46 THE PLANT WOKLD 



At irregular intervals a man called by courtesy a " tree-pruner," 

 more or less authorized by those who rule over us to butcher every 

 inanimate object, travels through our streets and makes a bad matter 

 still worse. A gentleman living near my house had last summer a very 

 handsome cut-leaved birch and a good many maples growing on his 

 front lawn. Noticing that the birch was beginning to suffer from being 

 crowded, I one day complimented him on the beauty of his tree, and 

 suggested that it needed more room in order to retain its beauty. He 

 replied that it was a very nice tree, but it needed pruning, and he was 

 getting a man who understood such things, to come and see to it. The 

 beauty of this species of birch lies in the long, slender, drooping 

 branchlets, and in the handsome pyramidal shape of the tree; but this 

 "pruner" sawed off the trunk of this tree at about eight feet from the 

 top, sawed one-third off all the larger limbs, and left the tree shorn of 

 all its beauty and with the work of years destroyed. All the tree 

 needed was to receive plenty of light, and to be left alone. Such ex- 

 amples are abundant. 



It was only a few weeks ago that an eminent horticulturalist wrote 

 in the pages of Gardening, a leading American magazine, of the folly of 

 planting trees in rows along the drives in parks, a method which is the 

 worst possible, for besides spoiling the artistic appearance of the place, 

 it prevents the people on the drives from the realization and enjoyment 

 of the beauties of either the nearby or the distant view, and yet, despite 

 the fact that this principle is freely stated and admitted by the best 

 authorities, it is the very method which is being adopted in our river 

 park, now in process of formation; and not only that, but the chief part 

 of the trees planted have been soft maples and Norway spruces, the 

 very ones of which Londoners have already far too many. It is to be 

 hoped that ere long different methods may prevail, and that while there 

 is yet time, the best may be made of the material now planted, and 

 that the future may be properly provided for by the planting of such 

 trees as mil lend variety and beauty to the landscape. How this is to 

 be accomplished, is not difficult to tell, for it can only be done by plac- 

 ing the control of such matters in the hands of men who have given 

 thought and study to the subject. 



I have not touched upon the matter of shnibs and flowering plants, 

 but it would be easy to make a great improvement over present condi- 

 tions were the plan above mentioned to come into action, and no jjlan 

 would be complete that did not aim at the best results in these points, 

 as well as others. A slirub may be at its best in five or ten years, 

 whereas a tree is the growth of decades, and neglect for ten years may 

 ruin the result of twenty-five years' careful work and thought. 



