^4 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS 



For street planting, deep-rooted trees, like sugar or Norway maple, 

 liquidambar or tupelo are best. They suffer least from having their roots 

 covered by the solid substance of walks and roadbeds. Choice should 

 fall more often on oaks for cit\ streets; they take longer to attain large size, 

 but the result pays for the waiting. Silver maple is often used, but like the 

 box elder is fragile in storms and is short-lived. Some of the best trees for 

 broad thoroughfares in the eastern United States are American elm, tulip- 

 tree, tupelo or pepperidge, honey locust, sycamore, sugar maple and scailet 

 oak. Tupelo and scarlet oak in autumn are particularly attractive be- 

 cause of their brilliant red foliage. Asiatic trees much used for struts 

 and lawns are ginkgo, horsechestnut, ailanthus and the magnolias. Tl < \ 

 are worth the attention they receive, except the ailanthus, which, however, 

 has the advantage of growing under extremely adverse conditions. 



Very often a sort of care can be given to shade and street trees im- 

 possible in the forest and under the conditions of economic forestry. They 

 can be kept in good health, pruned, kept wholly free from insects, supplied 

 with fertilizer and with the proper amount of water, and (-veil artificially 

 .strengthened. In pruning, it is best to remove not only dead branches but 

 also living ones to such an extent that there will be left space for the suitable 

 development of those remaining. In removing a branch, cut close to the 

 trunk so that the bark can grow over the wound quickly, preventing the 

 commencement of a cavity through the decay of a stub. Cut through the 

 bark below and at the sides first so that there will be no unnecessary strip- 

 ping off of bark when the branch falls. If trees are artificially watered, avoid 

 keeping the ground continually wet, but let it dry out between times. When 

 toots are surrounded by water, oxygen cannot reach them, and if this condi- 

 tion continues, the trees die from their inability to breath \ A method has 

 arisen in "tree surgery" by which hollow tree-trunks arc filled with cement, 

 all dead wood being first cut out and the cavity coated with antiseptic. 

 There is no doubt that the process may lengthen the life of a tree tens or 

 scores of years. Many great elms, the pride of ( Joncord, Massachus ;tts, arc 

 interesting examples of such treatment. 



