98 DA VET'S PRIMER 



How is that for a good job of healing! 



" What do you put on a tree to make it heal? " 



Nothing, Lena. It is those wonderful life forces 

 that do the " healing." All we can do is to fix matters 

 up so that Nature can go on with her marvelous process 

 of building new cells and tissues. A person cuts his 

 hand and he will put on all kinds of applications to 

 " heal " the wound, but your physician will tell you that 

 the idea is false and misleading. You may put on 

 things to counteract the poisons, and salves and various 

 compositions to keep off the air and shut out foreign 

 matter, but none of these "heal" : they simply keep 

 things from being further injured till Mother Nature 

 can repair the damages. This is just as true with a 

 tree or a plant, and you must always bear in mind when 

 you cut off a branch to put paint on it at once and, as 

 before stated, if the wound is large, paint it every year, 

 but don't get the paint on the delicate young bark that 

 is being formed. In tree surgery, proper, it is difficult 

 to teach a person without actually showing him. I 

 knew a young man who finished killing a good apple 

 tree by thinking honestly that he was saving it. Go 

 slow on such undertakings, but if there are any "tree 

 doctors" working around watch them, and see how 

 they do the work. This young maple was treated 

 rightly, and you see the two lines of new bark, one on 

 each side. What you see in the middle is solid cement. 



One of the leading professors of the country, I am 

 told, has condemned the use of cement for "filling" 



