158 TRANSACTIONS OP THE HORTICULTURAL 



The beautiful effects come quite as much from the uniformity and 

 neatness of the line as a whole, as from the trees as individuals. 

 Individual size is not, therefore, so much considered. 



3. As trees develop slowly and require many years to become 

 most effective, it is exceedingly important that they should be per- 

 manently healthy in the given situation. They must be secure 

 against the chills of winter and the fervor of summer; against the 

 inroads of insects and the blights of fungi, adapted to the soil, proof 

 against the winds and the gaseous contaminations of the air, not 

 liable to injuries to the trunk, and capable of withstanding the 

 inevitable tramping of the earth. When we come to carefully select 

 our trees with these things all in mind, we shall find our list of really 

 good kinds much smaller than most people think. 



A very common fault in street tree planting is placing them too 

 near each other. As an average distance fifty feet is near enough 

 whether in the country or the town. It would often be better to 

 doable this distance. To be sure, trees when planted make but little 

 show thus separated and it is an easy matter to cut down alternate 

 ones at any time. But as already said the future rather than the 

 present must rule in this work, and the ax is invariably spared and 

 the tree spoiled. As a general rule it is best to plant only where 

 large trees are wanted in the years to come. 



In the matter of trimming, no untrained heart and hand should 

 be permitted to practice butchery on trees. Remarks on this subject 

 gain special emphasis frcm the barbarous work lately done in Cham- 

 paign and Urbana upon the pretext of clearing the way for electric 

 light, as if twenty-year-old trees were not more valuable than the 

 facilities for a special method of lighting the streets during the 

 moonless evenings of summer time, for the lights are extinguished 

 at midnight and in winter the trees are not in the way. In some 

 instances trees were cut away entirely. Savage as this may be it is 

 .better than leaving a perpetual exhibition of depraved mutilation. 

 The only proper excuse for a village street tree is for ornament. If 

 by ill considered pruning it is rendered an eye-sore instead of a thing 

 of beauty, by far better take it away. For the special purpose men- 

 tioned it was not necessary to saw and chop the trees into snags and 

 shanghai abominations. The end could have been accomplished and 

 the trees improved at the same time, by properly shortening in the 

 spreading tops. But when this was suggested to the officer in charge 

 of the work, he replied. " Yes, yes, that's what others have said, but 

 it would take all summer." What economy was there! Twenty 

 years' accomplishment sacrificed for twenty cents! Fortunately citi- 

 zens resisted the merciless ax and saved some trees. 



Such pruning requires educated skill as well as thorough going 

 conscience. Street trees should be continuously looked after instead 

 of periodically slashed. They require and merit annual examination 



