250 PRACTICAL TREE REPAIR 



or so from the edge of the bark, not driven in too 

 far, will prevent it from rolling back. In other 

 cases shallow cuts through the tough outer bark, 

 parallel to the main incision, may accommodate 

 the strain, though at a loss to the beauty of the 

 trunk. This characteristic of the tree should be 

 remembered when slits are being cut in a trunk 

 which is supposed to be bark-bound. 



CHESTNUT 



Sufficient has already been said about the chest- 

 nut bark disease, and about the foolhardiness of 

 doing much repair work on trees within the in- 

 fested or the danger zones. 



Even outside of that region (if any part of the 

 continent can really be considered outside of the 

 danger zone) it is not a tree which should fre- 

 quently receive expensive fillings. The chestnut 

 responds well to the pruning-back process, and 

 hollow old trunks can be made to support luxuri- 

 ant, even though not very lofty, tops. In the 

 main, such old trunks cannot be helped by any 

 kind of repair work, especially if they are infested 

 by the red powdery heart rot, Polyporus sul- 

 phureus. Thousands of dollars have been spent 

 in trying to excavate and restore veteran trees 

 affected by this decay, but, in the writer's judg- 

 ment, with not one chance in a hundred that the 

 work will prove effective. It seems to him far 



