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History of ISA: 1920s
The organization began as a marriage of
convenience between progressive commercial arborists and scientists whose
research concerned trees. Although tree care had been practiced by commercial
companies and individuals for years, the industry was largely unregulated and
uninformed. As for the scientists, their knowledge of amenity trees and tree
care was somewhat limited. There were many demanding questions in horticulture,
forestry, entomology, and pathology concerning trees—issues that required
research for answers.
The Shade Tree Conference (STC) first met in 1924, in Stamford, Connecticut.
W.E. Britton, along with Francis A. Bartlett, president of The F.A. Bartlett
Tree Expert Company in Stamford, were the two principal figures in organizing
the conference. At the invitation of Bartlett, some of the meetings were held
on his experimental farm north of Stamford. The conference opened with about 36
participants from seven states and Washington, D.C.
Bartlett established a conference format combining paper presentations with
field demonstrations and trials. This precedent became a regular practice for
later conferences. Presentations were made on a variety of topics including
gypsy moth control, tree surgery, and wound healing, and were limited to five
minutes each. A significant aspect of this conference is that it united the
Davey Tree Expert Company, The F.A. Bartlett Tree Expert Company, and several
smaller commercial firms in the pursuit of a common goal.
At the fourth conference, held in Washington, D.C., the most significant event
was the endorsement of the articles of organization recommended by a committee
appointed at the 1926 conference. This action created the National Shade Tree
Conference (NSTC), marking the formal beginning of a new era in the history of
arboriculture. An interesting footnote to the early structure is that
commercial arborists were ineligible to hold office but were solely responsible
for financing the conferences.
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Cavity filling was an important part of
tree work in the 1920s and 1930s.
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The first appointed committee of the National Shade Tree Conference was the
publications committee, whose mission was to prepare a set of meeting
proceedings. Accordingly, its first publication was the Annual Proceedings of
the 1929 Conference in Brooklyn, New York.
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