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Maggie’s Motivational Pic Thread v2.0 - - New Rules - See Post #1

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Northeast China...

Can tell right away. All of the trees there have white paint on the lower portions of their trunks. The paint is a primer as well as a bark shield for a liquid antiparasitic sprayed onto that part of the tree to prevent a certain type of destructive leaf eating mite from crawling up the trees and getting access to the foliage, which can destroy a healthy adult tree in just one summer if left unchecked. The paint provides both a surface for the pesticide to adhere to as well as protect the tree from the highly toxic chemical. During the Cultural Revolution, the young Red Guards in this area of China would put up banners stating how it is their 'patriotic duty to protect every tree in the motherland', and march around with buckets of white paint and insecticide singing revolutionary songs while applying the material to the trees. At one point, annointing new saplings literally became a rallying cry by the Red Guards to 'wage a constant war even in the time of peace', an allegory for 'continuing the labor of the revolution'. Today, some of the work is done by high school students, and the rest by Dept. Of Transportation road crews whose jurisdiction encompasses the trees planted alongside their roads.