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Show Tree transplanting has history at SUSC back," Grant explains. "It is pick and shovel and ax work." When a suitable tree is located, a trench is dug completely around the tree, with a "ball" of dirt left around the roots. "We have to be very careful not to break the ball and expose the roots, or we run a high risk of losing the tree," Grant says. The ball around the roots is usually about 30 inches in diameter. If the ball is broken while digging a tree, the crew simply refills the trench and leaves the tree, rather than risk killing it. The work of getting a suitable ball around the roots while removing rocks and trimming trim-ming small roots is time consuming and exacting. Once a ball is formed around the tree roots, the ball is carefully and tightly wrapped with a burlap "diaper." Then the completely com-pletely diapered tree is boosted to the pickup truck for the ride to campus. Each tree is planted in a spot predetermined by a campus masterpian. The tree is planted, complete with burlap diaper, carefully watered for the first few weeks, then left to grow. Special waterings are necessary only if the tree is not in a regularly sprinkled area. "After the first three or four years, they really start to take off," Grant says. "Many of the younger trees on campus are growing a foot a year. "We have pretty much learned how to succeed with the transplating; it's a method Leon Frehner (a previous SUSC campus designer) taught us," Grant explained. "I think we've only lost two or three trees in the last 10 years." :j -m :-V. f' ,4 . m.4.',". ... .,... . . ... - - liiHHHiililMlli III 'lill1"IIIMlllHliIIWIIillMII'liWiltlM" ItttolrfllWTillM IHiiiiI With the help of the United States Forest Service and a crew of groundsmen from Southern Utah State College, a practice begun over 58 years ago is still being perpetuated. William Flanigan started the practice way back in about 1919, and his foresight has been praised ever since. The U. S. Forest Service quickly saw the value of what was .going on and wholeheartedly (and generously) added its support. The result - todate -- of the on-going venture, is approximately ap-proximately $180,850 worth of trees on the SUSC campus. cam-pus. Flanigan, then SUSC superintendent of grounds, began going to the nearby mountains back in 1919 to dig evergreen trees of various species. He would then haul the trees back to campus, using a team and flatbed wagon and transplant them. Over a period of several years, Flanigan transplanted tran-splanted 154 trees. According Ac-cording to a landscape ar-chtiect's ar-chtiect's estimate, those Flanigan-planted trees are now worth an average of $1000 per tree, or a total of $154,000. Since Flanigan's day and PRACTICE CONTINUES. It takes a full eight-hour day for a three-man crew t6 dig and haul three to five trees. Here, Sheldon Grant, Verl Kelsey, and Wilmer Anderson, SUSC grounds crew, work near Panguitch Lake on Dixie National Forest. prior to this fall, various individuals and the SUSC grounds department have hauled down an additional 127 trees. These more recently planted evergreens -- many of them ponderosa pine -- aren't as large, but are still valued at $200 per tree average. This fall, the Forest Service again granted SUSC permission to dig and transplant an additional 30 trees. In the operation just completed, the college has transplanted 29 more trees. At the going nursery purchase pur-chase rate of approximately $10 per foot, the latest batch of transplants have a value of $1,450. That totals just under $190,000 worth of trees, and most of them donated by the Forest Service. "We certainly appreciate ap-preciate them (the Forest Service) allowing us to dig the trees," Sheldon Grant, SUSC superintendent of grounds, said. "They have a policy of charging for a permit to get trees in this manner, but in our case they have waived the permit fee." Except for the pickup trucks for transportation to the trees and to haul the trees back to campus, the method of digging and transplanting the trees is about the same today as it was in Flanigan's time. "It takes two or three men a good eight-hour day to drive to the trees, dig three-to-five trees and haul them IN PLACE ON CAMPUS. Wilmer Anderson, Sheldon Grant, Verl Kelsey, of SUSC grounds staff, plant a tree, hauled from the Dixie National Forest, near the SUSC baseball complex. DIAPER TREES. Sheldon Grant, SUSC superintendent of grounds, pieces together burlap bags to make a "diaper" for tree to be transported to the SUSC campus. |