344 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



have stimulated a late addition of cells which have not had time to prop- 

 erly harden off before the extreme cold weather has set in. This has 

 caused a severe case of winterkilling of these new cells,, resulting in the 

 death of portions of the roots, thereby cutting down their ability to supply 

 food to the tree and resulting in turn in the dying of the tops. 



This condition has repeated itself for several years, and is, of course, 

 something that cannot be helped, but the resulting condition of the trees 

 can be aided by the proper care. 



These are things liable to happen to perfectly healthy trees and those 

 that have had the best of care, but in the case of the trees where no care 

 has been taken, we find them to be in very poor condition to withstand it. 



To give a concrete example of what may be accomplished along these 

 lines, I am going to tell you what we have done in a small way here in 

 Fitchburg. 



In the tree directory kept by the city forestry department, it is shown 

 that we have 1,937 trees belonging to the city or within the limits of the 

 highway boundaries in the city proper. Of this number, 254 only are 

 classed as perfect tops and 420 are perfect trunks, 577 are good tops and 

 597 good trunks, while 1,086 tops and 896 trunks are below that classed 

 as poor or in bad condition. 



Of the same number of trees we find the following defects present: 166 

 have cavities of more or less size which need tinning or cementing to keep 

 the gypsy moth out and to prevent fungous diseases from entering; 26 have 

 crotches or bad forks that need bracing by means of bolts or chains to en- 

 sure them against splitting; 180 have injuries of a more or less serious 

 nature that need attention ; 42 have boiler plate guards that are now 

 injuring the trees and should be removed; 115 have wire guards that have 

 been imbedded in the growing tree until they are girdling and killing it. 

 Of the entire number of street trees only 289 have guards of any kind, and 

 173 of these need removing, so that practically all of our shade trees that 

 stand near the curbing need new wire guards. Besides this work, many of the 

 trees listed as dying or in poor or bad condition are in need of rejuvenation. 



To give an illustration to the people of our city of what could and 

 should be done with all shade trees in the city, the local branch of the 

 Massachusetts Forestry Association made available a sum of money for our 

 department which they stipulated was to be used on a certain street to 

 put the trees there in the best possible condition under the circumstances. 



A street was picked out that was centrally located and on which there 

 were 29 trees, ranging in diameter from 15 to 25 inches and composed of 

 21 sugar maples, 6 American elms, 1 horse chestnut and 1 American linden. 

 Not one of these trees was classified in our census as perfect, but a majority 

 of them was in good or fair condition and 7 of them were in poor condition. 



It was our aim to put all these trees in such condition that we could 

 reclassify them as very good or perfect. 



In order to do this we removed all the dead or dying limbs, cut off super- 

 fluous branches, and shaped the tree so that it would conform with its 

 neighbors as near as possible; chained together limbs that were in danger 



