25 DECEMBER 1926, Page 12

A sheaf of queries has reached me about the healing

of a certain great tulip tree that seemed to be suffering from anaemia and old age, but was cured .by a specialist. All these correspondents wish to be put in touch with the healer. He is not a professional doctor, but an ex-professor of botany in a great University. His advice was to dig a circle of holes under the tips of the boughs and fill them up with manures, both natural and artificial. That very remarkable Englishman, John Davey, who founded the. Tree Expert. Company of Kent, Ohio, used phosphoric acid, ammonia, potash water, dried blood and ammonium sulphate for such a purpose with good effect ; but the core of the secret is to get any good manure in contact with the outer rootlets of the root system. Davey himself believed more in energy than medicine. A tale is told of a very old tree that he saved by means of " the saw, a thousand pounds of cement and three square yards of zinc." The hollow boughs sawn off were used to make artificial homes for the evicted household of squirrels. It was calculated that 100 years had been added to the life of the tree.

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