[M] Will become a handsome tree. Coned last year. Some fertile.
[N] Very apt to lose its leader either by birds or wind. Coned last year.
[O] Very old; possibly 500 years. Many others of the same age and size.
[P] Quite a different form from the others, the lower branches being quite table-form.
CHAPTER XVII
CARE OF OLD TREES
The charm of many an estate is not the garden or the woodland, but the monarchs that for years have weathered the winter storm and stand out as noble specimens of their family. Often there are fine trees of rarer species which their owners naturally wish to preserve from decay as long as possible. Belonging to this class are numerous specimens scattered over the country of American and other foreign trees that were amongst the first of their kind to be introduced to Britain, such, for instance, as the Tulip tree, the Robinia, and various oaks from America, the Sophora from China, and various European trees. The trees may have some historic associations, but whether this is so or not, when they begin to decay efforts are made to save them from absolute death. Decay is harmful and objectionable in park and garden, and we are not sure that this matter of decay in trees has been so well considered as it might be, as bearing upon the health of other trees and of mankind also. A tree may be picturesque in decay, but we prefer it in health and beauty. Experts are frequently asked for remedies to arrest decay in old trees.
The two principal causes of decay are starvation at the root and injury by storms and disease. Such trees as the Beech and Horse Chestnut, that root close to the surface of the soil—quite different from the Oak—may often be invigorated by covering the ground with a few inches of good soil or short manure. Artificial watering, during prolonged drought, when thoroughly done, is also very helpful to the tree. Trees with large crowns of branches are frequently seen thinly furnished with foliage, and altogether sickly owing to unhealthy or insufficient roots. The balance between top and bottom has been destroyed. To restore it in some degree the top-growth may be reduced by pruning out and shortening back branches here and there, wherever it can be done without spoiling the appearance of the tree. This demands careful judgment, but some old and sickly trees may certainly be restored in a measure by this help. It is of no value in the case of trees with decayed trunks, nor with those like our Common Oak, which will not break readily from old wood. But Elms, Robinias, and Red Oaks are among those that respond to this treatment.
Old trees with insecure branches can often be saved from destruction by fastening the main branches together on to the trunk. The common practice of putting an iron collar round the branch is a mistake. The iron prevents the branch expanding naturally, and ultimately chokes it. A better way is to use a strong iron rod with a plate at the end, and instead of supporting the branch by encircling it, a hole is bored right through the centre of it, through which the rod is pushed from the outer side. The rod should be of tough iron or steel, and should exactly fit the hole bored by the augur; the portions embedded in the wood should be smeared with coal tar before they are pushed through, so as to make the holes as nearly as possible air and water-tight. One end of the rod should be "threaded" sufficiently to allow of the limbs being braced slightly by screwing up the nut, and thus supporting some of their weight. Finally, the bark should be neatly cut away so as to let in each of the iron plates closer to the living wood, for by this means the time required for closing over the plate by new wood is shortened. In this way the weight is borne by the iron plate, which should, by removing sufficient bark, be allowed to fit close in to the wood. New bark will gradually close over and hide the plate, and instead of an ugly collar cutting into the wood, the only evidence of artificial aid is the rod coming from the inner side of the branch.