The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1917-06-23
TAKE STEPS TO
SAVE OLD OAKS
civic League Hears Expert Forester
Give Advice as to the Care Of
These Famous Old Trees
In the Park.
FUNDS ARE PLEDGED
Tree Butchers Have Done Much to
InIure Trees All Over the City,
and Cut Worms Have
Killed Eims.

The Civic league at a meeting at
the home Of Miss Eleanor Brown
Friday, heard Mr.. ]. A. Tulley,
a tree surgeon, tell of the needs
of the trees in Rand park. He is a
graduate of the Ohio college of for
estry at Cleveland and has had
eleven years of experience in the
care and preservation of trees and
speaks with authority because of this
training and experience. He said
that in Rand park there are $50 oak
trees which have taken from two to
four hundred years to reach their
present growth; that these trees do
not find a duplicate In any park in
Iowa. He said that these trees are
dying. that fifty of them are in i'm.
mediate danger. Some cavities when
the decayed part has been taken out
would leave hole big enough to
hold seven men. These oaks were
forest trees and stood in densely
wooded tract years and years before
Iowa became territory. Since this
tract has been converted into a park
the living conditions Of the trees
have been changed, they have been
crowded by evergreens and soft
naples. Some of them have been
dying for years and these should re-
ceive care first. A tree can be saved
and will live for scores of years if
1t has good roots and some live
bark. The wound which is filled by
the surgeon will In time be grown
over just as skin forms over flesh
wound. There is saying among
foresters that nature never kills a
tree. No one knows the age Of the
forest trees Of California and the
northwest. In Mexico there is tree
known to be seven thousand years
old.
If beginning we're made this
year on the oaks in Rand park, Mr..
Iully said. and the work continued
a few weeks every season, in five
years these oaks would be saved. If
care is not given them they are
going to die and it Is not likely that
people who let old trees die are
going to spare the time and the care
to replace them by permanent trees
which would take two hundreds years
to grow. These trees can be saved
for what it will cost to cut them
down and remove them from the
park when they are dead.
Quincy" Mr.. Tully said, has for
the past five years been giving In
telligent care to the trees in it's
park and is famous for those trees
Do / dare say to you that Rand
park is Infamous for the neglect Of
its trees and the poor way it has
been kept for many years? All over
Keokuk 1 find evidence of the man |
who has trimmed trees, having for
his equipment only an ability to
climb and to saw. He has sawed that |
part of the trees handiest to his saw.
There is fine old blackberry tree |
in Rand park that some lineman
has girdled with cable and the |
life is being squeezed out of that |
tree. Your problem here is to over
come the neglect of many years.
Four of the trees in Triangle park |
are dying and can be saved if they
are given attention before it is too
late. Had someone in Keokuk taken |
the initiative few years ago l
when your elms were dying, two or 1
three hundred trees might have been 1
saved. Fifty dollars would have 4
brought a forester from Chicago or
to have diagnosed the con-
dition and told you that cut worms
we're working under the bark and
would have told you how to treat II
hem to kill the worms. Isn't it
worth while to try to save the oldest
living things in Keokuk? If you
lake care of your oaks they will be
lere long after the statue of Chief
keokuk has crumbled and been for
gotten"
The league, following Mr.. Tully's
ak, by vote decided to give all
he money they have in their treas
Try, not already pledged to the pub
ic garden work, to fund to save
he oak trees. Mrs. j. j. Ayres was
famed as committee to confer with
he commissioners regarding the
work and to ask their aid. Mr..
FULLY reported that both Mayor LOT
on and Commissioner Hickey had (,
themselves as Interested
n the preservation Of these forest ,
res in the park. Mrs. Ayres will r.
onfer with them very soon in the
lope of making a beginning in this
york for the trees.
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