PARK AND CEMETERY. 
260 
WINTER WORK IN MOVING LARGE TREES 
MOVING A 44-TON NORWAY SPRUCE WITH HOUSE-MOVING APPARATUS 
AT WAUWATOSA, W1S. 
The Park Department of Boston did some 
particularly interesting work in moving and 
replanting some large trees last winter that 
was one of the most extensive and suc- 
cessful operations of the kind ever accom- 
plished. It demonstrated, among other 
N ' 5 
MOVING A 37-TON ELM AT WAUWA- 
TOSA. 
things, the possibility of transplanting large 
oaks, an operation generally regarded as 
unsuccessful, and the adaptability of win- 
ter conditions to operations of this char- 
acter. The trees were taken from a heavy 
planting in Franklin Park, made about ten 
years ago, with the intention of thinning it 
out for just such a use as this. When 
Commonwealth avenue, Brighton, was 
planted, the previous fall, with double rows 
of about 600 English elms and European 
lindens from the park nurseries, about a 
mile of the central part of the boulevard 
was left unplanted. On this part a plant- 
ing of red oaks had been made some years 
before on a central loam space, and it was 
decided that the trees on the side rows 
must be of the same kind and size. Hence 
the big plantation in Franklin Park had to 
be drawn upon. 
The surplus oaks in the plantation in 
Franklin Park, which were root pruned 
the year before, were in good condition for 
transplanting during the winter, having 
formed a fine growth of fibrous roots. 
The . long continued frost and snow, too, 
favored the work of transportation, en- 
abling the park force to plant two lines of 
these trees on that part of Commonwealth 
avenue lying between Warren street and 
Brighton avenue. The trees were moved, 
with frozen balls of earth six feet in diam- 
eter, a distance of nearly five miles. They 
are well-grown specimens, twenty feet to 
twenty-eight feet in height. Commonwealth 
avenue has thus gained in time, a period 
of from eight to ten years required for 
such growth. This is more especially val- 
uable in the oak plantation, which, under 
ordinary processes, recovers slowly. From 
the same plantations they also have pro- 
cured trees to replace those injured be- 
yond repair along the lines of the park- 
ways. In addition, a group of about sixty 
of these fine oaks has been planted as an 
additional protection to the flying cage in 
the zoological garden. In all, the number 
transplanted amounted to over three hun- 
dred. 
The accompanying photographs give some 
idea of the methods of moving and replant- 
ing the trees, but not of the preliminary 
treatment that had to be given some time 
before. This work commenced over a year 
before, when after the trees were marked 
for judicious thinning a trench was opened 
two-thirds of the way around each tree 
and the roots cut off about two feet from 
the trunk. The soil was then replaced and 
these large and hard woody roots devel- 
STRAIGHTENING UP FROZEN BALL 
OF EARTH AND SETTING THE OAK IN 
THE HOLE; IN BOSTON PARK SYSTEM. 
