PARK AND CEMETERY. 
112 
far as possible, to eliminate from the par- 
ticular locality trees that have been recently 
infested with the disease. You will find 
that suckers from the old chestnut stumps 
generally become infested after one or two 
years' growth, and they, too, should also be 
cut and burned. This process of elimina- 
tion would tend to eliminate the spores of 
the disease from the locality. The disease 
shows itself by a brownish patch, and where 
feasible, such patches may be cut out and 
the wound tarred, hut that, too, will depend 
upon the extent of the spread of the dis- 
ease in that particular spot of the tree. 
J. J. Levison, Arboriculturist, 
Brooklyn, N. Y. Dept, of Parks. 
Growing Grass Under Trees. 
(From the Proceedinys of the Ohio Vemetenj 
Atmocinlion.) 
I should like to get some information 
as to growing grass under trees. 
\V. P. Click : You know that is an old 
bone of contention, and you take it right 
here in our city, there are certain sections 
of the city where we get grass to grow 
under the trees, and you go over in Dayton 
View and you can't get grass to grow out 
in the sun because the soil won’t grow 
grass. It is too poor over there to grow 
grass. In the first place, if your soil is 
sour, you can't get any kind of grass seed 
to grow, and then the thing to do is to 
sweeten your soil. Now, we say that soil 
ordinarily can be sweetened in from four 
to six weeks, but, of course, when we say 
ordinarily we mean that that soil has not 
been soured more than ten years or some- 
thing like that, but if the soil has persist- 
enly been sour for years, you are not going 
to sweeten it in from four to six weeks, 
but you can sweeten the soil with air 
slacked lime and then add a little new soil. 
Then there are so many different varieties 
of grass to be sown in the shade, but I 
would recommend the selection of a good 
reliable seedsman and get his mixture of 
seed for growing in the shade. You can 
plant perennial rye that will grow any 
where, but it doesn't make the grass yon 
want in the cemetery, or that anybody else 
wants; it doesn't make a sod. We have 
tried out mixtures that we have gotten 
from good reliable seedsmen that have 
made a good success in the shade and have 
made a good sod, but as I say, that depends 
entirely upon the seedsman you get it from, 
and you should explain to him just exactly 
what you want, if you want a shady mix- 
ture, hut I find that the greatest trouble has 
always been in not getting the soil sweet 
before the seed is sown. 
J. O. Schell : Under spruce trees it is 
almost impossible to grow grass. We have 
laid good sod under the spruce trees and 
the droppings from the foliage either 
causes the ground to be sour or something. 
I would like information on that line to 
know how to treat ground under such con- 
ditions. 
W. C. Kern : In this question I have 
no doubt the gentlemen has in mind the 
Norway spruce, and the only sure remedy 
would be, in order to get grass to grow 
under your Norway spruce trees, would be 
to destroy their beauty, that is, you have to 
trim those lower l^ranches up so as to ad- 
mit sufficient light and air for the success- 
ful growing of your sod, whereas in some 
cases if would be almost better to trim 
your Norway spruce at the root than to go 
to the trouble and disfigure your most 
beautiful trees by trimming them up and 
despoiling them of their natural beauty of 
resisting and reposing their horizontal 
branches upon the surface of the ground 
as God intended them to grow. Now, this 
very point reminds me of efforts which I 
have made along these lines in the last few 
years in selecting my planting material, 
especially in the planting of new sections, 
and I have avoided the planting of the 
Norway spruce and in its place I have used 
a pyramidal form of the Norway spruce, 
a tree identically the same in appearance, 
that is, in the texture of its foliage, only 
the form of its growth is pyramidal, erect 
and I do not anticipate any trouble in the 
future by having to contend with the 
nuisance which the Norway Spruce gives 
us by resting its branches on the ground. 
This is one of the points and a very good 
example whereby we can overcome such 
difficulties of sodding available planting 
material. Again w'e all know trees — I am 
speaking of the city trees at this time — 
there are certain trees which will permit 
the growth of good sod underneath their 
branches, and there are again trees which 
will not permit the least amount of grass 
to live, and I will point out one of the 
greatest sinners which we have in our cem- 
eteries, the greatest grass killer that we 
know of, and that is the black maple, not 
the Norway, but the black maple, which 
has a fuller leaf than the Norway. It is 
impossible to grow grass under those trees, 
for the simple reason that the tree itself is 
such a gross feeder that it absorbs every 
particle that falls beneath it for its own use 
and leaves nothing by which the grass can 
grow. The greatest trouble is that the 
grass is starved out under the trees. Of 
course, there are the other disadvantages 
of being very shady, not enough light, too 
much shade, all helping along the cause, 
but I have always attributed the cardinal 
point of our trouble to the starvation of 
the surface of our ground; the trees will 
take everything for their own use and 
leave nothing for those other things which 
W’C possibly would like to grow under their 
spreading branches. 
Mr. Schell : The trees I have had trouble 
with are quite large trees in our cemetery, 
a clump of trees that the old citizens are 
very much attached to. We would have to 
prune them at the roots and they are 
trimmed up from 12 to IS feet high. They 
get light, and I was at a loss to know 
whether it was a poisoning by the needles 
falling down or what it might be, or 
whether it was the robbing of the soil of 
its fertility which was required to make the 
grass grow. 
Mr. Stephens : We have a great many 
of the same trees, and whether you trim 
them or not, the turpentine in the needle is 
what does the damage. We also found the 
same trouble with the Norway maple and 
black maple, and under no circumstances 
can we get sod. 
Geo. C. Glass: We have more Norway 
maples in Middletown than any other. We 
have trees there 25 or 30 inches in diam- 
eter and we have as good a bed of sod un- 
der those trees as possible, but we have 
taken care to trim our trees out and let 
enough sunlight under, and we have a 
good bed of sod under all our trees. 
IMr. Schell: We have a good sod under 
our Norway maples. 
The President : You will all have good 
sod under your Norway maples if you trim 
them up, but if you don't, you won’t. You 
might as well pitch a tent over the ground 
and leave it there as to get a good sod un- 
der Norway maple unless it is thinned out. 
It has to have sunlight. They are one of 
the most dense things. They are the worst 
thing we have to contend with in our cem- 
etery and we are doing that now. We are 
simply trimming up as much as we can and 
trimming out. They make a nice shapely 
tree at any point because they need no clip- 
ping: no cutting hack or anything of that 
kind is required, but they will kill your 
grass unless you take that precaution. 
NEW BOOK ON PARK ENGINEERING. 
“Parks and Park Engineering,” by Will- 
iam Lyle, professor of municipal engineer- 
ing, Lafayette College, just published, is 
said to be the first book to deal with the 
principles of engineering features of park 
construction, and will prove a useful guide 
for the many city engineers and landscape 
engineers who have problems of park con- 
struction to deal with. \Miile m.any of the 
problems which relate to park engineering, 
such as road construction, underdrainage 
and sewers, are treated in various books 
dealing with these particular subjects, this 
book deals with them specifically in rela- 
tion to park construction. The chapter on 
Labor and Contracts will prove especially 
useful to city officials. Following is the 
table of contents of the book ; 
Chapter I, Desirability and Acquisition 
of Parks; Chap, II, Lands and Surveys; 
Chap. Ill, Design: The Architectural 
Treatment, The Engineering Design; Chap. 
IV, Labor and Contracts ; Chap. V, Con- 
struction. 
The book is published by John Wiley & 
Sons, 432 Fourth avenue. New York, and 
sells for $1.25. 
