|
Rural System? Just Dreaming …
A For-Profit Conglomerate for
Meaningful Jobs
Healthful Communities
and Improved Natural Resource Management
by Robert H. Giles, Jr., Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia
2007
Chapter 29. The Arborists
Dreaming: Lightning outside…too cold to get up…the window's shut…high in a sycamore snaking a cable up and around a branch for it to become a lightning rod…trimming trees high…pulling brush…"Pile it right, then pull it" … the angry orders from the Lynchburg tree surgeon never really heal…poison ivy so bad I couldn't hold the ropes…laid off that summer…lightning all around…reporting strikes from my tree-top lookout in Oregon at the top of my voice (I later learned from the dispatcher)…pop! kaboom!…afternoon on the Ohio watershed high in a tulip poplar…resting on the tree spikes…healthy…sights "down" never seen by anyone…collecting new insects from soil to canopy edge…and over the rise the clouds billowed…being in them high up in steel spikes suggested a time for the go-down… Just dreaming…
| Small enterprises falter like shaded, wounded trees. Having the right scale with diversity of markets, equipment, expertise, and seasonal activities can make the treacherous business world of the arborist safe for profits. |
Rural System needed people working in the field called "urban forestry." It's not really forestry and not "tree surgery" but a wide variety of people with interests ranging from the beauty of a single tree in the family front yard to landscapers, town officials, leaf-blower and debris-pickup-equipment manufacturers, and fund raisers for foundations that have members who love trees and believe in their spiritual qualities and environmental services for humankind.
The people that were needed were of a special type, and there were few of them. Brought up on order and clear discrete linear analyses, the average person that applied for the job … even expressed a tempting interest … was not suitable. The need was for a person who liked to live in the border reaches, the overlaps among forestry, plant pathology and physiology, landscaping, and the hard work of caring for damaged or diseased trees. "Urban forestry" is a title that cannot carry the volume or the weight of the modern work imagined for "arborists." Arborist is a term that exists in some never-never space between forestry and nursery practice, between research and management, between landscape ecology and regional planning, between gardening and range management, between botany and silvics. The person who will master this field and lead it must be centered within this massive duality-space of two-headed arrows. Once "biophysics" was a nomenclatural problem for merging biology and physics. That merger now seem to be of trivial difficulty as some people attempt to grasp the proper name for all that urban forestry has become …and what lies ahead.
I collected materials for years, read, discussed the prospect of cooperative work with an existing tree improvement company, Mr. Mills, in 1997 … and did nothing more. I had developed a Basic computer program for shade tree evaluation, an expert system for selecting tree species given a set of objectives of a land owner, and had developed GIS systems with my graduate students and staff so I could just see in my "mind's eye" the three-dimensional maps that could be produced for practical use -- street maps, the color images of the trees, the major soil and water conditions for the roots, and color-coded leaf-fall density.
The prospects for the company began to dim and I gave away my boxes of materials to a student wage employee working on GIS and toward a graduate degree called "urban forestry." There is only so much paper a wife will tolerate filling the basement and attic of a small World War II "development" house. That was the last I heard of the collection, or him. Remembering his and his advisor's discourtesy helped make the later separation with the university easier.
I first made contact with Lance Moore in 1999. He had acquired Mr. Mills' business. We briefly discussed the enterprise concept as we looked at an unusual weeping spot on a red oak. Later in 2002 we began discussing the enterprise again, this time in the front yard under the weeping Norway maple planted by Mr. Pandapas in 1944.
The activities of Mills Associated Arborists then included removing small and hazardous trees, pruning trees and shrubs, consulting and giving advice on the role of trees in the landscape, selecting tree selection and planting them, making insect and disease diagnosis, removing brush, and providing emergency services such as removing lightning-struck trees and those damaged in storms. It was the first affiliation of an existing company with Rural System and it provided a chance to think about and plan other cooperative strategies that had been mentioned but never really thought through.
The Group affiliation allows all of the work previously done by Mills to continue unaltered. It allows those services to be announced as part of Group services and suggested strength and diversity not otherwise available. At the same time it provided recognition and additional services and contacts for Mills. It added the potentials of part-time staff for Mills projects and specialized off-season work for a growing Mills staff.
The Group was dedicated to the cost effective planting, care and management, and removal of individual trees in the rural and small-town environment. Clearly profit oriented as are the other elements of Rural System, the Group gave special attention to enhancing the environment around homes and rural structures, reducing unfavorable views, achieving energy economies, banking carbon dioxide, and retaining the value in ancient trees and those of great beauty and historical importance. It had an educational role, one directed to increasing the appreciation for the beauty and lasting functions of trees and shrubs in the human environment. If that education was to be judged effective, then the resulting significant change in indices of that appreciation must lead to improved tree care, increasing beauty indices, improved selection of trees for specific roles, reduced costs of tree maintenance and repairs, and it must secondarily be somehow reflected in improved forest management in the larger rural environment.
Obviously attuned to the science and knowledge base of forestry, the work of the group was much different than that of the Forest Group. It dealt with the specimen tree, the landscape shrub and tree-group. Perhaps it is a horticultural activity. Its work was with trees that were likely to be seen daily by many people. This was for individual trees, although there may be thousands of them. Esthetics and economics assumed special prominence over those topics usually encountered in forestry activities for stands or groups of similar trees.
The affiliation with Mills brought to the Arborist Group expertise, an operating successful respected business, ideas, experienced workers, advertising, recognition, and access to specialized equipment. But, The Arborist Group included, as well:
Many towns, corporate areas, and large private ownerships have a small area dedicated to having a variety of trees, a little tree park. They are called arboretums and Rural System offered its own well-designed system notable as "A Rural System Arboretum." They contained selected well-planted trees, irrigation, and trails (as produced by Stoneworms). Some of them contained espalier developments; most include sculpture, benches and tables, and bridges. There are tree name tags and on-going identification contests and awards. Of course we sold CDs and books for tree identification and conduct tours and training sessions. University students found the sites valuable as they participate in learning aspects of "dendrology." There is security, information, and web-based memberships and healthful activities for people who like to work within the arboretum (not volunteers or charity work). The arboretum could be used as a lunching area, a restful spot, and a dedicated area where other uses may be especially difficult (like a sinkhole in a karst area or a rocky cove).
We had a specialized view of soils work because of past difficulties with soil naming, frequency of soil reclassification, costs of analyses, and limited uses of the information gained at such high costs, and excessive dependence on topography (rather than the micro-structure and chemical properties of the soil) for characterizing soil. We had our own lab, use past research and analyses but develop use-oriented pseudosoil maps. This means, briefly, that when we find trees growing well, then we train our mapping system to "paint the map cells green" if the same factors are present within each map "cell." We use topographic factor map layers since soil structure is strongly correlated with that due to freezing and thawing, erosion, and chemical leaching. By the time we use 15 factors in the mapping decision, we have a very refined and specific map of the sites that are similar to the ones where each particular tree of interest grows well. The database continually grows. Exceptions, when found, are entered and revisions made to improve the precision of the map for the future … and the profitability of estimates for the company.
While the staff discussed the special trees of yards, they would suggest to some clients purchase the Clumper (from the Products Group), a single-person lawn leaf-pickup device. These types of contacts and extended sales of products will be a means for the larger enterprise to advance. The leaf pick-up cloth with handles uses wood from thinning but it contains information for composting and soil improvement and thus leads directly to The Gardens Group. These deliberate, planned connections can be called relationships as within an ecosystem but they are fairly trivial. They spread the word about company objectives, and expand the market … things far beyond the topics of ecosystem structure and processes. All participants in the enterprise are motivated to "sell" related products and services. By design, each sale may lead to another element of the system in which profits can be made and desired change increased.
I had worked on the concept of Ecorods since 1970 and in 2002 contacted a plastics company for service in developing them. The day after the first visit with them, 30 years late, it dawned on me that they could be used in assessing the decay rates within cavities used by birds and mammals. I had only seen the little devices as being useful for monitoring the health of the biological life community of the forest floor, other soils and decaying matter and the CO2 bank … and within the atrociously-used "doughnuts" of mulch around tree bases now ruining shade trees. (Imagine, tree-base mulch becoming a regional fad as a result of having to keep careless lawns people from damaging the bark with their "weed-whackers" and power mowers!) The Ecorods were to be used with GIS information to further refine knowledge of the factors relating to the mulch and top soil decay rates.
One of the major working concepts of Rural System is that of trying to add value to products and services that are offered. A thick limb removed from a property (and otherwise entering the waste stream or becoming firewood) can be cut, cured, and from it several routed signs produced. Some owners will find that a sign, made from the wood of "the special tree" (from a home site, the old courthouse lawn, the place of the first kiss, the wedding bower, etc.) will be highly sought. Similarly, items (made from special trees or parts removed) can become valuable as presents for families or friends that knew or were related to the tree or to the general area. We have a special design for drink coasters made from black locust cross-sections. This seems like a trivial product. The spectrum of items and projects within the enterprise is bothersome to some people. The effort has been made to have a wide spectrum, great diversity. There will be successes and failures as with tree seeds. Few trees suggest a singular strategy in propagation; most send out many propagules and runners. Many even graft their roots onto the roots of strong, existing trees. Much more profound will be efforts to write and sell tree-related books including tree images in Stills, the groups selling and promoting image library sales.
Among youth and others staff promoted tree-related poetry and it found a special place among the wed-based e-chapbook that we operate within Floats, the poetry group.
There are lawn and village trees all over the region, some badly pruned, being in the wrong places, overtopped and crowded … diseased and injured by lightning and lesser experiences such as from vandals and fence wires. The Arborists was an enterprise for people who care about trees, at least about how they increase the sale value of their homes and land. Its staff inspected trees, assessed their health and vigor, and issued a report on that for use with a realtor's offer (see Chapter 25) or an insurance dossier. These health status reports can offer insurance protection …for the agent as well as the owner.
Specialized interests grew for tree species and one research and development group concentrated on the sugarbush (maple sugar and wood) in the high elevations being affected by global warming. Another specialty group was known as Walnut Vales. Their libraries complemented those of the larger group. Individuals, seeing how potential results might fit into the operations of the system, responded to requests for proposals for research of many types. In some cased they developed requests and presented them for bids by university professors and their students for specific workable units such as new GIS maps, testing and calibrating equipment, and comparing tree treatments.
The press rhetoric about IPM (Integrated Pest Management) was so great that the message of the Arborists was rarely heard. They continued to advance it for theirs' was a position of strength, IPM-over-simplified. Staff preached integrated tree health management systems, not the efficient control of pests or disease. Their message was for the need for a total system that included having the right tree in the right place, preventing problems, caring for the total tree with its changing life requirements, clarifying human objectives for the tree, paying attention to and making cost-benefit estimates for all tree services, adjusting care following monitoring, predicting tree characteristics and life stages with risk estimates, and presenting comparative financial analyses of tree values and services as well as costs of tree care, replacement, or removals. They knew they had a system design for doing this and improving it over time. It was not a dream and there was already a multi-million dollar research results base for doing it. It took the combined work of a supported group, one that was difficult to start, but easily maintained. Parallel work was done with systems related to vertebrate pests and trees. Managing the damage of the pest was the central issue, not the killing or control of the pest, just controlling the estimated damage … that had to exceed the costs of control or management before it became reasonable work.
Part of this tree health system concept was that of H.J. Heikkenen. He swam against the currents of "truth" about bark beetles. Bark beetles are said to kill pine trees and so millions of federal and other dollars have been spent on beetle control as well as on research … and there are still "beetle problems." Surrendering to them as if to "death and taxes" may be reasonable. It is not necessary. The beetle problem is in forestry, within the large stands or groups of trees that is their interest, but the principles related to their attacks apply and they relate directly to pine trees in yards, corporation landscapes, etc. The grounds for the discovered principle are complex and they are discussed further in Chapter 31. The practical results is that solitary trees of the right species have to be placed in the right places, and that means proper selection of species, planting them in good soils that do not have a hardpan from the machine compaction or past plowing for crops. The soil-moisture volume beneath the tree must be well managed so that the tree or parts of large ones are not stressed by drought or excessive water. If that occurs, then disease and insect attacks follow.
Staff seemed united in discussing and writing a book together, each having several chapters of interest. The book was about managing the beta-forest (forest management as if each tree was a stand); producing leaves, cooling shade and energy conservation wood; stems and firewood; viewscape component; wildlife nest spots; wildlife foods; disease risks; mosquito disease-vector and micro-arthropod sites; and local employment potential. One unit worked on the slow rate of developing life curves for each local tree species, then on the dynamics of the "beta-forest" as it matures over the 150-year planning period.
Vision
After seeing the possibilities for a profitable group and their activities, it seemed useful for staff to speculate on where that would lead. The present is context, but to it they tried to meld the future. Small-scale ideas bubbled up such as for a study of wood structure and physics, the "toughness" of wood as it might relate to the energy required for deer and other browsing animals to chew it. Cell strength and stress relations must surely correlate well with digestibility.
Later there arose speculation that there might be a regionally famous center dealing with tree pathology, one having a museum, laboratory, and services for businesses and individual. This would include a working collection of specimens with parts on display for the public. There needs to be a place where there are studies of wood decomposition and the entire process with plant disease being the counter force to life processes, the entropic forces against which tree life fights. The studies of tree cavities are of especial interest to some groups, not only those of bird and mammal nests, but also of disease vector sites. As in a hospital pathology lab, there can be CD or other media having rapid access to images, macroscopic as well as microscopic, for identifying the diseases of shrubs, vines, and trees.
As ecosystems are said to go through predictable stages sometimes called succession, so also trees go through such a process which staff in Rural System called transition. As insect sequences are known for human cadavers, there must be well known sequences, highly predictable, for diseases and, in our view, correlated insect occurrences. H. J. Heikkenen had studied these for some forms. The tree-hole mosquitoes were well known, but their disease relations poorly known, especially after the West Nile viral occurrences of 2002. There are other insects of the "tree holes," the water-filled cavities in trees. The small Culicoides occur there and have been related to encephalitis and thus the care of trees in areas near people takes on new meaning …and conflicts, for there will be people preferring treeless areas rather than the risk of contracting a serious brain disease.
Forestry was once very interested in tree form and tree characteristics and damages. Members talked of "health" and over-generalize diseases and insects along with fire into average knowledge, almost functionless in the binomial field of extremes. Wood from forests is now removed when small in diameter and chipped and thus the needs for knowledge of faults within tree boles or limbs are not as important as they once were. Tree pathology remains essential in the hyperhardwood systems developing in the Forest Group. Staff saw an opportunity to harvest the knowledge of tree characteristics and faults (of various types and extent) as it affects tree value on the stump, and subsequent processing. They would amass that knowledge and images as a functional system with computer guidelines for the field with individual trees located by GPS.
The unusual staff vehicle became notable and was once called "the puddler" because whenever it was announced that rural land was to be developed, the trucks appeared and select trees were "washed out of the ground" by high pressure hoses. The trees would normally be bulldozed, but The Arborists used forced water to expose the root systems for pictures and measurements to understand root size, patterns, and characteristics, especially in different soils and topography.
They discussed having as part of fairly conventional tours, a tree-canopy boardwalk for seeing the creatures and forms (e.g., lichen) of the upper canopy. People know the birds at such heights (poorly, such as the flitting, uniform fall warblers) but not the insects or the injuries and their associated fungi/bacteria, and micro-arthropod communities.
 |
The Arborists staff thought that by keeping prices low, activities and projects abundant and diverse within a region, catering to the needs of nearby small communities, responses rapid and effective, using computer decision aids in the field, and having projects computer-scheduled, they can out-compete or affiliate with select commercial groups active within the field, and recruit other would-be competitors into the region-serving force.
| Table of Contents |
About Rural System |
About the Author | Glossary | Groups of Rural System |
The Country Store | Progress | Contact the Author |