PRESERVING THE BEAUTY OF SHADE TREES 
GARRETT M. STACK 
Horticulturist 
Things That Must Be Guarded Against to Give Them a Fair Chance 
to Live and Thrive and Increase from Generation unto Generation 
favor 
HE protection of healthy young trees from all possible 
m chances of injury, such as small wounds from driving 
nails in the bark or larger ones from horses or wagons is 
life insurance of the best kind, for all such injuries 
inroads by insects or disease or both. Many valuable 
trees have had their lives im- 
perilled from an insignificant 
wound, inflicted where water could 
enter and thus gradually promote 
disease and a weakening of the 
trunk soon beyond repair. Trees 
make a continuous demand on the 
digging the cellar of the building, and more were removed in level- 
ling the surface for the sidewalk; others were cut off when the 
gas and water company piped the street, and above ground 
injury followed the use of the tree as a hitching post for horses! 
Damage caused by lightning is usually beyond control, yet 
there are instances wheretrees have 
been killed because iron railings 
against the tree have made a direct 
connection with a continuous fence 
of wire more than a mile in length 
and provided a path for lightning 
to travel from one tree to another. 
A brick wall retains the grade 
when this is raised at one side 
Leave a mound above the roots 
if the grade has to be lowered 
Trees at a corner should always 
have protection at the base 
Water is provided 
where the roots need 
it by stone filled holes 
Always build a well around a 
tree if the grade is raised 
soil too for air, food, and water. In their forest 
home the leaves fall and decay and nature returns 
to the tree a supply of plant food; but on the 
street or in the home grounds the return of nour- 
ishment is not accomplished because leaves are 
raked up and burned. Thus the tree loses its 
natural food, and in many instances the diseased 
condition of public shade trees can be traced 
directly to starvation. Without sufficient food 
a tree cannot perform its natural functions any 
more than any other organism; portions of the 
framework become weakened and either barely 
remain alive or die outright, and other parts cannot make a 
vigorous growth and finally degenerate into such an enfeebled 
condition that they are susceptible to diseases that destroy the 
tree so far as beauty and value are concerned. 
T AKE as a common instance too, the changed conditions 
under which a fairly typical Sugar Maple, now growing in an 
inland city, finds itself. Some seventy-five years or so ago it 
was planted, when the present street was a mere country road- 
way lacking even a foot path. In the course of a few years this 
roadway changed to a street in a village; later to a city street 
with sidewalks, brick buildings, and a concrete pavement — 
and the sapling standing on a roadway had grown to a mature 
tree on a busy street. Presently a brick building occupied space 
on one side of the tree while on the other side, in addition to 
concrete sidewalk and paved roadway, were gas and water mains 
and sewers, below ground. During the tree’s early life enough 
fertility was at hand to supply its need, but when the food 
reservoir was cut off, growth was retarded and the tree ceased 
to put out normal annual growth. 
A cavity about fifteen feet from the ground shows where a 
branch was hacked off with an axe or cut with a long “stub” 
on which a smooth layer of bark could not grow to cover the raw 
surface; so insects and disease entered, to work their way through 
and into its heart. Of course the large roots were cut off in 
The damage inflicted upon the trunk of the last 
tree was seemingly greater than where the bolt 
entered. When lightning enters the tree from the 
top, it generally takes a spiral course downward 
and appears to go around the branches. If the 
damage happens in summer before the tree has 
completed the season’s growth, timely removal of 
splinters and protection of the wound often saves 
the tree. It is an interesting fact that ever- 
greens are not as easily killed by lightning as 
deciduous trees. Pines and Hemlock will gen- 
erally survive even repeated visitations and con- 
tinue to grow afterward. 
Trees often suffer from extremes of temperature. A sudden 
change during winter from very cold weather to a warm period 
will cause buds to enlarge to the extent that they are winter 
killed. Another disastrous occurrence is a sudden drop from 
warm weather to extreme cold; the sap in the tree becomes 
frozen and rapid shrinkage of the bundles of sap tubes cause 
cracks or fissures to appear in the direction of growth. These 
cracks close when the weather becomes warmer and generally 
heal over, but once made the fissures will reopen with less dif- 
ference in temperature than that which caused them originally. 
The only guard against this is in the protection of tree trunks 
that are susceptible to injury by screening them with burlap. 
This prevents the sun from warming the trunk too suddenly in 
winter. If the cracks remain open, inviting disease, they 
should be protected with grafting wax or tree paint until the 
wound has healed. 
I CE storms cause great injury to trees, those that make a long 
slender growth being more liable to damage than are vari- 
eties that produce a stout annual growth. Branches carry many 
times the normal weight when covered with ice. Telephone 
lines are often carried down by the weight of ice around thewires, 
and it is a fact that a thin casing of ice around the branch 
surface equals many times their weight when in full foliage. 
Fasten wire fencing to a cleat 
to keep it away from the tree 
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