92 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



to those problems which concern the welfare of the whole nation. Such J| 

 citizens will then have an interest in trees which will be deep rooted and an il 

 understanding clear with experience. To them you can then easily present the 

 problems that you are laboring for and be assured of their hearty support. I 

 could cite hundreds of cases where in my relations with citizens on questions 

 pertaining to their shade or ornamental trees, the interest aroused at the time, 

 formed an entering wedge for broader considerations of more general tree 

 problems. To minds so prepared, I could easily make the forest situation of 

 Ihe country intelligible and convert them to your way of thinking on forest 

 policies. With a nation so trained in the love for trees, see what wonders you 

 could accomplish! What can you do otherwise? My contention, therefore, 

 is that the city tree is the natural stepping stone to the broader problem of 

 national forest preservation and that much time is lost in trying to reach 

 the latter without the former. 



Trained foresters generally do not feel that way. They often consider 

 the city tree problems too small to deserve their skilled attention. Well, that 

 all rests with the forester himself. He can make it small or he can find a field 

 even more varied and of as high a standard as the work of those connected 

 with the national forests. 



The ordinary problems of the city forester are planting, extermination ot 

 insects and disease and protecting the street trees from accidental or wilful 

 injury, such as cutting down of trees by shopkeepers whose stores they may 

 slightly screen; protecting the trees from injury by public service corporations 

 and private promoters and guarding them against gnawing horses, house 

 movers and street graders. There are different ways of doing even this work. 

 There may be the old fashioned gardener's way or the way of the modern 

 scientific forester. There are very few trained foresters in this country in 

 charge of park and street trees and the old fashioned methods or rather no 

 methods still prevail. 



But there are bigger problems in city tree work worthy of the attention 

 of our best trained foresters. 



First, there is the city forest park idea — a chance to establish a model 

 forest right in the city and to lay your principles of conservative forest man- 

 agement right at the threshold of every citizen. The parks of our cities have 

 hitherto been looked upon in most instances as storehouses for elaborate build- 

 ings, ornamental cut stone and floral designs, so that today the common con- 

 ception of a city park is the usual costly and ornamental park found in almost 

 every city. The people do not think of the possibility of having bits of wood- 

 land or minature forests in the city where they can find the peace and restful- 

 ness they are seeking. There are times when the formal and costly park is a 

 necessity, but there are also vast opportunities for the city forest development. 

 It is a new departure and let our trained foresters come in and show the 

 people how attractive nature is in the simple charm of its woodlands and 

 how comparatively little it costs to develop and maintain such bits of wood- 

 land. There are only a few forest parks in this country and while the cities 

 are still young, it is possible for them to set aside small tracts of woodland 

 in their suburbs at a small cost and within a few years they will find them- 

 selves the possessors of ground not only worth many times the original 

 cost, but also of inestimable value to the health and development of the 



citizens. 



The people of Brooklyn and Queens have set aside a tract of 536 acres of 

 woodland in the heart of the city for a forest park and they are not a bit 

 sorry for it now. There have as yet been no funds designated for the develop- 

 ment of this tract, but we did succeed in establishing there a forest nursery of 

 80 000 seedling trees at a cost of one and one-half cents per tree including the 



