MAIMED TREES IN FRANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 August 1917, Page 5

MAIMED TREES IN FRANCE.

REPAIRING RUIN IN FRANCE. Mr Henry Wood, the special correspondent of the United Press of America with the French Armies, describes how the French have rescued many of the trees mutilated by the Germans in their retreat. He says:— "There were thousands of trees that I he close pursuit of the French prevented the Germans from completely cutting instead, the tree-killers cut off a circle of bark around the trunk, which with a few days' exposure to the sun would be sufficient to kill peach, plum, apple, apricot, and cherry trees that had been half a century obtaining their productiveness. These trees presented llic easiest problem. The wounds were merely bound up like the wounds of a soldier. Thousands of army surgeons and Red Cross ambulance drivers and stretcher-bearers assisted in this work. The circle where the bark had been cut away was first covered with a spe. cial grafting cement, and the entire wound ■ then carefully bandaged up—often with bandages that had been prepared for human limbs. So great was the number of trees that had to be dressed in this way that the entire available supply of grafting preparation was quickly exhausted. Tar was then used as a substitute, and finally even a loamy clay. Substitutes tor' surgical bandages often had to be found, and in the end it was discovered that moss twisted and tied about the dressed wound was as effective as anything- else. A much more serious problem presented itself where the trees had been entirely cut or sawn down. But here French genius also solved the problem. The stumps, protruding usually two or three feet' from the ground, were first trimmed off so as to conserve the sap and prevent the death of the roots, and then treated with the grafting paste and carefully bandaged till the cut> down tree lying at the side budded from the sap and life that remained in it. Branches that showed great numbers of buds and* other signs of exceptional vitality were, then cut oil' and finally grafted into the carefully prepared stumps. To-day these grafts are in full leaf and blossom. The roots appear to have been entirely saved by this process, and years have been saved in restoring the cut-down orchards of France.

On every hand are also to be seen carefully cultivated and sown fields, each hearing its little painted' sign, "Terrain cultive par l'Armee." The few horses that are being used for the rield3 are those whose guns and ammunition caissons wait unharnessed at the side of the field to be taken up again as soon as a little ploughing or harrowing is done. Likewise, except for an occasional old man or old woman workiug away on small gardens, all of the heavy work of the fields is being done by soldiers. As the troops pass, either going to or from the front, they stop and dedicate the day to the cultivation of the redeemed fields. The next day they pass on, and other troops take up the work.