Too severe pruning: In pruning trees, many people have a tendency to cut them back so severely as to remove everything but the bare trunk and a few of the main branches. This process is known as “heading back.” It is a method, however, which should not be resorted to except in trees that are very old and failing, and even there only with certain species, like the silver maple, sycamore, linden and elm. Trees like the sugar maple will not stand this treatment at all. The willow is a tree that will stand the process very readily and the Carolina poplar must be cut back every few years, in order to keep its crown from becoming too tall, scraggy and unsafe.
Fig. 114.—A Limb Improperly Cut. Note how the stub is decaying and the resulting cavity is becoming diseased.
Covering wounds: The importance of immediately covering all wounds with coal tar cannot be overstated. If the wound is not tarred, the exposed wood cracks, as in [Fig. 115], providing suitable quarters for disease germs that will eventually destroy the body of the tree. Coal tar is by far preferable to paint and other substances for covering the wound. The tar penetrates the exposed wood, producing an antiseptic as well as a protective effect. Paint only forms a covering, which may peel off in course of time and which will later protrude from the cut, thus forming, between the paint and the wood, a suitable breeding place for the development of destructive fungi or disease. The application of tin covers, burlap, or other bandages to the wound is equally futile and in most cases even injurious.
Fig. 115.—Result of a Wound not Covered with Coal Tar. The exposed wood cracked and decay set in.
Special Considerations
Pruning shade trees: Here, the object is to produce a symmetrical crown and to have the lowest branches raised from the ground sufficiently high to enable pedestrians to pass under with raised umbrellas. Such pruning should, therefore, necessarily be light and confined to the low limbs and dead branches.