May 2g, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



253 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY 1!Y 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by ... . 





Professor C. 



S. Sargent. 





ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS 



MATTER AT THE POST 



■ OFFICE 



AT NEW YORK, N. 



Y. 



NEW YORK, 



WEDNESDAY, 



MAY 



29, 



1889. 





TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — The Care of Young Trees 253 



Kew Gardens 254 



Boring Beetles in (he Ash Finish of a Chapel. . . .Professor A. S. Packard. 254 



The Lindens of Western Europe (with illustrations) C. S. S. 255 



Cultural Department :— Some Ironclad Pears, Plums and Cherries, 



T. H. Hoskins. M.D. 257 

 Orchid Notes: — Epidendrum prismatocarpum. — Ma.xillaria Sanderiana, 



John IP^cathers. 257 

 The Irises. — Aquilegia Canadensis aurea. — Camassia CusicUii, 



E. O. Orpet. 258 



Setting Plants and Trees. — Grafting -. Professor L. H. Bailey. 258 



Chrysanthemums for the Border John Thorpe. 259 



Notes from a Northern Spring-Garden C. 259 



Notes from the Arnold Arboretum J, 259 



The Forest: — A word for the lack Pine H. B. Ay res. 261 



Felling Trees by Electricity 261 



Recent Publications 261 



CoRKESPoNDENCE : — Arbor Day at Michigan Agricultural College, 



Professor IV. J. Beal. 262 



The Newtown Pippin W. F. Mussey and J. J. Thomas. 262 



The Germanto wn Nurseries 5; 263 



No PES 264 



Illustrations : — Teretrius Americanus, Fig. 108 255 



Tilia platyphyllos, Scop., Fig. jog 256 



Tilia vulgaris, Hayne, Fig. ijo 256 



Tilia ulmifolia, Scop., Fig. iii 257 



The Care of Young Trees. 



PROFESSOR BEAL, in a letter printed on another page 

 of this issue, suggests the reason why so few prac- 

 tical results and real benefits have followed the wholesale 

 planting of trees which has been going on in this country, 

 or in some parts of it, at least, during the last dozen years. 

 The twelve trees planted only a year before with impressive 

 ceremonies, which Professor Beal describes, are a fair sample 

 of the newly-planted trees in this country. It is an easy 

 thing to pull up a saphng tree and then thrust it back into 

 the ground again with dry and mutilated roots, for this is 

 what tree-planting means to a not inconsiderable part of 

 the community who plant trees. This operation comes 

 within the scope of the most limited intelligence, and it 

 can be completed in five minutes. It is a much more 

 difficult matter, and one that requires patience, the power 

 of observation, and skill to select and plant a tree thor- 

 oughly well, and then to see that it is properly protected 

 from all the enemies which beset plant-life and so has 

 a fair chance to grow until it attains a size and streno-th 

 sufficient to enable it to take care of itself. 



We have already explained more than once how trees 

 should be planted ; and now that the planting season is 

 over for this spring a few suggestions upon the care of 

 newly-planted trees may not be out of place. 



Newly-planted trees, except conifers, and unless they 

 are very small, or planted very thickly together, need the 

 support of stakes to prevent the swaying of their heads 

 from loosening the roots before they have taken firm hold 

 of the ground. It is best to fix the stake firmly in the 

 ground before the tree is planted, but if that has not been 

 done a stout stake should be driven down close to the 

 stem. It should be as high as the tree, which should be 

 attached to it with bast, or with strips of linen, or of thin 

 canvas from a point two or three feet from the ground to 

 the very top. Cord or wire or any tying material which is 

 hard enough to cut or injure the bark should not be used 

 in fastening the tree to the stake. The reason why a stake 

 as tall as the tree is needed is, that when a short stake is 

 used, the stem of the tree being immovable and the top 



free to sway in the wind, the bark is bruised by rubbing 

 against the top of the stake. Many young trees are injured 

 in this way, and in some cases the stem is snapped off 

 short in a gale just on a line with the top of the stake 

 when the lower part of the tree only is held too rigidly. 



Thorough cultivation is needed for newly-planted trees. 

 It prevents them from becoming choked by weeds, and 

 by checking evaporation increases the moisture available 

 for their support. The surface of the ground, therefore, 

 about newly-planted trees should be stirred once in every 

 two or three weeks from the time they are planted until 

 the middle of August or the first of September, when culti- 

 vation should cease, that a late growth may not be en- 

 couraged and that the wood may become thoroughly 

 ripened before the advent of severe frosts. The weeds 

 which start after the middle of August have only a brief 

 life and cannot injure the tree. When a few trees only are 

 planted, or when it is impracticable to stir the ground con- 

 tinually, the growth of weeds can be prevented and evap- 

 oration from the surface reduced by covering the ground 

 with a mulch of strawy manure, meadow hay, spent tan- 

 bark, or the clippings from the lawn. A thick mulch if it 

 is left on the ground all winter harbors lield mice, and there 

 is no mulch really so effective as the scuffling hoe, regu- 

 larly and thoroughly used. Young trees require constant 

 watching if they are to grow into fine specimens. Borers 

 must be looked for and removed, and all the harmful 

 insects which prey upon trees destroyed. The judicious 

 employment of the nails of the thumb and forefinger on a 

 young growing shoot will save the use of the pruning 

 knife and the saw in later years. A little summer pruning 

 of this character during the second and even during the 

 first year after planting is of immense value to trees. A 

 tree may thus be induced to assume the proper shape 

 without any loss of vital force, and without any outlay 

 beyond that of a little intelligence. A branch growing in the 

 wrong position, or with an excess of vigor, an incipient 

 fork which later may destroy the beauty and even the life 

 of the tree, a false leader or unimportant branch crossing 

 and chafing against an important one, may be rubbed out 

 when the tree is young with the movement of the hand 

 without inflicting a serious wound upon the tree. This 

 familiar example will serve to illustrate, perhaps, the value 

 of a little judicious pruning. It is not uncommon where 

 second-growtli White Pine abounds to find tall trees with a 

 trunk divided close to the ground into two stems of nearly 

 equal size. Such trees have little ornamental or commer- 

 cial value. They have grown with two trunks because 

 when, they were little seedlings the leader was broken off, 

 or eaten off by some browsing animal, and was replaced by 

 two leaders of equal vigor. Had some one interested in 

 trees and familiar with their mode of growth passed by 

 the injured seedling a year or two after the accident, and 

 stopped the growth of one of the leaders by picking out the 

 top, or by knocking it oft" with his cane, the tree would 

 have grown up as straight and tall as if no accident had 

 ever happened to it, and a good tree would stand in the 

 place of a misshapen one. 



If a young tree is expected to grow into a noble, symmet- 

 rical, long-lived specimen it should be examined two 

 or three times a year, and such pruning performed as may 

 appear necessary ; and this must be done during several 

 years, until it has assumed its permanent form and attained 

 a size which renders further care beyond the removal of 

 dead branches unnecessary. 



Many noble trees have grown, of course, to very great 

 age without care and without thought, but the proportion 

 of really good trees to the whole number which spring up 

 naturally or are planted in the world is very small, per- 

 haps not one in a million, and if even a reasonable propor- 

 tion of planted trees are to fulfil a fraction of the hopes 

 which fill the hearts of those who plant them they must 

 be nursed and watched and cared for intelligently. It 

 would be interesting to know how many of the 600,000,000 

 trees (if that is the number), which western _ Arbor-day 



