Better A Living Monument, Which You Enjoy, Than A Posthumous Headstone

Twelve years is a ripe age for a dog or cat, eighteen for a cow, twenty-five for a horse, thirty for a mule, sixty for an elephant. Modern medicine has extended man's life expectancy to about seventy-five years. Certain parrots, tamed wild geese, and snapping turtles are said to have lived 150 years and more. In comparison to such brief life spans, many trees are "immortal."

It took Donna in September 1960—one of the worse hurricanes in recorded U.S. weather history—finally to lay low the Thorndale Oak, a red giant at Millbrook, N.Y., measuring 24 feet 9 inches in girth, whose age was gauged at 353 years. The acorn whence this tree grew apparently sprouted some seasons before the Dutch first sailed up the nearby Hudson River in 1610.

The Thorndale Oak was rated in 1941 by the American Forestry Association as the largest of its species in the United States, and at 353 years it may also have become the oldest. Even so, as trees go, it was but a middling oldster. Red oak is a comparatively short-lived species, about in a class with sugar maple, tulip, live oak, and sweet gum. The expectancies of some other species, calculated by dendrologists from ring-counts in many specimens, are these:

Beware the Bulldozer. Impossible to show by camera is the compaction of soil over tree roots which those clanking treads inflict. Clearly shown is the heaping of earth over roots, which will soon smother them. The lower picture shows a typical bulldozer trunk wound.

Preserving the Important. Clearly apparent is the importance of an old arborvitae, its one feature tree, to the remodeled farmhouse shown below. Decay in its trunk threatened this tree, but careful excavating and rodding preserved it—a professional job (shown at left) well worth its cost. The bottom picture shows how multiple cabling was used to safeguard an old apple tree, important for its decorative position at a front entrance.

Charm in the Grotesque. Would you remove this deformed old catalpa? It looks like (and perhaps was) an Indian trail-marker. Its owners cherish it as warmly as other, more orthodox feature trees in their handsome grounds—a good example of charm in the misshapen.

Charm in Perfection. It took this Japanese dogwood thirty years to reach its present perfection. Specimens so fine are valued at many hundreds of dollars. (Photograph: Princeton Nurseries)

Before Pruning. This sugar maple, perfect specimen though it is, obscures the vista.

After Pruning. The same maple reveals and frames the distant countryside. About two tons of low-hanging branches and excess overhead were removed, at a cost of $15.

White Pine—450 years
White Oak, Sycamore, Ponderosa and Sugar Pines—500 years
Eastern Hemlock—6oo years
Western Larch—700 years

In the great rain forests of our Pacific slopes grow the oldest trees on our continent—old as botanical forms as well as individually. Douglas firs with 700 annual rings are not uncommon and at least one with 1375 rings is recorded. The age of redwoods has sometimes been exaggerated. In a thirty-acre plot containing 567 redwoods, one careful investigator found only seventeen over 1000 years old. Elsewhere, he found one that was nearly 2000.

Oldest and largest of all are the giant sequoias, some of which antedate man's recorded history. They were perhaps 2500 years old when Christ was born, and may well live many more centuries if left untampered by man. A peculiar stunted native of the southern Rockies called the bristlecone pine is also known to have lived four millennia.

Only to a few is it given to own trees of such ages. But contemplation of the two- and three-century types can impart to any of us a curious kind of elation. The treelet we plant this year could, and it just might, survive until Peace reigns on earth and men are commuting to Venus. Viewed subjectively, to plant and cultivate a hardy tree in one's lifetime is to project one's humble and mortal personality far into the future.

By the same token that some old trees have historical associations, new ones can have future meaning. As a monument—to yourself or to an event of your time—a hardy tree which you rear and enjoy is more considerable than a stone memorial erected posthumously. An engraved metal plate explaining the tree's significance, placed there by you or your descendants, is in taste quite as good as the legends men carve in granite or marble.

One of the most touching moments in this reporter's tree career came when he paused to admire four magnificent roadside trees—a white pine, sugar maple, hemlock, and white oak—fronting a modest rural homestead. An old gentleman came around the corner of the house with his lawnmower, and presently explained: "My grandfather planted those trees the day he heard President Lincoln was assassinated."

Though they live so much longer than we do, most trees mature quite as rapidly, and some much more so. A number of kinds are capable of reproducing at a fraction of our potential age for parenthood. Yet their increase in size can continue almost indefinitely whereas our measurements reach definite limits (except perhaps in girth) and then slightly shrink. Tree growth appears to decelerate with age but, under favorable circumstances, it does not actually do so. After its first spurting years from seedling to sapling to young maturity, a normal tree in normal years adds at least two inches of twig length and one or two inches of trunk girth. As height, spread, and girth increase, the tree's enlargement becomes relatively less but stays specifically about the same. An inch or two of girth added to a 48-inch diameter bole just shows less than when it is added to a 12-incher.

Palm trees, whose immunity to trunk injury has been noted, are immune also to obesity, and for the same reason that renders them so durable. Having a diffused, internal vascular system instead of an integrated, peripheral one, they do not add annual outward growth rings. Instead, after attaining their mature girth, in bundles instead of layers of tissue, they thereafter grow only upward, at that fixed girth.

These thoughts are set down here by way of framing for reference some answers to the kind of question new home owners ask about the futures of the trees they plant: "When will they really give us shade?" "How long before they grow high as the house?" "How big, how old, can they get?"
Growth rates naturally vary with soil, moisture, and climate, as well as with species, but here are figures for some cultivated species under optimum conditions (compiled for this book by Princeton Nurseries, one of the country's oldest and wisest shade-tree concerns):

I. Rapid (2'~3' per year their first 10 years)

Locust, Shademaster                            Plane, London
Maple: Silver                                        Poplar, Carolina
Summershade                                       Sycamore
Oak, Pin                                               Tulip
Willow

II. Medium Rapid (1'-2,' per year for their first 10 years)

Ash                                                      Maple: Norway
Elm, Chinese                                        Red
Gum, Sweet                                         Sugar
Linden                                                  Oak: Red
Locust, Honey                                      Scarlet

III. Slow (6"-1' per year for their first 10 years)

Cherry, Flowering                                 Hackberry
Coffee, Kentucky                                 Maple: Crimson
Cork                                                    Schwedler
Ginkgo                                                 Oak, White
Goldenrain                                            Sophora

Big nurseries like Princeton quote no retail prices (they sell to dealers only), but figures for what first-class stock like theirs should cost from local outlets can be arrived at by adding to catalog prices a fair markup. For typical items from the lists above, here is a retail buyer's yardstick:

                                                8-10 ft.                12-14 ft
Ginkgo                                     $24                     $29
Gum, Sweet                             12                       27
Linden:                                                               
American                                  9                         24
European                                                             42
Locust, Honey                          $17                     $34
Maple:                                                                
Crimson                                   16                       45
Schwedler                                12                       36
Oak:                                                                   
Pin                                           12                       36
Red                                          13-50                  40
Scarlet                                      14                       36
White                                       10                       25 (if available)
Plane, London                          10                       35
Tulip                                         8                         12
Willow                                     6                         7.50

Planting charges are usually forty per cent additional for shade trees but should carry a replacement guarantee good for one year.

From the above figures it can be seen that ten assorted specimens three to five years old, planted by a nurseryman, might represent an investment by the new home owner of $200—500. At the growth-rates indicated, all but the slow-growers in Class III would be giving considerable shade by their tenth year, some as early as their fifth. Supposing all do well, what real value might they be forecast as having one human generation (twenty years) hence? For such a calculation there is a formula which is widely accepted by insurance companies, courts, and even by the Bureau of Internal Revenue. It was worked out for the National Arborist Association and National Shade Tree Conference by a committee under Norman Armstrong of Chapel Hill, N.C.

Three prime factors are used: the kind of tree, its size, its condition. Size is measured not by height or spread but by the area of trunk cross section breast-high, to which a value of five dollars per square inch is assigned. To find this area the diameter is squared and multiplied by .7854 (one-fourth of Pi). Thus a top-value tree twelve inches thick in perfect condition would be evaluated at

But not all trees are top value, nor in perfect condition. The Armstrong committee laid it down that appraisers should rate trees in five grades of perfection, twenty per cent off for each lower grade; and it similarly divided all the familiar trees into five descending classes of value. These grades vary and shift according to where the trees are grown, in seven regions of the United States and Canada. Thus in New England, the East, the Central States, and Midwest the hardy sugar maple ranks in Class 1 (100%); in the South and Far Northwest it is relegated to Class 2 (80%); in California it vanishes from the list. In nearly all regions the lowly ailanthus and boxelder rank only in Class 5 (2.0%).*

Evaluating your trees in dollars can come in handy when pricing a property for sale, or when damage by a storm or errant vehicle makes you feel like claiming a loss. To make your appraisal stick, it should be made, for a modest fee, by a Certified Tree Expert. To be realistic he will take into account the position of the tree in your grounds as well as the prime factors.
For a hypothetical case, suppose a runaway truck were to shatter irremediably a fifteen-inch willow oak standing in your Ohio back yard. In Ohio, the willow oak is Class 1 (100%). Suppose this tree had one moderate cavity but no other blemishes. The evaluation equation on it would look like this:

15x15x.7854x$5=$883.58

less 20% condition=$706.86

less 40% position=$424.12 appraised value.

If the smashed tree had been only a twelve-inch sycamore maple (Class 3: 60%), but in perfect condition and standing prominently in your front lawn, the calculation would be:

Some shade-tree men think that the Armstrong formula should use a higher factor than five dollars for valuable low trees with slender trunks. Present practice is to appraise small trees, especially ornamentals, at actual replacement cost.

Translating their trees into dollars is purely academic for most people most of the time. But there are circumstances in which the home owner can well think of trees primarily as future cash, and convert them into it quite profitably. Often the specific purpose served is quite literally academic. Many a foresighted parent puts Junior through college by growing Christmas trees.

For this ploy, at least one acre of ground not otherwise used is needed. Better are five acres, and if you have ten acres some states, like New Jersey, will supply you with seedlings for a song, provided you let half your crop grow on up into saw timber.

A nice thing about all the conifers used as Christmas trees is that they will grow on land that is not much good for growing anything else. Worn-out pastures, thin-soiled barrens, and north slopes unblessed by warmth or water will yield quite well with just a little fertilizing. Three negatives define the requirements better than any set of positives: no swamp, no shade, no livestock.

0 Copies of the booklet Shade Tree Evaluation can be obtained from the National Arborist Association, Wooster, Ohio. A condensed version of its listing appears in an Appendix to this book on page 138.

Tastes in trees for Christmas vary surprisingly in different sections of the country. Largely preferred in New England and New York are balsam fir and white or Norway spruce. In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the spruces used to lead in popularity, but the aristocrat now is Douglas fir. In Michigan and Ohio, the long-leafed pines—Scotch, red, and

Austrian, in that order, trailed by white—now outsell the firs and spruces.

Thus one of the first things to do before you go into Christmas trees is to check your regional markets and learn which kinds to plant. Besides salability, there are differences too in growth rates, care, and price.

Douglas fir takes ten to fourteen years to reach six feet but fetches about $2.50 per tree at that size, on the stump. Norway and white spruce bring only half as much but reach market size two to four years sooner. Scotch pine, where it is salable, is in the $1.25 bracket for trees that take only six to eight years to grow, but the pines are prey to sawfly and pine-shoot moth and require watchful spraying. The spruces' enemies are aphids, weevils, and mites, not quite so destructive. Of them all, the fir is hardiest as to climate and parasites. All types need some pruning or shearing to perfect their shapes.

A rough idea of how many Christmas trees one acre of ground can carry is conveyed by the following table;

Spaced 4 ft. each way 2720 (table trees)

Spaced 5 ft. each way 1740 (6-footers)

Spaced 6 ft. each way 1210 (8-footers)

Often there is also a market for the boughs from cut trees or misshapen ones. These bring as high as four dollars per hundred pounds.

Christmas tree crops are planted in early spring, usually in generations a year or two apart. Be sure to heel-in your hundreds of seedlings as soon as you get them home, and water them well. Carry into the field, with their rootlets kept soaked in a bucket, only as many as you can plant on that trip.

The quickest way to open the ground is to plow spaced furrows, but doing so may provide rodents with runways, which you will regret. More laborious but safer is to "scalp" your planting spots with a mattock, cutting out sods at least six inches square.

After their first year, be prepared to weed around your seedlings; after their fourth, to shear and prune them; after their sixth, eighth, and tenth years to spray, and to "finish" them with more shaping.

Pamphlets on the culture and care of Christmas trees are among the most popular publications of the Conservation departments of States where they can be grown. From which fact, take this warning: almost everywhere the markets are glutting, or soon will be. In Michigan, for example, as against 1,205,000 trees sold in 1957, about 30,000,000 were reported maturing for 1962. Perhaps only half of these will reach market, and only the best half of that half actually be sold. More than in most tree lines, and nowadays increasingly, in Christmas trees only top quality pays off.

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