August ii, 1S97.] 



Garden and Forest. 



3ii 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUHLISHED WEEKLY BY 



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. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 1897. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles: — The Rejuvenescence of Old Trees. (With figures.) 311 



Memorial Gift to the Arnold Arboretum 312 



Planting for the Future H. A. Cafiarn. 312 



Weeds in Southern New Jersey Mrs. Mary Treat. 3x3 



Plant Notes J. N. Gerard. 314 



Cultural Department: — The Fall Planting of Fruit trees. 



Professor L. H. Bailey. 316 



Plants in Flower R. A. 316 



Some Good Shrubs S. A. Reed. 316 



Correspondence: — Seasonable Notes T. D. Hatfield. 317 



Periodical Literature 317 



Notes 318 



Illustrations : — A Decrepit White Oak in the Arnold Arboretum, Fig 40 314 



The same Tree Twelve Years Later, Fig. 41 315 



The Rejuvenescence of Old Trees. 



ON page 314 of this issue is the portrait of a large White 

 Oak, possibly two centuries old, growing in the Arnold 

 Arboretum. The top filled with dead branches and the 

 sparse foliage show that the tree is in a decrepit condi- 

 tion. This was the effect of long neglect, exhausted soil, 

 and the fact that a park road had recently been built almost 

 at the foot of the tree. Some of its roots had been cut in 

 excavating for the road, and the conditions of its surround- 

 ings had been changed by lowering the water-table in order 

 to secure drainage for the road-bed. This old tree, the largest 

 Oak in the Arboretum, appeared doomed. An attempt to 

 save it, however, was made by pruning, and the effect of 

 this appears in the illustration on page 315, in which the 

 same tree is represented twelve years later. The dead 

 wood was all cut out, the long branches shortened severely 

 in order to increase the leaf-surface by more vigorous 

 growth and so improve the 

 vitality of the tree, and the 

 ground about it was dug 

 over and top-dressed. The 

 result has certainly been 

 successful, and there is no 

 reason to doubt now that 

 the tree will live many years 

 longer. 



This whole subject of the 

 rejuvenescence of old trees 

 was discussed on page 349 

 of our first volume, published 

 nine years ago, and, as the 

 subject is one of general inter- 

 est, we reproduce our article 

 with its illustration, with the 

 remark that our experience 

 and observation confirm the 

 value of the system, and that 

 while unnecessary and injudicious pruning certainly does 

 more harm than good, old and decrepit trees can certainly 

 be improved by practicing the De Car's system : 



"The fact that old and apparently decrepit deciduous trees 



Fig. 



can be rejuvenated by judicious pruning, is not well under- 

 stood in this country, where old trees, which might, per- 

 haps, be made to live a century or two, are often allowed 

 to perish unnecessarily. The death of a tree can generally 

 be traced to a gradual failing of vigor due to insufficient 

 nourishment, or to internal decay, the result generally of 

 neglect. The first indication of danger usually appears at 

 the top, and when the upper branches of a tree begin to 

 die* it is a sure indication that, unless radical measures are 

 taken to check the trouble, it can only live a comparatively 



short time. Vigor can be re- 

 stored to a tree in this con- 

 dition by shortening all its 

 branches by one-third or one- 

 half of their entire length. The 

 only care needed in this opera- 

 tion is to cut back each main 

 branch to a healthy lateral 

 branch, which will serve to 

 attract and elaborate, by means 

 of its leaves, a sufficient flow 

 of sap to insure the growth 

 of the branch. This is essen- 

 tial in good pruning, and, if 

 neglected, the end of the branch will die back to the first 

 lateral branch or bud below the cut, leaving a point 

 of danger to the tree. Care, too, must be "taken to 

 shorten the branches in such a way that the lowest 

 will be the longest, that the greatest possible leaf 

 surface may be exposed to the light. Figure 1 will 

 serve to show how an ancient Oak should be pruned 

 for the purpose of increasing its vigor.* The vigor of a 

 tree depends upon the power of its leaves to elaborate 

 plant-food. The larger the leaf surface exposed to the 

 light, the greater will be the vigor of the tree. The object 

 of pruning, therefore, is to increase leaf surface. If half of a 

 branch of a decrepit tree, bearing small and scattered leaves, 

 is cut away, the leaves which will grow upon the half 

 which is left will be so large that their total area will often 

 be more than double the total area of the leaves upon the 

 whole branch before it was cut. The truth of this state- 

 ment can be easily verified by cutting down to the ground 

 in the spring a feeble seedling Oak, or, indeed, any young 

 seedling tree, when a tall, vigorous shoot, twice the 

 height and diameter, perhaps, of the slender stem it re- 

 places, will appear at the end of a few months, and, 

 although this shoot will only produce a few leaves, its 

 greater vigor is due to the fact that a larger leaf surface is 

 presented to the light by these few large leaves than by 

 the more numerous smaller leaves of the original plant. 

 The vigor, too, of a tree can be increased after it has been 

 pruned by a good top-dressing of well-rotted manure, or 

 of fresh soil applied over its roots ; ami trees growing on 

 banks can often be benefited by 

 deepening the soil on the lower 

 side. A large body of plant-food 

 can thus be supplied without bury- 

 ing any part of the trunk and 

 without injury to the tree. 



"The internal decay by which 

 so many old trees perish, through 

 inability to resist the influence 

 of storms, is caused by dead 

 branches allowed to remain upon 

 the tree or from ihe stumps of 

 branches left in pruning. It is an 

 almost invariable custom in this 

 country, when a branch is cut from the stem of 

 leave a stump a few inches long, as shown in 

 The end of this branch, as it has no lateral shoot to insure 



Fig. 



a tree, 

 Fig-ure 



10 



* We are indebted to the Trustees of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting 

 Agriculture (or permission to reproduc these figures, which are extracted from 

 Monsieur A. des Car's work upon Tree Pruning, of which .in English edition was 



ublished in 1SS1, by the Massachusetts Society, under the title oi " A Treat! 



'riming Forest and Ornamental Trees," .1 work in which the whole theory of 

 pruning is clearly explained and illustrated. 



p: 



