Ornamental and Shade Trees 



A Department for the Advice and Instruction of Members of the American Forestry Association 



Edited by J. J. Levison, B.A., M.F. 



TAKING CARE OF SHADE TREES 



IN THE foregoing two papers we have seen the advisa- 

 bility of any city or even local block community under- 

 taking the planting and care of its shade trees. We 

 have also considered ways and means of attaining the 

 necessary organization and decided upon the advisability 

 of having all work coordinated under the head of one 

 bureau, commission or single head. 



With the work coordinated, place the responsibility of 

 all tree matters on a professional forester, a man trained 

 in the science of forestry and arboriculture and one of 

 considerable experience in park work. His duties will be 

 to see to all planting, spraying, pruning and cultivating. 

 He will establish a municipal nursery, test the various 

 insecticides and fungicides, install the best apparatus and 

 enforce the city tree ordinances. He will organize the 

 office work, plot the street trees on a map and advise 

 citizens on their tree problems. He will issue permits for 

 tree removals and private tree pruning, study the local 

 tree problems, collect tree statistics and promote public 

 interest through lectures and writing. 



The enactment of a good 

 city tree ordinance is the next 

 step. A number of cities 

 now have such ordinances in 

 force and the new one may 

 be modeled from those. The 

 tools to work with are thus 

 provided, and if the trained 

 expert is a good one, the de- 

 tails of carrying out the work 

 may be left to him. The city 

 tree commission, or whatever 

 board has charge, should 

 oversee his work occasion- 

 ally, give him the benefit of 

 its official support, and back 

 him when necessary, because 

 in the beginning of all such 

 work there frequently appear 

 many cases of opposition 

 from citizens, who, either for 

 selfish motives or otherwise, 

 try to force their own views 

 in the matter of handling 

 technical tree problems. 



The attention of the 

 forester will probably be 

 directed first to the care of trees badly pRUNED 



the existing trees rather than N ot hi n g is more unsightly than a row of butchered trees such as here shown. 

 tr , *L_ ,,1 J:*:-- ~t ~o, ^100 Unfortunately such a sight is all too common, and may be seen in more commu- 

 IU me dUUUlon OI new ones. n ities than one cares to count. 



Spraying for leaf-eating insects may be his first work. 

 Street trees, growing under less favorable conditions than 

 park trees, are naturally weaker and more susceptible to 

 insect attack. Street elms without care very seldom escape 

 attack from the elm-leaf beetle and such trees as the horse- 

 chestnut and linden are titbits for leaf -eating caterpillars. 

 Let all such spraying be done early while the insect is 

 young and susceptible to the poison. It is also important 

 to look into the chemical and physical value of the 

 insecticide you are using. 



A few years ago, I found one of the best known brands 

 of arsenate of lead to contain as little as 4 per cent of 

 arsenate oxide, whereas it should have had 15 per cent or 

 more to be the least effective. Since then, we have been 

 subjecting our spraying material to chemical and physical 

 tests and have been paying considerably less than what we 

 had been paying before. 



Success in spraying will, moreover, depend not only 

 on the value of the insecticides and upon how early in its 

 feeding stage the insect is attacked, but also on the thor- 

 oughness with which the 

 work is done. The kind of 

 apparatus used will also make 

 an appreciable difference, for 

 a barrel pump is too slow for 

 the amount of labor used to 

 operate it and a very heavy 

 wooden tank, such as is com- 

 monly used for woodland 

 spraying, would prove too 

 sluggish and cumbersome in 

 going about the city streets. 

 In late summer and early 

 fall, pruning will be in 

 season. The men should then 

 be trained in the fundamental 

 principles of the work and 

 furnished with printed hints 

 on the necessary precautions 

 in climbing trees and remov- 

 ing branches. We have had 

 little booklets published on 

 such topics for our men and 

 find them very helpful. 



Close cuts and application of 



coal-tar to the wounds should 



always be insisted upon and, 



above everything else, do not 



485 



