24 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
immediate attention, and the trees are in normal con- 
dition, it may as well be done in the summer season, 
but if for any sensible reason, or from necessity, the 
circumstances demand severe pruning, late fall or 
early winter is certainly the best time to perform it. 
A sharp lookout should always be maintained for 
diseased or decrepit branches, and there should be no 
hesitation about their removal, and dead limbs or lat- 
erals should be removed without any delay. Some 
trees such as Lindens and English Elm, for example, 
have a tendency to produce diseased branches, and 
others such as the native thorns, Pyruses, Yellow 
wood and Shad tree, occasionally have some of the 
branches coated with different forms of bark lice, and 
if there is no disposition to attack those pests with 
some of the various emulsions, then those branches 
should lie removed. But I would say right here, that 
of late years it has been successfully demonstrated 
that 20 per cent or 25 per cent of crude oil or kero- 
sene, applied as a mechanical emulsion in the winter 
time from a Kerowater spray pump will effectually de- 
stroy bark lice without injury to the trees, so it is not 
necessary to remove branches for that reason. Some 
trees, such as the Kentucky Coffee tree, Silver Maple 
and Phellodendron, are much inclined to be “loppy” 
and straggling, and are consequently liable, with the 
weight of foliage, to have branches broken in storms. 
Immunity from this danger and their beauty can also 
be much enhanced by a judicious shortening of the 
main branches throughout the head when the trees 
are in youth. The best exponent of this idea I ever 
saw was William Falconer, who had fine examples of 
trees thus treated, when he was superintendent of the 
famous Dosoris estate in Long Island, in its palmy 
days. 
A problem that occasionally confronts the horticul- 
turist is the rejuvenescence of decrepit and sickly trees. 
Sometimes the different native oaks, hickories, birches, 
elms, chestnut and beeches will assume a languishing 
appearance, from a lack of moisture and nutriment in 
the soil, or from internal decay, produced frequently 
by a disturbance of the natural condition of soil cov- 
ering. Any effort or sacrifice that can be made to 
perpetuate their lives and give them new leases of vig- 
orous life is always laudable. A thick coating of well 
rotted manure, or rich loam spread over the roots al- 
ways produces good results. But this is where “head- 
ing back” or pollarding can be intelligently applied on 
scientific principles with excellent results. 
A red, black or white oak, or any hardwood tree 
in the condition referred to, and from the above causes, 
can be restored to vigor by cutting back all branches 
about one-half or one-third of their entire length, leav-i 
ing the lower branches longest and tapering into the 
top, forming a broad pyramidal head. It is important 
to exercise care in cutting the branches back to active 
laterals, so the sap will be induced to flow, and insure 
the growth of the branch and the gradual covering up 
of the wound at contact with the lateral. This cer- 
tainly seems heroic surgery, but under those particular 
conditions it will start trees with new energy and 
prolong their lives for many years. The aim of such 
pruning is simply to increase leaf surface. Any tree 
without a good healthy leaf surface is, of course, un- 
able to elaborate sufficient food for its support. There- 
fore, when a decrepit tree is cut back in this way, the 
new, vigorous shoots produced in a short time, and 
full of large, healthy leaves, will double in area the 
leaf surface of the whole top of the tree previously. 
Nearly every intelligent horticulturist is aware of 
the fact, in pruning experience, that frequently a sickly 
shrub or seedling tree, cut down to the ground, will 
send up a vigorous growth, covered with large leaves, 
much larger than the previous leaf area, and the in- 
creased energy is due to this larger surface presented 
to the light. 
In the Arnold Arboretum at Boston there is an 
excellent and conclusive demonstration of the success 
of this treatment applied to native hardwood trees. 
About twenty-five years since, Professor Sargent saw 
that many of the trees in the natural woods in the 
arboretum were in bad condition from pasturage and 
neglect, brought about before the arboretum was es- 
tablished. He gradually had them treated, and the 
writer has been much interested in observing the prog- 
ress of those trees. There is no denial of the fact 
that those formerly sickly trees have been converted 
into vigorous, healthy branching specimens, and many 
of them would have been dead some years since if 
these remedial measures had not been taken. 
CONIFERS THAT BEGAN AT HOME 
By H. A. Caparn. 
Europeans who come to this country sometimes ex- 
press their wonder at the pains we take to find new 
varieties of exotic trees and plants and the little regard 
we pay to those within our own borders, the first 
fruits of our native soil, the contemporaries of the 
Indians before Columbus, and even perhaps of the 
mastodon and plesiosaurus. These, they sav, are the 
plants that Europeans value most highly and collect 
most carefully. All over the land are scattered groups 
and specimens fine and scraggly, vigorous and for- 
lorn, of the hardy and energetic, but dismal and in- 
tractable Norway spruce. Why have we or our for- 
bears been planting this funereal foreigner when we 
have growing in our own woods, born and fed of our 
own air and soil, the far more graceful and adaptable 
white spruce? No doubt the Norway spruce grows 
quicker, but what then ? Is it not better to have a 
beautiful tree sixteen feet high than an ugly one 
twenty? Is it not better to have one’s spirits raised 
by the cheerful hues and aspiring habit of our own 
