Scraping Trees. 28? 



it off. The operation should be done when the warm 

 weather approaches in spring, or, in fact, at almost 

 any time in the growing season. A good tool for 

 this purpose is an old and thin hoe, the handle of 

 which is cut down to about two feet in length. 

 This tool is grasped lightly in the hand and is 

 raked up and down the tree, and it removes the 

 rough bark with ease. The very best tool for the 

 purpose, however, is that shown in Fig. 44, which is a 

 steel plate with sharp, 

 ground edges, fas- 

 tened securely to a 

 bent shank. This 

 tool can be had of 

 hardware dealers, to Fig 44 Scraper for cleaning and 



whom it is known repairing trees. 



as a box -scraper. 



Aside from removing the loose bark from the 

 trunks of trees, this tool is very useful in cutting 

 out and removing all diseased spots upon the bodies 

 or in the crotches. The wounds resulting from the 

 barking of trees may be trimmed down to fresh 

 tissue by such a tool, and all spots injured by 

 bark borers, spots of pear-blight, patches of canker, 

 and the like, may be cut away, and the wounded 

 surfaces are thereafter covered with Bordeaux mix- 

 ture or paint. In the scraping of trees, it is al- 

 ways advisable to take away every particle of 

 wounded and diseased tissue, unless it extends deep 

 into the wood. When the object is to simply take 

 away the rough and loose bark, the tree should not 



