258 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
PRESERVATION OF NATURAL PARK WOODLANDS 
An address before the Neiv York Convention of the American Association of Park 
Superintendents , by Oglesby Paul, Landscape Gardener, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. 
As this subject is an unusually broad 
one, I have limited my paper and its illus- 
trations to work in the parks under our 
commissioners, and in the discussion fol- 
lowing it will rely on the members of other 
cities to round out the subject of describ- 
ing .their problems where they differ from 
ours. Our parks include some 5,000 acres, 
and vary in size from 20 to about 3,000 
acres each. Nearly all of them contain nat- 
ural woodlands. As you know, we are lo- 
cated in a great manufacturing city, with a 
dense population, and a soot and gas-laden 
atmosphere unfavorable to tree growth. 
Realizing the handicaps under which our 
trees were suffering, and finding the city 
fathers of the opinion that as Nature had 
planted these forests she would provide for 
them, I decided to undertake an investi- 
gation of the forest conditions and obtain 
definite figures to prove all facts discov- 
ered. To this end I began about ten years 
ago to record the conditions and changes 
in our woodlands. 
First a census was made of each wood- 
land, enumerating the number, kind and 
size of the trees composing it, the presence 
or absence of undergrowth, and its nature 
and density if present, the thickness of 
humus or leaf mold, the character of soil 
and sub-soil with its moisture contents, and 
the slope of the ground. 
By this means the forest conditions at 
the time were definitely recorded. Our for- 
ester was then directed to keep a journal, 
recording all trees removed or topped, with 
the cause, where discernible, of their de- 
cline, such as insects, fungi, drougth, storm, 
etc. A series of tests was also carried on 
of methods of combating the destructive 
insects or fungi attacking the various trees. 
We drew on all available sources for ad- 
vice, including the experiment stations in 
half a dozen states, the United States gov- 
ernment and the professional tree doctors, 
and then tested their advice on marked 
trees. No tree doctor was refused a hear- 
ing because of the fantastic claims for his 
patent nostrum. As we were to be our 
own critics, nothing was to be taken for 
granted; everything must stand the acid 
test. We have thus assisted at mysterious 
chestnut tree inoculations with the aid of 
augers and ill-smelling solutions, and have 
plugged borer infested hickories with 
pounds of putty and quarts of bisulphate. 
By 1907 we had gained clear apprecia- 
tion of a rapid deterioration occurring in 
these woodlands and in a pamphlet were 
able to show this to the public with con- 
vincing and mathematical proofs. In some 
cases the wooded areas were acfually 
shrinking by the failure of the old trees 
and absence of young ones ; in others the 
more valuable and long lived trees were 
dying and their places being taken by 
TRAIL THROUGH HEMLOCK FOREST 
OF WISSAHICKON RAVINE. 
A Beautiful Ramble and a Fire Guard Com- 
bined. 
short lived and weedy species, thus caus- 
ing a decided loss in beauty and an in- 
crease in the cost of maintenance. Where 
the location was exposed, the stand open 
and the undergrowth and humus thin, the 
shrinkage was most severe. 
Insects and fungus diseases were exact- 
ing a heavy toll and completing the de- 
structive effects of trampling by the pub- 
lic and the poisoning of gases from in- 
numerable chimneys. The situation was an 
alarming one. Indeed, as I thought some- 
times of that invading host of elm beetles, 
oyster shell and San Jose scales, Tussock 
and Gypsy moths, aphids and chestnut 
blight, which had already come over seas 
to harass our native trees, their future 
looked dark indeed. Were our beautiful 
native trees to disappear like the Esqui- 
maux, Carib, Aztec and Indian, before the 
invading Europeans? But the fates have 
been kind to us. Not all our trees have 
been attacked by plagues as deadly as the 
chestnut blight, and the Leopard and Gypsy 
moths have not gained lodgment with us. 
Our aroused public opinion has now 
brought increased apnropriations, so we are 
starting these woodlands on the upward 
path again. 
To dismiss the subject of insect de- 
struction, I might say we have found no 
panacea, but use home-made solutions 
strong enough to kill every insect reached, 
thus minimizing the labor item, so impor- 
tant on this large work. For all scale in- 
sects pure crude oil spraying has given the 
best results, even annihilating the deadly 
golden oak scale, which fairly throve on 
other preparations. For oyster shell scale 
it has proved the best business proposition, 
owing to the difficulty of covering the trees 
effectually with other solutions used at the 
hatching periods. Let no one treat lightly 
this familiar garden plague, for once estab- 
lished it may wreck the growth on an en- 
tire mountain side, as I have seen near 
Lake George. A strong arsenate of lead 
solution has proved deadly to all caterpil- 
lars, so that while thousands of our trees 
were defoliated a decade ago by Tussock 
moth alone, we had but one reported at- 
tack on a few trees near the edge of a 
park this year. We have found it good 
economy, having cleared our own territory, 
to establish a protective zone several hun- 
dred feet deep about a park by banding 
the trees with tanglefoot. 
We found that while stag heading or 
gradual dying back of old forest trees may 
often be postponed indefinitely by severe 
topping, the work should be done before 
the limbs begin to fall. If delayed until 
the top began to die, the pruning seldom 
restored the tree, which usually had to be 
removed after successive operations. The 
oaks responded particularly well to top- 
ping if done as a precautionary measure. 
Bracing weakened limbs, cleaning out cav- 
ities, and covering exposed wounds with 
tar or other preservations are permanently 
helpful if inspected regularly and addi- 
tional preservatives applied from time to 
time. 
The filling with concrete of deep cavities 
is necessary where the openings are near 
the ground, if only to prevent firing of the 
trees by mischievous boys rambling in the 
woods. Owing to their costliness and the 
difficulty of obtaining a sufficiently flexi- 
ble combination of steel and concrete to 
stand the swaying in violent storms of even 
large trees, these fillings have too many 
disadvantages to be regarded as important 
factors in woodland preservation. A strik- 
ing demonstration of this occurred last 
summer when a violent wind storm 
wrecked hundreds of old trees, including 
many wdiich had been carefully filled with 
concrete, while the damage among the 
younger trees was trifling. Owing to the 
very complicated processes which occur in 
forest soils, we are at a disadvantage in 
feeding old forest trees, though dressings 
with top soil have proved beneficial on 
the eroded surfaces. Summing up the sit- 
uation, the preservation of the woodland is 
chiefly dependent on the development of 
the vigorous younger growths. 
As we have been compelled to remove 
thousands of diseased chestnuts, borer in- 
