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About Trees, About Systems

In Greek  "systema"  means  "an organized whole",  meaning a whole
composed of parts in an
orderly arrangement according to some scheme or plan.
The earth exists in the solar system in which with the other planets it
revolves around the sun.  There
are many such systems in the Universe.
Here on earth billions of beings exist  -  humans, animals, plants.  And
each of these is a system in
itself, again a highly ordered arrangement of parts and processes
working together in the creation of
a product or service.  The individual systems are integrated into larger
ones, they in turn into still
larger ones, and so on ad infinitum...
Fortunately, in our time, an awareness has been growing and the media
are doing their part in
spreading the information about the vital importance of trees for
everything from simple comforts to
the very continuation of life .
In a recent news broadcast it was pointed out that a house which is
surrounded by trees spends 10%
less for energy in summer than one that isn't.
Another report on health matters pointed out that there is a higher
incidence of childhood cancers in
families that use herbicides and pesticides.  This leads us to the
problem of proper tree care.

Here, as in all Medicine, the first principle must be: "FIRST OF ALL DO
NO HARM!"  This implies, of
course, a thorough understanding of the healthy organism i.e. in this
case,  the tree biology.  This, in
turn, brings us to a second principle:   "DON'T HURT THE TREE AND YOU
WON'T HURT
YOURSELF!"  An unbelievable example is about a fellow who for twenty
years engaged in the
practice of drilling holes into trees and injecting pesticides and
fungicides.  Well, he did not help the
trees, but he developed such severe bone cancer that at the end of his
life he could not visit his trees
anymore.

What makes a healthy tree?  The availability in the proper proportions
of the right "STEW" - Space,
Temperature, Elements and Water.  And the energy of the sun will be used
optimally making a tree
into the most efficient system on earth.  Everything is recycled.  (By
contrast, the automobile is the
most inefficient system - it generates heat,  and then you need more
energy to cool it.)  Today,  even
a child knows that the destruction of the rain forests threatens the
very existence of life on earth.

There is no word in the vocabulary to describe an amazing feature
particular to trees: It's a system
which is both alive and dead.

95/03/04

John A. Keslick
Professional Modern Arborist

Keslick & Son
Modern Arboriculture
Products & Service
610-696-5353