Scraping Trees. 287 
it off. The operation should be done when the warm 
weather approaches in spring, or, in fact, at almost 
any time in the growing season. <A good tool for 
this purpose is an old and thin hoe, the handle of 
which is cut down to about two feet in length. 
This tool is grasped lightly in the hand and is 
raked up and down the tree, and it removes the 
rough bark with ease. The very best tool for the 
purpose, however, is that shown in Fig. 44, which is a 
steel plate with sharp, 
ground edges, fas- 
tened securely to a 
bent shank. This 
tool can be had of 
hardware dealers, to Fig. 44. Scraper for cleaning and 
whom it is known repairing trees. 
as a box-seraper. 
Aside from removing the loose bark from the 
trunks of trees, this tool is very useful in cutting 
out and removing all diseased spots upon the bodies 
or in the crotches. The wounds resulting from the 
barking of trees may be trimmed down to fresh 
tissue by such a tool, and all spots injured by 
bark borers, patches of pear-blight (or “body-blight”), 
and the like, may be cut away, and the wounded 
surfaces are thereafter covered with Bordeaux mix- 
ture or paint. In the scraping of trees, it is al- 
ways advisable to take away every particle of 
wounded and diseased tissue, unless it extends deep 
into the wood. When the object is to simply take 
away the rough and loose bark, the tree should not 
