OUR BROTHERS, THE TREES 



"All overwrought with branch-like traceries 

 In which there is religion and the mute 

 Persuasion of unkindled melodies." 



Shelley. 



\ NY one who has watched the tree sur- 

 -** geons at work upon their arboreal pa- 

 tients in our parks, must have been struck 

 with the similarity of the methods which they 

 use and those known to thousands of hos- 

 pitals all over the land. In springtime, 

 many a tree on Boston Common looks as if 

 it had undergone a very complex lapa- 

 rotomy, and one almost shivers at the 

 thought that the operation was performed 

 without the use of anaesthetics. 



Sometimes the disembowelment of the tree 

 is so extensive that the unsightly remains 

 hardly seem to justify the time and skill 

 spent upon them. But when these clever 



78 



