112 TREES IN WINTER 



chafing. This is all the protection needed for trees on the lawn 

 or in positions along the street and roadside where there is little 

 danger of injury from passing vehicles and thoughtless people. 



Guards — Street trees^ being subject to various forms of injury, 

 require guarding as well as supporting and for this purpose a 

 combination tree-guard and su23port has been successfully used in 

 Washington and other cities. These are four-sided wooden boxes 

 attached to four stakes driven into the ground. The trees are held 

 firmly in the center of the box by means of leather straps attached 

 to the corners. Although cumbersome and unsightly in appear- 

 ance, they are very effective and remain in position for several 

 years. 



A simple and inexpensive guard may be made of heavy wire 

 mesh and used in combination with the single stake. The cylinder 

 of wire should be about six feet high and should be attached to 

 the stake. Wire cloth made of number 16 wire and with one- 

 inch meshes comes in rolls twenty inches wide. Twenty inches 

 is just about the right width to encircle the tree and the cloth, 

 therefore, may be cut in six-foot lengths. The upper edge of the 

 cylinder may be bound with" a piece of rubber hose to prevent 

 chafing. There are many types of iron guards on the market, but 

 they are quite expensive and are of very little support to the 

 tree unless they are set deeply into the soil. They are commonly 

 used in connection with grills, where they are very useful. They 

 are less conspicuous and take up less room than the wooden box. 



Grills — Where trees are set in openings in the pavement or 

 sidewalk, the space around the base of each tree is often covered 

 with iron grating to prevent the soil from becoming packed so 

 hard as to make it impervious to water. Such devices, of which 



Fig-. 42. A g-ood type of Gri] 



there are many styles, are known as grills. They are usually cast 

 in sections and are adjusted so as to come flush with the side- 



