Made me think of the old colored people around here that would bury tire in the ground and paint the top half white. Paint the first 4-5' of,a tree white too.
When I was a youngster, the town 4 miles south had big native Elms on both sides of main street. They would whitewash the trunks every year. Then the Dutch Elm disease got them all. People said they did it for bugs.
