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20 GUIDE. 



The water is not drained off by sap vessels. It gets into the pith of the tree and rots it. The 

 decayed pith eats away the layers of wood around it, and with time the whole inside of 

 the tree rots. The disease progresses much more quickly in trees that are regularly topped, 

 such as elms, ash trees, oaks, mulberries, and especially willows. It happens equally to 

 trees that have been topped only once, except for those planted very young. To remedy 

 this very serious problem, and so that proponents of this type of planting can't get away 

 with it unnoticed, they should take care to trim the scar almost perpendicular to the 

 horizontal, at an angle of at least sixty to seventy degrees. Furthermore, the cut is made to 

 face north so that it is less exposed to the sun. Lastly, some cover the cut with unguent of 

 Saint-Fiacre or with a compound of wax and pitch called plaster ofW. Forsyth. What an 

 effort to cover up a bad job, and often without getting the desired result! Why not do it in 

 a simpler and more natural way, where experience has yielded more satisfying results? 

 All the trees planted for the last thirty years in the Garden of the Museum of Natural 

 History in Paris, some twenty five thousand, and more than three hundred species and 

 varieties, both domestic and foreign, were planted with their tops and with as many roots 

 as possible. The method is quite simple and it is based on physical principles. At the 

 outset, the trees in the nurseries were dug up carefully. 



