66 FOREST CULTURE AND 



tree itself giving but partial shade. The soil, more- 

 over, remains no longer porous and permeable to 

 moisture — it gets hardened, bare and consolidated by 

 traffic and heat ; the necessary moisture is wanting 

 to keep the bark pliable, and to maintain the circula- 

 tion of the sap active or normal ; bark and wood are 

 getting fissured and partly lifelesss ; and now places 

 of seclusion, as well as a wood fit for their ready at- 

 tack, are given to numerous kinds of coleopterous and 

 other insects, which, by boring the ligneous tissue, are 

 sure to complete the destruction of the trees. Pict- 

 ures of absolute misery of this kind may be noticed 

 around our city in all directions. I have succeeded 

 in saving many a venerable tree on the ground under 

 my control, and in arresting the incipient decay by 

 merely surrounding the base of the stem with earth 

 turfed over, serving as seats ; or by removing the end- 

 less quantity of mistletoe, which sucks the life -sap 

 out of the branches, the invader perishing with its 

 victim, there being no longer a multitude of native 

 birds in populous localities to devour the mistle-berries. 

 In many low localities, again, the ground, indurat- 

 ed by traffic, collects a superabundance of moisture, 

 which becomes stagnant, and detrimental to the trees 

 of such spots. Various other peculiar causes tend to 

 the decay of our trees : to allude to all is beyond our 

 present object. 



How to provide, therefore, in time, the wood 

 . necessary for our mines, railways, buildings, fences, 

 and as well as for the ordinary domestic and other 

 purposes, becomes a question which from year to year 

 presses Vith increased urgency on our attention, the 

 consideration of which we have already far too long 



