FORTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT. 119 



THE COUNTRY ROAD BEAUTIFUL. 



The City Beautiful is an old theme. Newspapers, Gliambers of Com- 

 merce, Improvement Associations, Ladies Clubs, private citizens, all are 

 at work along this line. Even children are impressed into service on 

 clean-up day and enter into the spirit of the occasion with manifest 

 enthusiasm. 



The Country Road Beautiful, however, is a new phrase, as yet. To 

 this, little thought is given. T^nsightly refuse from the city is dumped 

 over the most convenient embankment on some country road, without 

 a protest. The law of the State, with certain reservations, commands 

 the overseer of each road district to each year cut down all shrubs or 

 saplings along the roadside within the limits of the highway. The 

 telephone and telegraph lines must be kept clear and so, with ruthless 

 hand, sturdy young trees are thoughtlessly mutilated or destroyed al- 

 together. Rugged oak, magnificent elms and maples of surpassing 

 beauty are sawed and hacked until unbalanced, unshapely, deformed, 

 they stand mute witnesses to the onslaught of unbridled commercialism. 



Cuts and fills are made in our modern road building and not the 

 slightest after thought given to embellishing the bared and scarred 

 sides of these embankments. So much for the negative side of this 

 question. 



Just east of the city there is a farm; an unattractive, marshy swail 

 extends along the highway. True in the fall it is glorious with golden 

 rod, but in the winter, a dreary waste. At small expense the standing 

 waters have been led into a waterway ; the wild grasses have given way 

 to tame; just inside the fence line an irregular strip ten or more feet 

 wide has been given over to a planting of Sweet Briar roses, at this 

 season full of their deep red fruitage. Viburnum latana with its white 

 blossom and black berry, English Hawthorne — pink and white, — High 

 Bush Cranberry with which you are all familiar. Then comes Sumac, 

 with red dogwood now resplendant with color of bark and next — and 

 best of all — a mass of golden willow to give color to the landscape. 

 Here and there a young ash and soft maple are coming on apace, in 

 time, to fling their bronze and gold and crimson against a background 

 of young pine just beyond. Tartarian Honeysuckle — than which there 

 is no better shrub — peers out all along the planting. Virginia creeper 

 is rapidly taking possession of the fence, common barbary, now bending 

 under its load of color, capitulates to the wondrous beauty of a group 

 of white birch close by. 



And so I might go on, but enough. And yet, lest someone say "Yes, 

 but this is impractical, it is too costly," let me say "Not at all." ' 20,000 

 shrubs and trees for this ten acre planting cost' less than |300.00. A 

 rough, quick planting was made. Little or no attention was given there- 

 after. The best and hardiest survived, the undesirable and tenderest 

 died out. And let me say further to the man Avho is intensely practical, 

 for I am in full sympathy with him, that I know. 



Harking back to old Japan, full of artistic beauty at every turn, let 

 me recall just for a moment an indelible impression that was made upon 

 me by towering Japanese Cryptomeria that lined practically the entire 



