
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 19, 1991                   TAG: 9103190032
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GARRY MITCHELL ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, ALA.                                LENGTH: Medium

TOWN GOES OUT ON A LIMB TO SAVE AN ANCIENT TREE

A 5-centuries-old oak tree that someone tried to kill is in intensive care with its own furnace and air-conditioning system and round-the-clock guard.

While a court battle over ownership of the tree and its land has festered for six months, the tree has become a celebrity of sorts. About 30,000 people have visited it, many leaving with T-shirts bearing the image of the tree.

The 65-foot-tall oak near Magnolia Springs, a retirement enclave on the Alabama coast, is estimated at about 500 years old. Its trunk is 25 feet in circumference and its branches spread 150 feet across.

Last October, someone wielding a chain saw cut a ring around the the trunk, cutting off the flow of nutrients between the roots and leaves. Law enforcement officials investigated but brought no charges.

Forester Stan Revis of Holt, Fla., spent his vacation treating the tree, grafting bark over the wound.

The treatment has included installing an irrigation system and keeping the tree at 100 percent humidity during the winter.

`If it lives through this summer, it has an 80 percent chance of living," Revis said. He said he's consulting with horticulturists around the country about treatment.

A Save the Tree Committee set up a tent at the tree and built a greenhouse around the trunk. Volunteer Stan Foote of nearby Fairhope said a full-time guard was hired to protect the property, and a phone was installed for the guard.

Some 30,000 people have visited the tree since the chain saw attack was reported.

The committee's chairman, Wally Turner, who lives a mile from the tree, said Baldwin County has been trying to buy property around the tree for a park for several years.

"Last June or July, they passed a resolution to buy by condemnation," Turner said. He said the decision to go to court for condemnation proceedings was made because of the threat of a highway expansion that could imperil the tree's root system, which covers about an acre.

A bigger tree-saving campaign has been under way in Austin, Texas, where a tree of similar age, known as the Treaty Oak, was severely damaged by a herbicide. About two-thirds of the oak has died since the 1989 vandalism.

by CNB