Chapter III 

 WOUNDS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



WOUNDS are perhaps the most frequent pri- 

 mary cause of the decay and death of 

 trees. The vast majority of the destructive rot- 

 producing fungi can make their entrance into the 

 framework of the tree only through wounds. We 

 shall discuss these decays at greater length in an- 

 other chapter, but it is essential that, at the very 

 outset of our study of practical tree repair, we 

 clearly understand the danger which lies in 

 wounds. By wounds I mean all exposed surfaces 

 of wood, all interruptions in the normal bark 

 covering. Wounds are not simply esthetically 

 displeasing, marring, for instance, the fine texture 

 of the bark, nor do they merely interfere more or 

 less seriously with the physiological processes of 

 the tree. Wounds are breaches in the tree's 

 great wall of defense, its bark, laying the precious 

 treasures of its wood open to the unresisted attack 

 of its thousand omnipresent enemies. If you 

 come upon the brown shelf-like fruiting bodies 

 of certain rot fungi in the woods on a bright day 

 in fall, you will see coming from their lower sur- 

 as 



