1136. Trees for Shade, Nursery Trees, &c.—Forest Trees selected for shade should be of kinds not liable to be attacked by worms and insects. The rock or sugar maple is always remarkably free from worms, and it makes the most dense and beautiful shade of all our deciduous trees. This is becoming a very popular tree, and we hope to see it extensively propagated. There is no more risk in transplanting this than the elm, and the limbs are not liable to be broken by the winds and snow.
We believe it is generally admitted that transplanted trees succeed best when their early growth has been in soil similar to that for which they are destined to be placed permanently. If raised in such a soil, and transplanted to that which is thin and poor, they seem to receive a shock from which with difficulty they recover. As a gentleman once remarked, it is like feeding a calf with all the milk he will take till he is six months old, and then suddenly turning him off to live on a short pasture.
Large trees may be as successfully planted as small ones. The mode and result of an experiment made by Messrs. Pomeroy and Dutton, of Utica, are thus given: Those gentlemen transplanted trees, comprising maples, elm, beech, &c., some thirty feet in height, which were transplanted without being shorn of any of their branches. The process of removal was as follows:—In the fall, before the frost, a trench was dug around the trees selected, from ten to fifteen feet in diameter, and the roots severed. In the winter when the ground had become solid from freezing, the trees were pulled out by the aid of oxen and levers, with the mass of earth firmly attached to the roots. They were then transported erect on a strong sled, built for the purpose, and set out.
These trees grew in open land, a mile and a half from the city. They put on their foliage last spring, as if wholly unconscious that they were not still in their native soil, and the enterprising gentlemen who undertook this unusual course, are rewarded with shade trees which by the old practice it would have required twenty years to produce.
Summer pruning is sometimes necessary in order to give form and proper direction to nursery trees, and standard trees may need thinning, in order to expose the fruit to light and air; but in pruning trees thoroughly, particularly if large limbs are to be cut off, it is best to defer the business till the last of July, August, or the former part of September.
Late in summer and early in autumn, the bark does not peel as it does early in the summer, when it often starts from the tree which is injured by going into trees and stepping on limbs with hard shoes. The sap will ooze out of some trees early in summer, which not only injures them generally, but it often causes the wounded part to decay.
But in late pruning, the wood, when the branch is cut off, becomes sound and well seasoned; and though it may not heal over so readily as when cut early in summer or spring, it remains in a healthy state.
1137. To preserve Wood in Damp Situations.—Two coats of the following preparation are to be applied, after which the wood is subject to no deterioration whatever from humidity. Twelve pounds of resin are to be beaten in a mortar, to which three pounds of sulphur and twelve pints of whale oil are to be added. This mixture is to be melted over the fire, and stirred during the operation. Ochre, reduced to an impalpable powder, by triturating it with oil, may then be combined in the proportion necessary to give either a lighter or a darker color to the material. The first coat should be put on lightly, having been previously heated; the second may be applied in two or three days, and a third after an equal interval, if from the peculiar dampness of the situation it should be judged expedient.