Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial. (Wilmington, Del.) 1878-1928, 1920-07-26
Medicine for Trees
BY Frederic j. Haskin

And orchard trees. the tree doctor has
taken place with tho veterinarian as a
recognized practitioner
shade tree was once looked upon M
superfuous ornament. like mantelpiece
clock. II YOU wanted an elm in the front
yard, you hitched up horse and dug
one ND in the nearest wood. Now when
house without shade is looked upon as
undesirable, you pay nurscrynan for
the trees on your grounds, and employ an
experienced laborer to plant them.
Therefore. the shade tree becomes IN
its owners eyes n thing Of value which
must be taken care Of. In recent years the
owner Of an exceptionally fine oak or
chstnut has been known TO offer as much
as 81 900 to the person who could cure IT
Of some disease.
great nany valuable trees have been
saved by surgery, and a good many others
have been lost through bungling treat
ment by noviees There are many un-
skilful and fake tree repairers travelling
about looking for practice The American
Forestry Association advises that the
owner Of an injured treernake sure that the
doctor he calls IN is a real NJ. ID. OF tree
diseases
A quack doctor will give your priced
old oak dose of lime or some other
part with your money, after explaining
to YOU in nice, long. technical terms what
he and his secret method have done to save
your dying tree.
The accepted method Of treating in
jured trees is by surgery--eutting out
the decay or infected portion and filling
the hole with cement or brick If this is
properly donc-and IT is q more exactIng
piece Of carpentry than IL sounds the
bark grows over the injury. or at any rate
the disease does not spread.
But this idea Of using the knife as a
remedy for all tree evils may in time seem
as queer rs To cut of a leg or arm Il human
patient develops rheumatism. Doctoring
trees, or tree pathology, is a comparatively
| new study, and we still have lot 20 learn
regarding the trees anatomy. Tree sur
gerry is tremendously important, of course,
but medicine for trees is also a matter Of
experiment, with results which, though
slow, are promising.
TREES HAVE NERVES.
Most of us are surprised by an Indian
scientists recent announcement that a
tree should he given Injections Of an anes-
thetic If it il 10 be transplanted. Old
trees, he explains, have rarely withstood
removal because Of the severe shock TO
their NERVES, but he has found that this
shock is entirely eliminated when an anes-
| thetic is properly administered.
Certain fungus diseases which pene-
trate too far into the heart Of tree to
be attacked very satisfactorily from the
outside, have proved another possible
field for the use Of chemical injections.
Some successful experiments have been
made along this line The trouble is that
there are so many kinds OF trees, so many
diseases, and SO many possible remedies
that IL is a long chance 10 hit upon the
right dose.
Russian scientists twenty years ago
found that trees suffering from MANU-
triton were improved in vigor If inJec-
tions of an iron solution were made INTO
the bark Ii was also pointed out IN this
connection that in numerous cases where a
rusty mon pipe lay IN the immediate
vicinity Of a tree the iron from the pipe
had been taken up by the roots, giving
unusual vitality to the tree.
In this country there IL no great need
for giving trees q tonic. There il little, If
any, valuable timber planted IN soil too
poor 10 afford sufficient nourishment. To
the Russians OF the Crimean province
however, the use of iron was accounted
a great discovery. Also it suggested other
experiments in the use ofin observation-disclosures
but the work was stop ped by unsettled
conditions and the World War, and il IS
understood that 1t has not been resumed.
In Germa nv, before the war, medicine
for grape vines and fruit trees was sub
Z ject of extensive study. The German
farmer has long been taught 10 know the
value of every piece of timber on his land,
so that he welcomed the method of attack
ing disease The German experiments,
like the Russian, were interrupted by the
war. so that Just now the only country
that is known TO be working especially on
tree injections Is England
United States agrIculturists were sew
eral years ago greatly interested IN the
possibilities of tree IN iections, because they
were proposed as remedy for the terrible
chestnut blight, which has destroyed mil
lions OF our valuable trees.
INJECTIONS ron TREES.
Dr. Caroline Rumbold, pathologist
connected with the Department of
Agriculture is the only scientist in this
country who has studied the effect of
different chemicals when injected into
the tree system. The work, she says, was
battling and very slow. In the first place,
she had trouble IN getting any kind OF
liquid introduced into her tree patients
Sap, she explains, does not circulate
ike blood. Instead, the wood contains
numerous tube-hke cells, through which
the crude sap is conducted TO the leaves
to be manufactured into food The food
then returns to the roots and other living
parts through the inner bark. An injected
solution passes up through one OF these
tubes to the leaves and back again, but
it does not spread through the tissues of
tree rs it would if the trunk were thread
ed with a network OF veins like the human
body In order to inject q tree evenly on
ell sides. Il Is necessary to make q number
of injections on different sides of the
trunk, and even on the limbs This means
that many quarts of very dilute chemical
solution must be put into tree if the
chemical is to reach ali portions of IT,
If only small amount of concentrated
solution were used it would kill the cells
near the injection hone and would not
reach other parts. This is one of the rea-
sons why boring hole in the trunk and
filling it with strong chemical, in either
solid or liquid form, is not likely to bene-
fit
Some the fifty-six solutions which
DR. Rumbold tried on the chestnut trees
were fatal But she did find one. lithium
solution, which stopped the growth of the
chestnut canker Some of the lithium,
she found. was carried into the nuts If the
trees were treated in the fall Rats fed
on these nuts, and also on nuts from trees
treated with other solutions, showed no