THE PLANT WOELD 45 



above, below, and on all sides, it naturally follows that most of our city 

 trees sliould be grown in this form. And there is but one way to grow 

 them after this manner, and that is by gi\ing them plenty of light, and 

 keeping the trimming-fiend at a distance. 



The love of trees is implanted deep in the nature of nearly every 

 person. Many people do not realize this until they come into possession 

 of a plot of ground where a few trees are growing, when their natural 

 affection comes quickly to the surface. But few, however, have this 

 feeling so chastened with wisdom, as to enable them to treat their trees 

 well; nearl}^ all want to grow two, three, or even a dozen trees in the 

 space that should be given to one, not realizing how much better it 

 would be to have one fine, large, well-shaped, handsome tree, than to 

 have lialf-a-dozen stunted, misshapen, lopsided ones, whose only real 

 utility is for consumption as fuel. No better proof of this deeply im- 

 planted love can be offered than the fact that it is almost impossible to 

 persuade the average man to part with a single one of his trees, even 

 when the destruction of one means the betterment of the others. 



^^len trees are too many, cut some of them down. A tree which 

 is too large for its environment can never be made handsome bv anv 

 sj^stem of pruning, and not only that, but it will spoil others which 

 might be ornamental if its space were vacant. 



Now, a word as to the planting of shade trees. In London we suf- 

 fer from a superfluity of silver inn.])le {Ace f saccharinioii). This is a 

 quick-growing tree of handsome form, but there are others that are as 

 quick-growing, and many that, though slow growers, are more desirable 

 and very handsome. Our streets should not all be planted with one 

 kind of tree. Monotony should be avoided. Besides, when a blighting 

 disease or a devastating insect, affecting possibly only one species of 

 tree, reaches a city planted with that tree only, that place is liable to 

 have very few good trees left. Some tweaity-five years ago the streets 

 of London had a great many locust trees, whose foliage and flowers are 

 each beautiful, but the locust borer came among them, and now they 

 are gone. The maple is a grand tree, hardy and nobly beautiful, but 

 the Creator has given us many other fine trees also, and doubtless it 

 was never his intention that we should confine ourselves to the use of 

 one species only. The birches, three or four species of beautiful trees 

 immortalized in poetry and characteristic of the north, the lofty elm, 

 whose fame as a street tree in New England has spread over the entire 

 continent, the fragrant basswood, the evergreen spruces and cedar, the 

 hemlock, which I sometimes think is the handsomest of all our trees, 

 and the nut trees, chestnut, butternut, walnut, beech, and the hickories, 

 all these and many more have beauties of their own, and sliould be 

 largely used. 



