METHODS OF COMBATING THE MISTLETOE. 29 



or copper sulphate may be used, in which case 1 pound of the sul- 

 phate in 5 gallons of water makes a suitable wash. The protective 

 dressing which follows this disinfectant usually consists of coal tar, 

 but asphalt paint, white lead, grafting wax, etc., are used with good 

 results. The edges of the wound should be left clean and smooth 

 to facilitate the formation of wound tissue by which a tree attempts 

 to heal over its wounds. In very dry seasons this dressing of tar 

 or paint prevents the undue drying out which is apt to follow the 

 cutting off of a branch. In improtected stubs this drying out may 

 kill the tissue several inches back of the cut end, and thus kill also 

 the newly forming shoots, besides eventually causing a diseased spot. 

 This precaution should especially be heeded by those who follow the 

 practice — common in central Texas — of transplanting closely primed 

 trees, especially the young hackberry and cedar elm. The common 

 custom of transplanting such trees without a ball of dirt around the 

 roots and pruned back almost to the trunk is not advised as the 

 best way to secure a rapidly growing, healthy shade tree; but if it is 

 followed, surely the cut ends of thejstubs should be painted to pre- 

 vent drying out. 



THE CARE OF TREES. 



Perhaps after all is said it still remains that the most fundamental 

 question involved in the enterprise of combating mistletoe is that 

 of the selection and care of trees. It seems pretty obviously a case, 

 of neglect where a tree is allowed to become burdened with dozens 

 of bunches of mistletoe until it becomes a deformed, unsightly object 

 or completely destroyed. As a matter of fact, shade trees in well- 

 kept grounds never do become so severely infected, or if they came 

 into the careful owner's possession much infected their condition 

 has been vastly improved. The trees which die of mistletoe infection 

 are, in the majority of cases, those which stand along public highways, 

 in unfenced or unimproved town lots, about neglected or abandoned 

 residences, etc. They simply die of neglect. 



That both the hackberry and cedar elm — the species which suffer 

 most from mistletoe at Austin — ma}' be kept healthy and free from 

 mistletoe has been well demonstrated in numerous cases, but perhaps 

 in none more strikingly than in that part of Austin which surrounds 

 the university campus. This quarter has long been a center of harm- 

 ful mistletoe infection. To the writers personal knowledge numbers 

 of trees have been killed outright by the pest in that vicinity. Plate 

 I, figure 2, shows characteristically infected cedar elm trees standing 

 opposite the west entrance to the campus. Just at the north of the 

 campus are residence grounds bordered at front and side by a row 

 of mixed cedar elm and hackberry trees. These trees are note- 



166 



