THE ARBORICULTTTRAL ADORNMENT OF TOWNS. 389 



What is possible in the town becomes comparatively easy in the 

 surrounding district. The expanding city clears away the trees and 

 gardens which constituted its early environment ; and whilst 

 many of the old trees which might be left standing are not spared, 

 little effort is made to curb the devastation of the building specu- 

 lator, or to replace those trees that are inevitably removed. If 

 half the zeal were habitually shown in this direction that was once 

 exhibited when the Caledonian Railway Company proposed to 

 extend its line along Princes Street, to the possible loss of a few 

 arboricultural deformities, our streets would present a different 

 appearance. With rare exceptions, the lack of any attempt on the 

 part of municipal authorities to adorn our suburban areas is enough 

 to depress the most enthusiastic of collectivists, because whatever 

 attempts at planting we find in such districts are the result of 

 private rather than of municipal effort. 



Again, there is no reason why the approaches to towns, along the 

 main roads, should not run through close avenues, or through open 

 ones bordered with hedges, a system which Lord Mansfield has 

 recently put into practice along the high road as it enters Perth. 

 Abroad, roads are often lined with fruit-trees, which bear their 

 fruit without molestation from the passer-by. Our own youth are 

 at present little better than a horde of Huns on the highway; for 

 when a tree is planted at the cost of two or three pence, it takes two 

 or three shillings to afford it a necessary protection, which, whatever 

 its form, detracts from the beauty of all planting. In no respect 

 do the suburbs of American towns more surpass our own than in 

 the absence of railings and other similar monstrosities. A remedy 

 for the destructive tendencies of the British barbarian is to teach 

 botany in the schools, coupled with botanical excursions on the 

 foreign system, and to extend gardens and pleasure-grounds, which 

 teach people to care for and to safeguard plants and flowers. The 

 approaches to towns have, owing to the increase of bicycles and 

 motors, become once more frequented highways ; and nothing 

 would be better calculated to break up the monotonous effect of 

 the " dambrod " pattern into which our cultivated area is divided, 

 than the planting of good beech and other hedges, with oak 

 standards, to border the roads. 



The divorce of the Scottish population from the soil could be 

 mitigated by some adequate system of allotments and small hold- 

 ings round the towns, a feature which is so characteristic of most 

 Continental and of some English cities. In France especially, a 



