The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-30 00:00:00

IREATMENT OF TREES.

The analogy between plants and animals, familiar
as it is, has not yet been appreciated in all its con-
sequences. Every one knows that many of the
vital functions are represented by corresponding
processes in vegetable physiology ; that nutrition,
absorption, secretion, respiration, and reproduction
are essential parts, in no metaphorical sense, of the
life of flowers and trees. In some of their habits
and properties, especially those connected with the
circulation of their sap and the adaptation of their
external coating to the exigencies of climate, these
simple organisms, which we sometimes rudely term
inanimate, display, if we may so say, a discrimina-
tion and a self-protecting instinct wuich has excited
the marvel of naturalists. The conditions of health
are not indeed the same, but similar, in the case of
a tree and in the case of an animal, and the violation
of these conditions is equally fatal in its effects.
Hardier in many respects, in some others trees are
far more delicate than animals, and, if their diseases
could be ascertained and catalogued, they would
probably look almost as numerous and formidable
as those which fill medical textbooks, Considering
the immense value of timber, as well as the keenness
of our national taste for ornamental woods, it is
certainly strange that the pathology of trees should
have been comparatively neglected in this country.
Tie most recondite experiments have been carried
on by scientific men to find out the exact proportions
in which earth, air, and water contribute to their
sustenance, and the ingenuity of landscape gardeners
has men e2.l.munell iu cm. their
safe transplantation, But all this time trees have
been pining and dying in the prime of life, and
strewing the forests with their almost worthless
carcases, and yet no one seems to have bethought
himself of ministering to their infirmities, and
curing their maladies by timely remedies. Hitherto
pruning and lopping have been almost the only
operations known to foresters or gardeners, and if
the site of a plantation has been selected with due
regard to soil and shelter, and its surplus wood
' periodically thinned out, no other precautions
against premature decay have been deemed neces-
sary or practicable.
Our neighbours, the French, though they may be
less alive to the beauties of scenery than ourselves,
have always shown much skill in economising the
bounty of nature. Roadside avenues are commoner
in France than in England, and the utility of trees
is thoroughly appreciated by the peasantry. We
are not surprised, therefore, that the first step in
the medical, or rather the surgical treatment of
trees, should be taken by a Frenchman. M. Robert,
the gentleman to whom we refer, began his labours
some 20 years ago, and since that time has under-
taken the cure of vast numbers of trees, especially
elms, in many parts of France and Belgium. He
has taken out a patent for his system, and, if we
may judge by the testimonials and honours which
he has received from scientific societies and public
bodies, his success must have been remarkable. His
theory is, that the most inveterate enemies of trees
and especially young trees, are not excessive mois
Lure or unfavourable peculiarities of ground affect
ing their roots, but certain tribes of xylophagous-
insects. Of these the chief and most truculent are
the scolytes and the cossus, and the art of curing the
ligneous consumption, which has hitherto been con-
sidered mortal, consists, accordieg to him, in de-
stroying these insatiable parasites, and fortifying
the trunk against their future ravages. His first
experiments were made on the large trees bordering
the public walks of Paris, and with these he pro-
ceeded cautiously and gradually. He scored them
in longitudinal sections, hoping in this way to
quicken the circulation of sap in the bark between
the incisions, at the same time that he laid bare and
extirpated the tunnel-shaped nests of numberless
tree-consuming insects. Encouraged by the results of
this attempt, he ventured to try the effect of strip-
ping trees thus affected of their whole bark—an ope
ration not much less bold in its own way than that of
flaying a human being. However, we are told that it
succeeded to admiration, that " the acolytes and the
cossuses found themselves instantaneously annihi-
lated, and the grubs, still in a state of unconscious-
ness, were buried alive in the process of cicatrisation.
The trees threw out new layers of "fiber," or inner
bark, and even increased in bulk, as we learn from
another source, more rapidly that their unmutilated
contemporaries. Ever since this discovery was
made the more slashing practice has been universally
adopted, and we are told that thousands of elms,
already with one foot in the grave, are now con-
valescent patients or restored to perfect health by
the benevolent exertions of M. Robert.
No English trees, so far as we are aware, have
yet come under M. Robert's scalpel, and we should
be the last to recommend a hasty application of so
trenchant a system to the noble clumps and single
trees of our public and private parks. But it is
certainly worth a trial, for, if there is any truth in
the theory, it goes to prove that the hostile acolytes
and eossuses are not only responsible for the damage
done by themselves, but serve as the sappers and
miners of other invading insects, besides opening
cracks and channels in which the wet lodges and
eats into the wood, which they generally spare. It
is not impossible that further researches will dis-
close some means of prevention which would be pre-
ferable to M. Robert's cure. Meanwhile, however,
we have every motive for endeavouring to save the
scanty remnant of those woods which once covered
Great Britain. As far back as the beginning of
this century the neglected state of the Royal forests,
and the wastefulness of permitting great oaks to
fall without taking ary account of their value or
supplying their places with young saplings, was
pointed out by Nelson. Since that time we fear
that the groWth of new plantations has not kept
pace with the cutting down of old ones, and that we
are becoming more and more dependent on foreign
countries for our timber. On free trade principles
we have no right to object to this, but so long as it
continues to be our inteiest to grow timber at all it
is surely a dictate of prudence to make it as re-
munerative as possible by preserving it from
EsP‘'icsiu.siolYinthe metropolis,
scarce and so where
needless v e
gdeetcaabyl
e.
shade
grate-
ful, the loss of a single piece of foliao'e is a
serious misfortune. How injurious the Lcn on
atmosphere is to trees has long been known, and it
has been remarked as a significant fact that the
one which flourishes best in this smoky medium is
the plane, which changes its outer bark annually.
The elms have no such resource, and, whether
insects or impeded exhalation be the cause, these
characteristic ornaments of our parks have a sickly

look. It has been predicted by a prophet of den-.
drology that elms will be extinct in England before
another century has elapsed. The bare idea of such
a calamity should rouse the Woods and Forests—
for the functions of that department have not es:-
pired with its name—from their lethargy on this•
subject. A generation must pass away before the
place of a full-grown tree can be supplied, and the
stately verdure of our parks testifies to a forethought
which is still rarer now than in the days of our
grandfathers. Men too often plant for themselves,
and for themselves only, filling up with horse-
chestnuts, and other trees of rapid growth, but
short-lived beauty, the gaps in ancestral avenues of
oak and elm. We lament this selfish shortsighted-
ness when we sec its effects in the country seats of
individuals, but we have a right to exclaim against
it when it affects the interests and pleasure of the
nation. We cannot, indeed, blame Mr. Cowper
and his predecessors for not having been the first
to hail M. Robert's new invention. Now, how-
ever, that it has been sanctioned by experience,
we are warranted in hoping that no time will be
lost in employing some new Evelyn to report
upon its application to the forest trees which
Englishmen, from the earliest times, have learned
to love and almost to reverence.—Times.