In Hiring Professional Tree Care, Write Your Own Ticket, And Focus On The Foreman

I well remember my boyhood introduction to tree surgery.

Father had bought a few wooded acres on the outskirts of Winnetka, Illinois, our native heath, and there built a modest home. Mother now had happy scope for her love of gardening and of wild flowers, birds, and trees. We boys helped dig beds, plant borders, cut paths, and thin out the wild shrubbery.

With or without Father's knowledge, Mother called in a company then newly and widely advertised throughout the Midwest, to come and trim her trees. They were mostly elms, oaks, ash, thorn apples, and hickories, none of imposing size or character, but Mother thought them too shaggy for her taste and their own good.

I can still see the men in high laced boots with curved saws and pruning hooks on long poles. They dangled on ropes aloft in the trees, whittling stubs and overgrowth. They painted the cuts out of little cans slung from their safety belts. Tree techniques and equipment haven't changed much in half a century.

I also remember the piles of brush the "tree surgeons" left for us boys to pick up and burn, and the strange new look our trees now had—too tame to suit a pair of teenage hunters and birds-eggers. In our private opinion Mother and her "surgeons" had just about ruined the Martin grounds, that is, made them less inviting to squirrels, crows, hawks, and other varmints. But we had to admit that the place looked much more civilized, more like the fine estates of richer families down along the lake front.

And then one evening Father got the bill. His single expletive was unforgettable: "Pirates!" Never thereafter would he call tree surgeons anything else, and "tree pirates" the whole breed remained for me for years to come.

When the hurricane of 1938 flattened dozens of trees and disfigured scores more in an acreage I then owned on Long Island, our one groundsman definitely needed professional help to clean up the shambles. With Father's epithet of long ago still in mind, I dealt warily with the tree service we engaged. This was my first experience as a client. I must say that the treatment both I and the trees got was as reasonable as it was expert. In five days a crew of nimble buckaroos brought order out of a chaos that had looked hopeless. Besides clearing the wreckage they shaped up and salvaged many partial casualties: took off torn limbs and hangers, pruned damaged tops back into balance, smoothed over angry wounds with their chisels and tree paint. My bill was considerable but, I felt, well earned by the skills applied. I gained a new respect for the "pirates" and thereafter, wherever I saw a crew of them at work, took new interest in watching them.

My own entrance into tree service as a proprietor was fortuitous. One day soon after World War II, having left weekly journalism in the big city for the less hectic life of a free-lance writer in rural upstate New York, I boarded a train at Albany and took a table seat in the club car. With me I had a manuscript just back from the typist which I wanted to check while I lunched. Into the seat opposite dropped a chunky, rosily handsome chap of about my age. We smiled and nodded, and I went on correcting copy.

"That looks like a movie script," ventured my vis-a-vis.

"Well, it is," I conceded, without looking up.

"Humph," he said, "I never saw a movie about my profession."

So I had to ask, "And what is your profession?"

Smiling happily he replied, "I'm a tree surgeon. And oh, boy! Could I tell you some stories that would make a heck of a movie!"

And he did, too. My manuscript lay untouched the rest of the way to town while I listened to escapes and escapades—some harrowing, some comical, all exciting—of the fearless fraternity called tree skinners.

My informant explained that any man content to earn his livelihood by climbing trees has to be a little bit "tetched" to start with. He has to be lean, muscular, nerveless, and somehow persuaded that trees are challenging. He must want to climb and conquer them no matter how tall and perilous. Finns, French Canadians, Scandinavians, and boys of German extraction—in that order—make the best tree workers, I was told. Due to their concentration on survival, and their pride of prowess, all of them tend to be prima donnas; sensitive to criticism, quick to anger, devil-may-care in their fun and games. I heard about ax fights on the ground and knife fights aloft; about nicking a braggart's rope "to see if he could take it" when he fell; about accidentally dropping heavy wood on a hated foreman's car, with him in it. And so on.

Actually, as I was to learn later when he became my valued friend and teacher, my voluble new acquaintance, whom we can call Rivers, was a conscientious, thoroughly informed student of trees and their therapy. He had been graduated by one of the big-company training schools and now had a thriving organization and practice of his own near Albany. At this first meeting of ours, he played up the picaresque just to get his profession some public notice. As things turned out, instead of a screen drama, what he got was a disciple.

It so happened that just when Rivers entered my life I had been casting about to find a new story-line for one of the more two-fisted, daredevil screen actors of that day. As Rivers talked I formed this wondrous thought: why not, in a first act, send our Hollywood he-man up into the trees, keep him there for three acts, chucking rocks at him, finally let him down into the heroine's arms. In such a novel setting, with a lot of unfamiliar tools, rope tricks, and lingo, and any quantity of scary, offbeat camera angles, the picture would be sure-fire.

To be able to write such a scenario, I would first have to learn all the techniques and vernacular of tree-skinning. Before we parted at Grand Central, the robustious Rivers had promised to see to that. I could come and live with him awhile, go out on jobs with his men, learn the whole tree game from the ground up, as high as I cared to go.

On my return to Cooperstown, I learned that right there in our neighborhood was a perfectly good little tree service, highly esteemed for skill and integrity. Further inquiry brought to light a distressing fact: the owner-operator of this local concern had just met with an accident. It was his first serious mishap in thirty-five years of tree practice, and it was fatal.

It would not be fair to his widow to say that she cried on my shoulder and sold me the business. More accurately, I had by this time become so fascinated by tree work that, when I found the deceased had taught his young foreman just about all he himself had learned in a long and diligent career, I decided to combine enterprise with my research. I bought the business to learn by doing, and, by doing well, perhaps make some money, or not lose too much. The young foreman would be my teacher on the spot. The obliging Rivers would come over from Albany as our consultant.

My predecessor's foreman did not belong to any of the breeds recommended by Rivers. His name was Bob O'Brien and his boyish face did not bespeak rugged talents. When I learned that he had lugged heavy BARs and chauffeured Sherman tanks for General George S. Patton, I understood better how this cherub tackled the hugest trees and handled the toughest crewmen with smiling equanimity. His touch with tender young growths was as deft, as gentle, as it was commanding on big timber or a balky winch-truck. He had a true treeman's fondness for fine specimens and concern for ailing ones. Besides working under a master craftsman he had read the right books, and he continued to read more as Rivers assigned them to us.

With Rivers supervising our diagnoses and performance, we kept our local clientele happy and soon expanded widely. To our maintenance contracts around Cooperstown homes and country estates we added work on golf courses, cemeteries, the park and street trees of several towns and villages. We did roadside clearance for new highways and hazard removal throughout three counties. We had our own spray rig for pest control and with it we experimented —but only briefly, for the two don't mix—on brush control. In snowy winter we kept our men off the relief rolls by cutting and skidding sawlogs for lumber mills, pulpwood for paper companies, even elm planks for a casket factory out in Oneida which had "rough box" contracts for the war in Korea. Our proudest moment came when we were put in charge of the trees at General Electric's home plant in Schenectady, where the late Dr. Charles Steinmetz had planted many exotic species. (The little wizard used to do a lot of his best thinking up in a tree-house at his home.)

Through such varied experience I could hardly escape becoming familiar with a broad spectrum of other tree-service practitioners, our competitors. They ranged from district crews of the biggest, nationally advertised companies, to the itinerant, unschooled "gypsies" who roam the land seasonally picking up small jobs from town to town. (As a regional representative in later years for one of the leading companies I learned that all too often there is little to choose between a "gypsy" and some of the boys the big advertisers hire but fail to train.) Companies doing line-clearance for public utilities—power and telephone-make a practice of paying their men minimum wages but letting them use the company trucks and tools to "buck" work over weekends for their own accounts. Trained only to hack trees back from poles and wires, most such operatives are strictly tree butchers, not surgeons, yet people will hire them just for their cheapness. Like the "gypsies," they are to be side-stepped if only because, despite what they will tell you, they can have no liability or compensation coverage.**

My arboreal screen epic never did get written, but not the least reward from my years with the trees was the opportunity to write this book. Its advice to readers on hiring professional tree care is derived from both sides of the fence, as client and as "expert."

My first suggestion is this: don't wait for a tree-service salesman to send you his literature or ring your doorbell. Beat him to it. Send for him.

This has the dual virtue of putting you at once in command of the interview and lessening your caller's anxiety about getting an order. He knows you are interested and so can concentrate on hearing your problems instead of describing—or inventing—problems for you. Take him out on your grounds and show him, from a written list in your hand, just what you have in mind—this pruning, that bracing or cabling, some topping back here, some raising of branch levels there. When you have finished, let him have the floor. You will soon learn what manner of tree expert you have to deal with.

The high-pressure type will at once start calling your attention to conditions you failed to mention. He will dart away to examine trees you passed by, shaking his head solemnly. He may produce a knife and fall to probing a butt discoloration, looking for decay. A pocket microscope is also part of his equipment. This he will whip out to show you perilous scale on your rhododendrons, or spider-mites in the arborvitae. Before you know it he will outline a spraying and feeding attack on your entire grounds. Because you sent for him, and are admittedly a novice where trees are concerned, he regards you as a soft touch.

A more sincere and reliable type of salesman will take an opposite tack. After noting your instructions, he will begin his survey by asking you basic questions. How long have you lived here? What do you know of your trees' history? What has been done for them lately? He will ask if you have a groundsman or garden service, and if so how good they are. If you have already done some pruning he will notice and comment on it. He may ask if you have in mind a limit on what you want to spend on your trees. (By all means, give him a figure.) Equipped with all this information he will likely tell you he wants to go back over your trees by himself, with his field pad. He will give you his recommendations, with cost estimates, after that. Get these in writing.

*Here involved are considerations of grave importance to the home owner. There are two kinds of "liability": 1) for damage to property by the worker, and 2) for damage to himself while working. If treemen are not insured against the former, you may have difficulty collecting from them after they knock a hole in your roof. If you or they are not insured against the latter (bodily injury), you may have difficulty resisting heavy claims for a broken leg or neck. Many prudent home owners carry general policies that protect them against injury to anyone working on, or even visiting, their grounds.

Because you sent for him and had some clear ideas of your own, this man respects you and values his chance to get your business, not just for now but into the future. Chances are he will come up with a step-by-step, long-range plan for putting your trees into shape, calibrated to fit your budget. He may suggest deferring some of the items you specified in favor of others he considers more pressing. He will be happy to help you help yourself on such items as minor surgery and feeding. This is a salesman to trust and cherish, one of Nature's noblemen.

Customarily, no charge is made for such a preliminary survey. If any salesman tries to bill you for it, write him off as a high-binder.

But the primary question remains: what tree service to call in? The yellow pages are full of such listings. The Buffalo and Philadelphia directories, for example, each carry three columns of them, St. Paul-Minneapolis seven columns, Denver eight columns, Boston nine, Chicago eleven, Pasadena and Washington, D.C., no less than sixteen columns each. Almost every smalltown directory contains at least a half-dozen names. How to pick and choose?

One way is to ask your County Agent, or the borough engineer. Better still, ask a neighbor whose trees look thrifty and show the marks of recent work. Rest assured that, having spent his money, your neighbor will readily applaud his own judgment, or lament it.

Often as not a well-recommended small company will prove as knowledgeable as one of the majors, and usually will be more prompt and economical. But you have nothing to lose, and maybe much to gain, by inviting a survey also from a company that advertises regionally or nationally. These people have big investments and reputations to protect. Their local representatives are prone to be just as hungry for business as the lesser operators, and therefore inclined to high-pressure you, but they can be assumed to be better informed, especially as to parasites and diseases for which remedies change from year to year. Also, local agents of big companies are strictly accountable. If you give them your work and later have complaints, you can get redress from higher authority.

When you make known your wishes—and may this book help you define them—be sure the salesman knows you are going to compare his recommendations and prices with those of at least one other "expert." At the same time let him know you are not bargain-hunting. As in buying a car or painting a house, you cannot expect to get any better tree service than you pay for. Money spent on cheap tree work is money wasted.
Good tree service has to cost good money. Much more is involved in it than meets the eye. The workmen's wages may not average more than two dollars per man-hour, but before he profits the employer has many other costs to cover: compensation and liability premiums, outlay and maintenance on vehicles and tools, warehousing, office overhead, selling expenses, training time, supervision, advertising.

A not unreasonable rate for a two-man crew with truck and tools is around $12 an hour. Add at least four dollars an hour labor charge for each additional worker above two. Add specific material costs such as cable, eyebolts, wood screws, wound dressing, cavity fill. It follows that you cannot expect to get a day's tree work done—good work, that is—for less than about $60 per operative on the job.

An important fact to remember is that, except where the tree company proprietor is his own salesman and foreman, the man who takes your order is not the man who will do your work. The salesman will lay it out, price it, inspect it when finished, but he turns over its actual execution to a crew foreman. Some information about this important character will not come amiss, and your asking for it should not be so taken.

A foreman can make or break a salesman, by performing good jobs or botches for the prices set. (Fairest to both parties is a "not to exceed" price in which the company has some leeway but passes any savings back to the client.) In looking over your trees and estimating the time and materials they require, the salesman must translate in terms of a given crew's work capacity. This will vary directly with the foreman's ability, his attitude, and his men's attitude toward him. When you are satisfied that the salesman knows his business, means well by you, and has written up your order fairly enough, ask him about the foreman he plans to assign to your job. How long has he had this foreman? Where are he and his men working now? May you visit and watch them at work? If there is any question about a foreman's quality, this line of questioning will soon smoke it out. Good foremen are the backbone of all tree service, and good salesmen are delighted to show them off.

The best foremen are workers who have come up through the ranks in the same company, and not too quickly. They are not men who have switched around from company to company to get higher pay, or young fancy Dans promoted early just because the companies were shorthanded. You can usually spot a first-rate tree foreman by his economy of motion and of words. He keeps an eye on his men's work as it goes along, and keeps them moving. Before his juniors come down from their trees he makes sure all their cuts are properly made and painted so that time will not be lost sending a man up again. He handles the most ticklish operations himself. His men don't hesitate to ask his help or instruction, because they trust his leadership and he has given them crew spirit.

If such a foreman comes to you with questions or suggestions after the salesman has gone, he may not strike you as being a brilliant conversationalist, but listen to him carefully. He is up in the trees every day. He can see much more up there than can ever be seen from the ground. Even if his ideas differ from yours and the salesman's, unless they are miles out of line, accept them.

In a like way, the best salesmen are those who came up from foreman. They are taken out of the trees, put into business suits, and promoted to a drawing-account-plus-commissions basis primarily because of their thorough know-how, not their persuasiveness. I am speaking now of big-company salesmen. From the client's viewpoint, former foremen are the best. They are the least likely to be high-pressure artists.

Big companies must have volume to meet their overhead. They have to support a hierarchy of high brass, promotion hotshots, cost accountants, billing clerks, and laboratory and research staffs which give the company prestige but serve the customers very vaguely. Throughout the organization there is harsh emphasis on sell, sell, SELL. To put firecrackers under the salesmen's coattails, meetings are held at which the most unblushing Babbittries are enunciated. Contests are conducted, with prizes for the fiercest go-getters. Lectures and literature analyze the prospects' sales resistance, and how to break it down. A favorite theme is snob appeal—keeping up with the Joneses.

This type of training produces glib spielers who have learned their tree patter in the company's sales seminars. They might as well be selling automobiles or brushes door-to-door. Nowadays the big companies hire all too many of this type in their frantic pursuit of business volume. But for treemen tried and true, fancy sales techniques have no charm. Short of the direct question to men who solicit your business, "Have you yourself worked in the trees?" a sound rule for judging them is: the less they talk, the more you can believe them.

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