Dagmar

The Austin Rover, if the company hadnt been forced out of business by foreign imports, in the case of cars mainly German and Japanese. The trend is no coincidence, both of those economies received multi TRILLIONS of dollars in reconstructing industry after WWII, while the UK was almost bankrupted by the war.

 

Did you know that BMW deployed 25000 – 30000 slave and concentration camp labourers in the war, profiting massively as the corner stone of its current empire. It produced one of the first mass production jet engines deployed to the ME262 fighter, worked on rocket technology in 1944 and……….. Oops, sorry, a tad off thread.

I see that the little englander has arrived on the forum! Maybe this is the attitude that let all the British companies go down the pan, sounds like you have a big chip on your shoulder Jonnie.

Germany was reconstructed after the war as a bulwark against communism, it was to be the main battleground of the next war, but the process of international law meant that the allies could not just occupy it - thats what they were fighting against wasn't it? As to the use of forced labour, well; the good old UK can hardly point the finger there can they?

Read your history, properly and from differing perspectives, then give an opinion, don't just spew out rubbish that you read in the Sport.

Most people will buy on their own experience of a product, or the experiences of those that they know. Two man band or multinational its the buying and using experience that promote the product not where it was made. Get over it!

ive heard a lot of good about that machine too ed, the railway boys seem to like them

Take a train journey in Germany and all you will see is Greenmechs working on the tracks. Strange eh? Why not a German Machine?

Whilst I'm not a climber or at least not in the sense that you mean on this thread, I have to say that women, who are generally lighter and more agile, would appear to have a place working in the trees, sure sometime there will be issues of strength, but it shouldn't be an insurmountable problem to solve it with a bit of discussion. There really are more positives than negatives in women doing ariel work, it doesn't take much to work that out.

Women do things differently so work with it, it may well work out better. Your female team members are just that, part of the team.

By the way, we can pee up trees too! We just do it the other way round. The toilet excuse has been used as a reason not to employ women in outdoor jobs for too long - you really need to get over it guys!

I would go for the German quality over the Tinnywolf any day.

Most magazines do have articles archived - if they don't they should and probably will - but that is the proper place for 'old stuff' not rehashed year on year.

All I'm saying is that there is not much 'different' in any of the mags. they all play safe

copareing like for like... not wanting to diss any mag they have all become advertoirals... it is god see what some forward look peple see as old stuff, the stuff we all take for granted is some what little under stood.... Andy has cover what he knows well and done that well, Nick has just done some good basic stuff on throw lines and friction savers and Ian has done a good basic revision on saw... All good stuff, you may not take it all away as new i have found that more and more. but a nuget of infomation is gold when it give a polish or turned in the light so you can see it a differnt way.

 

I feel we need to consolidate and spread better baisc knowelge to give the industry a better foundation to stand up on to face the bigger chanages.

My point was that maybe the magazines need to look at subjects from a different angle rather that rehashing the same old stuff on a yearly basis, or as in the case of the ISA and fruit trees, blatent opportunism to make a quick buck. seems to be little integrity in the mags.

Thanks for the word about Total Arb to, when you look at it it is obvious that is owned by a shop/dealer, makes me wonder what the ISA gets for sending it out to members?

Total Arb is really just the house mag for Buxtons / Arbessentials. Euroarb is a better bet IMO. As an advertiser I'd be interested to know if anyone takes much notice of print anymore. It seems that this sort of forum is the best source of information along with the websites of suppliers and various organisations associated with the industry.

I agree that a lot of information that is on the web is as up to date as it can be, but as was pointed out by Nick, you need to be able to find it! Forums are good because there are a lot of different strands coming together, you will see info that you would not otherwise notice and get the weblink too. Having said that I think that magazines still have a place - but they need to change. More features less news? More comment less PR? More specific info? Analylsis, product tests? Perhaps they should be told, if not they will continue to churn out crap about 'how to sharpen a chain', or the like, really if you are in the business I would think you would know. Its just an easy way to fill pages. I think they should try harder.

Dagmar and All

 

Total Arb is now much improved since Andy Cowen of Arbocoligy fame has taken the post of editor,

 

I'd hate to have seen before then! There's not much new in it in fact some of the content is quite old - out of date even. I think that that can't be avoided on a bi-monthly though, so why try and pretend that it's up to date. The problem that I had with this and Essential Arb is that the style is a bit dry, you're being lectured at not talked to, but the high and mighty stance is at odds with the silly jokes in Total Arb that all as old as the hills. These mags must be desperate to have to give them away.

I would agree that it is likely that this is a Black Walnut Juglans nigra L., 'walnut' derives from the Germanic wal- for "foreign", recognising that it is not a nut native to northern Europe. The nuts are edible, but have a smaller kernel and an extremely tough shell, and they are not widely grown for nut production. The wood is desirable though and quite valuable.

Were the leaflets like this?

I've seen the Total Arb magazine before, it was a while ago though, a couple of months at least. It seemed to me that it was just a lot of press releases cobbled together to pad out a few articles that were unreadable, what is a good magazine to get hold of??

It not that good but does show a comparision with the normal Cabbage Palm.

This is from the Herald Tribune in Florida

A palm tree worth 20 grand?

Botanists say it just might be Genetic mutation puts two-tone fronds on Sabal palmetto

BY CHRISTOPHER O'DONNELL

MANATEE COUNTY -- Most people would not look twice at the raggedy-looking cabbage palm.

But they might if they knew its price tag.

A typical cabbage palm costs about $120. One found on a field soon to be cleared for an industrial park and hotel, however, could be worth as much as $20,000, according to one local tree company.

Known as a variegated Sabal palmetto, the tree is a one-in-a-million genetic accident that is almost impossible to value, say experts at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota.

The tree, which was donated to Selby by developer Anthony Mazzucca, was replanted in its new home close to the Selby House on Friday.

"I couldn't put a price on it," said Harry Luther, curator of Living Collections at Selby. "You couldn't go out and buy one."

But the tree might have been destroyed had Dennis Cathcart, the owner of Tropiflora, a plant nursery in Tallevast, not spotted it while driving past the plot of land in the southeast corner of U.S. 301 and Tallevast Road.

Cathcart, who travels all over the world looking for unusual plants to sell, has seen two other variegated trees destroyed by development. The trees were likely discarded by people who did not recognize their value.

"He's trained his eye to see something different," said his wife, Linda. "He kept it in the back of his mind. When he saw the land was going to be sold, he contacted the owners."

Sabal palmettos are the most common palm tree in the southeast United States and a staple of Florida's natural and planned landscapes.

Every so often, a tree develops with a genetic mutation that prevents it from photosynthesizing normally. It results in fronds that are a mix of green and gold.

The tree donated to Selby, estimated to be between 20 and 30 years old, has fronds trimmed with gold that glints in the sun.

But the mutated gene that produces the unusual coloring is recessive, meaning it is almost never passed on when seeds from the tree take root. It can also make the trees less robust than normal ones.

It is that combination that makes the tree so rare.

"I've been doing this for 40 years and I've only seen two of them," said Darrel Turner, owner of Turner Tree and Landscape, which moved the tree to Selby for free. "It's very symmetrical; the way it's variegated is perfect."

So I'll be keeping my eyes open.

I often go over to France to work on short term contract - just for the pruning season. This was one of the reasons that I moved to Kent what with the boats and eurotunnel and all. Most of the work for me is in Normandy and Brittany, although some work available in the south in the spring. If you get yourself known to the agencies they can offer you a lot of work, in my experience it is usually well paid because of the time periods that the pruning of particular trees is is effective is limited.

OK, seems like a good offer on the membership - almost too good. What are the magazines like that are being offered free like and is the saw any good? It doesn't say!

Some might say that if the offers too good to be true then it is, thats often true. So, should I sign up or what?

True Service Tree: I've got a little more info if you like. It was not uncommon for this tree to be grown in association with orchards as it had a use in cider making. Most of these trees have gone the way of our orchards, but their decline - in the commercial sense - started before the actual orchards. It has its origins in sothern and eastern Europe and probably came here with the Romans.

True Service Fruit is a very old fruit which is almost forgotten now. It would be a very problematic fruit to flog at your local grocery store because it isn't any good to eat until it has started to rot, (like Medlars).

When the fruit is ripe and at its peak of perfection, it isn't any good to eat -- it's far, far too tart: its high tannin levels would cause pucker lines on your face that would last the rest of your life. The fruit needs to be either "bletted" (let rot a bit) to make it sweet, or used in cider, where the tannins can be taken advantage.

The fruit is about 1 inch wide (2.5 cm), with about 2 to 5 seeds in each fruit. The shape can be apple-shaped or pear-shaped, with skin that is yellowish or greenish with splodges of pink or red, and some russetting.

A True Service Fruit tree, which will grow "true to seed", can live for several hundred years and grow 30 to 60 feet tall (10 to 20 metres). It produces white blossoms and then the small fruit growing in clusters.

Bletting is a term that is used to refer to fruit when it has gone past ripe, and has started to decay. There are some fruits which are either considered at their best after some bletting, such as Twentieth Century Asian Pears, or which can only be eaten after bletting, such as Medlars, Persimmons and True Service Fruit.

The French use the same word: "le fruit doit être cueilli blet : c'est- à- dire après le passage des premières gelées d'automne." (The fruit must be harvested "bletted"; which is to say, after the first autumn frosts".)The word appears to be used only in reference to fruit.

The General Licences were really designed around agricultural activities and have simply not been expanded and altered to fit into modern requirements. Using WLF100088, or any other licence will cover some situations not all though. Because the Wildlife and Countryside act with its various ammendments was never designed around sensible working practise it is widely flouted in agriculture, away from the public eye. Arboriculture is different as much is not only in the public eye but keenly observed.

I'm not surprised that DEFRA have not responded, they will be cautious as they are wary of bad publicity and noone will want to be quoted on anything! Not for nothing were they recently referred to in a national newspaper as the 'cathedral of incompetence'.

One option would be to apply for a general licence (WLF100088) 'To kill or take certain birds'

This licence......... 'permits authorised persons to kill or take certain birds, including the taking, damaging or destruction of their nests or the taking or destruction of their eggs for the purposes of preserving public health or public safety'.

It may not cover all eventualities, such as domestic hedge trimming, but for any tree that need to felled or pruned because of disease or damage it should be applicable under the public safety element. Both the Feral Pigeon, Columba livia and the Woodpigeon, Columba palumbus are covered by the licence. This licence implies that some form of approved method is used for the dispatch.

Having one of these licences does shut the bunny huggers up if they get a bit vocal.

I know what you mean, but Givnishs' work is pretty well regarded and it is unlikely that any more studies have found any alternative reasons for the incidences of variegation.

As to fruit trees and variegation, this would be a sympton of viral infection and would be treated accordingly, either by removal of the infected parts of destroying the tree, on commercial orchards anyway. On smaller more traditional plantings then it is not quite so serious a prospect as the fruit will be grown for the flavour and/or specific uses as opposed to purely yeild. As to whether the tree will produce less fruit, if the variegation occurs as a symptom of poor or failing health, then I would expect that the fruit yeild would lessen as the infection grew. A good example would be the effect of peach leaf curl ,Taphrina deformans which causes variegation and results in severe fruit drop,(of immature fruit), and the deformation of mature[ing] fruits.

This was a question that I remember from college:

The answer is pretty well as stated, the research done in the the late eighties, and reported in New Scientist magazine, on the First of September 1990

Plants that have variegated or mottled leaves are less efficient at generating energy by photosynthesis than plants with completely green leaves, and botanists have long wondered how they are able to compete in the wild. Now, it seems that such patterned leaves have the advantage of being better camouflaged, and that this outweighs the disadvantage of reduced photosynthesis. According to Thomas Givnish of the University of Wisconsin, the camouflage of patterned leaves makes the plants less likely to be eaten by herbivores (Functional Ecology, vol 4, p 463).

Variegated plants have leaves with patches or stripes of white or yellow. The patches lack chlorophyll, making them less efficient at photosynthesis than leaves that are green all over. Ornamental plants with purple, red, or pink mottling are also less efficient because the mottling masks the chlorophyll.

For some time, botanists have known that variegated and mottled leaves are found in species of 'understorey' herbs which grow in temperate and tropical woodlands and forests. Givnish says that against the sun-dappled floor of a forest, animals without colour vision, including many vertebrate herbivores, such as deer, cannot spot variegated leaves. He believes that in a world lacking colour, variegation and mottling may disrupt the outline of leaves, making them harder to find.

Givnish points out that this kind of camouflage will work only when the leaves are close to the ground. On a bush, against an out-of-focus background, even colour blind animals should be able to see them quite easily.

The camouflage theory is supported by a recent survey of the wild plants of the north-eastern US. Mottled and variegated leaves occur almost exclusively on herbs of the forest floor. These live in conditions in which botanists would expect that efficient photosynthesis would be less important to the plants' survival than avoiding being eaten by vertebrate herbivores.

This postulation applies broadly to plants although a tree is a complex large plant so there is no reason to believe that the theory does not apply. Species that are variegated are, in some cases, noted to lose variagation higher up the the plant, pointing to the possibility that this is an evolutionary 'trick' to avoid being eaten. Of course it is irrelevent in many zones as the amimals that may have fed on the trees in question are either extinct or the tree has moved out of the animals normal range. In itself this would also make the tree or any other plant that has variageted foliage suseptible to disease and failure, if it were existing on the limit of its natural range.

Who is Mervyn Walker? Someone famous?

I use it regularly along with bio-oils, some places that I'm contracted to are certified organic so insist on it, the bio-oil anyway! I have no problems with aspen in my saws and they are quite old. I've never heard of any complaints apart from the price, but its not too bad.

Should I assume that you particularly like a silky smooth finish Big A?

I didn't notice any orientals, it was a middle aged couple selling a mobile sawbench - not really for me but they had some saws on a pegboard too. I liked the look so I got one , it was under a tenner, so i thought I'd give it a go, as you do. The company that sells them is called Just Saws I think. They had quite a range including polesaws.

Uh-Huh! I think that Silky are hard to beat but we'll see.

I've just started to use a White Horse 'pony' folding saw, it suits me as I carry my stuff in a waist belt. I saw them at the AA show and thought that I would give them a try. Up till now I've been a silky girl so we'll see how this goes.