A FORESTER WHOSE FIELD 

 IS THE CITY 



By C. D. MELL 



THE time is coming when the work 

 of caring for trees in city parks 

 and streets will call for men with 

 a professional forester's training. In- 

 deed, this time is already at hand. More 

 big cities than one have foresters em- 

 ployed, and the work these foresters 

 have to do can be effectively done only 

 by men who have gone through a tech- 

 nical course of study such as prepares 

 a man to handle trees in the mass for 

 profit, instead of individually for orna- 

 ment and recreation. 



One of these cities is New York, 

 where city forestry has been developed 

 more extensively than anywhere else in 

 the country. In the boroughs of Brook- 

 lyn and Queens there are 1 50,000 street 

 trees, forty-one parks, and forty-five 

 miles of parkways to look after, and 

 a graduate of the Yale Forest School, 

 Mr. J. J. Levison, formerly of the 

 .United States Forest Service, is in 

 charge. Mr. Levison is also forester 

 of the recently organized American As- 

 sociation for the Planting and Care of 

 City Trees. 



It would be a great mistake to sup- 

 pose that the work of a city forester is 

 simple, merely because he has to deal 

 with single trees and not with whole 

 forests. Assuredly, it is no simple mat- 

 ter to be responsible for the welfare of 

 150,000 separate and distinct trees, all 

 of which are in plain sight all the time, 

 and most of which some citizen takes 

 an almost proprietary interest in. The 

 tree that stands in front of the city 

 man's gate is pretty nearly the only tree . 

 that he cares a rap about ; but about 

 that tree he cares at least several raps. 

 He wants and expects it to be thrifty 

 and sightly ; he considers it distinctly 



up to the man in charge to keep it 

 In the parks, again, a good m 

 thousands of persons have a chance 

 the time to find fault with neglect 

 trees, when there is neglect ; and 

 nobody has ground for complaint 

 this score, the reason is, whether 

 preciated or not, that the city fore 

 is energetically holding down his jot 



So if he is in earnest, the city 

 ester's job will tax his lore and ^ 

 to the utmost. It is a new line 

 work, with big difficulties and a pn 

 ising future. Mr. Levison was as 

 to outline for AMERICAN FORESTRY 

 work that falls to his share as city 

 ester of Brooklyn and Queens. It 

 found that this outline skirted a v 

 and varied field. 



THE CARE OF TREES 



To begin with planting, the city 

 ester, in addition to knowing the g 

 eral principles of tree planting, n 

 be familiar with the best methods 

 handling a much larger number of < 

 cies than are ordinarily used in c< 

 mercial planting, and understand 1 

 to adapt trees to a variety of local c 

 ditions that are not met with elsewh 

 On account of the necessarily high < 

 of the work, as nearly as possible e\ 

 planted tree must be made to grow. 

 nursery <>f 80,000 seedling tree.' 

 maintained for Brooklyn and Que< 

 and extensive experimental work 

 done toward solving special proble 

 One important branch of expert wor 

 the transplanting of extra large tree 



In ordinary forestry, little prunin 

 done, even in Europe, on account of 

 cost ; but in park and street work i 



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