COUNTRY LIFE IN AMERICA
NOVEMBER, 1908
America's Foremost Tree Expert JOHN DAVEY
The Father of Tree Surgery
HIS BOOKS "The Tree Doctor" (Old) "Davey's Primer on Trees and Birds" "A New Era in Tree Growing" "The Tree Doctor" (New) Good for all who have an interest in trees
HIS LECTURE "Our Wounded Friends, The Trees"
"I wish that ten thousand coin- munities in the United States might hear this lecture, for it would mean the salvation of a million trees."
-J. HORACE MCFARLAND, Pres. Amer. Civic Association
Save Your Trees
THEIR value can not be estimated in dollars and cents.. If they are worth keeping at all, they are worth the most skilled attention obtainable.. Nearly half a century of experience makes our work perfect, and this experience is at your service. In Tree Surgery we stand alone. We can save your shade trees. We can restore the productiveness of your orchards. We can solve your forest problems.
The best is none too good in the care of your trees
OELRICHS & CO., NEW YORK
TELEGRAPHIC ADDRESS, "OELRICHS"
Mr. Martin L. Davey,
The Davey School of Practical Forestry,
Tarrytown, Westchester County, N. Y.
NEW YORK, July 3, 1908
DEAR SIR: I am very much pleased with the work on my trees at Scarborough. It has been most intelligently and effectively done. I confess that before you undertook the work on my place I had no conception of the attention and care that trees require.
I desire also to express to you my appreciation of the very efficient workmanship and the courtesy and excellent behavior of your representatives who carried on the work.
I am, with kind regards, Yours very truly
GUSTAV H. SCHWAB
Your house can be replaced, but your trees cannot
Send for our booklet, "A Great Revelation.” It will cost you nothing. We will make an examination of your trees on request.
SCHOOL DAVEY'S OF PRACTICAL FORESTRY
Eastern Office, Tarrytown, N. Y.
(P. O. Box 503)
Registered Trade Mark Established Half a Century
COUNTRY LIFE IN AMERICA
SEPTEMBER, 1909
Save the Lives of Your Trees- They Are Too Precious to Sacrifice
If you are fortunate enough to have trees about your place, no doubt you have come to love them as living things. Tender memories of those who planted or have cared for them probably cluster around many if not all of your tree friends. Trees are no longer cominon or cheap, and you could not replace the fine old ones at any reasonable outlay—even if you could, the substitutes would not be the same to you; they would lack the associations that made the old ones so precious. Davey men and Davey methods can save your trees, if there is anything at all left to work on. Many of the achievements of the Davey corps of tree surgeons are little less than marvellous - healthy, hearty trees, that a few years ago were only shells, are living monuments to the efficiency of the Davey treatment when properly applied.
John Davey, the Father of Tree Surgery Has Given the World a New Profession
Wonderful in its results, useful beyond calculation and of the most interesting character. John Davey first conceived the idea of tree surgery and the methods which saved tens of thousands of America's finest trees are the direct result of his genius.
Mr. Davey is beyond peradventure the world's greatest tree man and the long experience back of the Davey service gives knowledge of the kind that cannot be obtained from books. This "know how" makes the efficiency of the Davey work altogether beyond comparison.
JOHN DAVEY The Father of Tree Surgery
The Davey Training School stands alone. It combines the theoretical and the practical in a way that has never been attempted elsewhere. In it the Davey men become experts through the application of instructions based on John Davey's life work in the saving of trees. The name Davey, thus insepar- ably interwoven with the science of tree surgery, means much or little to you according to the value you place on your tree.
Expert Service Alone Produces Proper Results in Tree Surgery
If you have to engage a lawyer, you want a successful one; if you must call a physician or surgeon, you want one in whom you can place absolute confidence; if you employ a tree surgeon you should have the best not experimenters or men of doubtful reputation in the profession.
If you wish to save your trees, you need the services of tree surgeons who can give results. The Davey experts alone can thoroughly satisfy you. We are just now preparing a beautiful new booklet, which will be a veritable delight to the tree lover, fully explaining our work. Its cost is too great to permit promiscuous distribution, but if you have trees and are inter- ested in their preservation, we shall be glad to mail you a copy without charge. Send us your name and address today, for prompt attention addressing Desk 5.
THE DAVEY TREE EXPERT CO., Inc. (Operating Davey's School of Practical Forestry)
A Davey Patient
Main Office, KENT, OHIO "The Home of Tree Surgery"
Pawey 1909
April, 1927
BEFORE TREATMENT
June, 1925, before treatment. Tree in Central Park starving through neg- lect under semi-artificial conditions. Note thin foliage and dying top
AFTER TREATMENT
June, 1926-same tree one year after treatment. Restored to new health and vigor through Davey methods of scientific feeding and pruning
Saving the starving trees of Central Park, New York
TO EXPLAIN away the obvious re- sults of neglect and inefficiency, vari- ous fanciful and fallacious theories were advanced as to the reasons why the trees of Central Park are dying. In 1925 the Davey Company challenged these unwar- ranted claims, and made the positive assertion that the trees of Central Park are dying from neglect and starvation. To prove the truth of this assertion, the Davey Company offered to treat, at its own expense, 100 dying trees as a demon- stration.
A careful survey by Davey Experts in- dicated that about 25% of the older trees of Central Park are too far gone to save, and another 25%, approximately, are border-line cases in advanced stages of de- cline, but with some reasonable chance of saving them by proper treatment. The other 50% were in varying conditions from fairly good to relatively poor.
The 100 trees selected for demonstra- tion were taken from the second group of border-line cases, and the Davey Com- pany staked its reputation on its ability to
save a substantial portion of these dying trees. The treatment given was the result of John Davey's life experience and the quarter of a century experience of the whole Davey organization.
This treatment was a combination of practical common sense and scientific knowledge and experience. For exactly the same reason that a good farmer culti- vates his fields and fertilizes his soil, the ground under these trees was thoroughly cultivated-adequate and appropriate fer- tilizers were used-the ground was pre- pared to receive both water and air, so vital to plant life. One of the important ele- ments in this program was the use of Davey Tree Food to stimulate new growth quickly.
In addition to this, the trees were given expert scientific prun- ing to eliminate the dead and weak parts, and to establish a proper balance between a dying top and an impoverished root system. All the trees of Central Park are living under semi-artificial con- ditions, aggravated by neglect.
One year later, in June, 1926, photo- graphs were again taken of the same 100 trees, and a thorough examination dis- closed the fact that 90% of them showed definite improvement, a large proportion showing really marvelous improvement. The other 10% were holding their own.
All of this proves beyond the possibility of doubt or fallacious argument that most of the trees of Central Park can be saved, if the civic pride of New York forces a prompt and complete abandonment of the past policy of neglect.
All trees growing under lawn conditions are living under more or less artificial handicaps. Many of them are actually starving, slowly or rapidly. They need
JOHN DAVEY Father of Tree Surgery Reg. U. S. Pat. Off.
help. Are any of your trees starv- ing? Look for danger signs in the slowly dying tops. The local Davey representative will be glad to examine your trees and report their condition to you without cost or obligation.
THE DAVEY TREE EXPERT Co., Inc. 712 City Bank Bldg., Kent, Ohio
DAVEY TREE SURGEONS
John Davey's great contribution to America
John Davey was born in England, June 6, 1846, at a time when there were no public schools. This hardy and humble genius was twenty-one before he knew his ABC's. So he started in as a full grown young man to learn to read by the slow and painful process of self-education. He began with a little copy of the New Testament and a small dictionary, picking out one word at a time. Later he acquired a grammar so that he might put the words together properly, meanwhile studying horticulture and land- scape gardening during a full apprentice- ship at Torquay, England.
Then he heard the call of America, this great land of freedom and opportunity; and, like millions of other sturdy sons of Europe, he came here to work out his des- tiny. He pursued his education still fur- ther, working by day and studying by night, until he acquired an education that would do credit to the majority of college graduates.
Perhaps one of the most striking things about him was the fact that he became one of the finest Americans. He learned every word of our Constitution. He learned every word of every verse of America and the Star Spangled Banner; and, until old age laid its heavy hand upon him, he could sing those songs with a zeal and a fervor that was good to see.
He became a full citizen at the first op- portunity under our law, and to him it was a sacred day when he raised his right hand and forswore allegiance to the British crown and swore allegiance to the Con- stitution and the flag of America. And al- ways, during his fifty years in his adopted country whenever he passed by Old Glory, he would tip his hat in veneration.
THE DAVEY TREE EXPERT JOHN DAVEY, Father of Tree Surgery,
"Do it right or not at all"
John Davey saw with eyes of under- standing and sympathy the appalling neg- lect and butchery of America's trees, and he set out to find a way-a systematic, scientific way to save them, little dream- ing that a great business would be developed on the science that his love and genius created. And thus came into being the wonderful profession of Tree Surgery.
His first book, The Tree Doctor, was published in 1901, and then began the gradual development of The Davey Tree Expert Company, incorporated in 1909, doing a business of nearly $2,000,000 in 1925, and now having in the field nearly 700 master Tree Surgeons, all carefully selected, thoroughly trained, properly dis- ciplined, and regularly supervised, and giv- ing superior service to the tree owners of America. For twenty years the business of this institution has been managed by his son, Martin L. Davey, whose highest aim has been to perpetuate the ideals and phi- losophy of his pioneer father.
John Davey, though not now living, still lives in the spirit and purpose of the magnificent service that he rendered his adopted country-he taught the American people to think in terms of the living tree. Greater even than his creation of the in- valuable science of Tree Surgery is his con- tribution as the apostle of the tree as a living thing.
со.. INC., 325 CITY BANK BLDG., KENT, OHIO
Branch offices with telephones: New York, 501 Fifth Ave., phone: Murray Hill 1629; Albany, City Savings Bank Bldg.; Boston, Massachusetts Trust Bldg.; Philadelphia, Land Title Bldg.; Baltimore, American Bldg., Washington, Investment Bldg., Pittsburgh, 331 Fourth Ave., Buffalo, 110 Franklin St.; Cleveland, Hippodrome Bldg.; Detroit, General Motors Bldg.; Cincinnati, Mercantile Library Bldg.; Indianapolis, Fletcher Savings and Trust Bldg.; Chicago, Westminster Bldg.; St. Louis, Arcade Bldg.; Kansas City, Scarritt Bldg., Minneapolis, Andrus Bldg.; Montreal, Insurance Exchange Bldg.
DAVEY TREE SURGEONS
Live and work in your vicinity- quickly available, within easy motoring
distance-no carfare charged
1880-1930
GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY YEAR
DAVEY TREE SURGERY