when clearing a space in which to make a home 

 in the wilderness, discovered among a number of wild 

 apple trees one which bore fruit so well that he cultivated 

 it and named it Mcintosh Red. 



The apple became famous; seeds and cuttings were 

 distributed to all parts of Canada, so that now the Mcin- 

 tosh Red flourishes wherever apples grow in the great 

 Dominion. In 1896 the original tree from which the 

 enormous family sprang was injured by fire, but it con- 

 tinued to bear fruit until five years ago. Then, after 15 

 years, it died, and the grateful farmers have raised a 

 marble pillar in honor of the tree which did so much for 

 the fruit-growing industry of their land. 



The story of this apple tree illustrates the African 

 proverb that, though you can count the apples on one 

 tree, you can never count the trees in one apple. 



FORESTRY ESSAY CONTEST 



IX an effort to stimulate interest in forestry and in the 

 conservation of forest resources, the Indiana State 

 Board of Forestry has announced prizes, to be com- 

 peted for by the school children of the State, for an essay 

 on "A Plan for the Beautifying of the School Grounds by 

 Planting Trees and Shrubs." The first prize will be 

 $12.50 and the second, $7.50 in cash, to be given to the 

 successful contestants in the high schools of the State, 

 and prizes of the same amounts will also be awarded the 

 grade and country school writers of the best essays. 



