130 THE HEALING OF WOUNDS 



cities and towns are treated. The responsibility 

 rests not only with those who, perhaps uninten- 

 tionally and ignorantly, are directly guilty of 

 what an enlightened public opinion should regard 

 as vandalism ; but it rests in part on ourselves, 

 if we do not in all possible ways seek to give 

 information to the public, and attempt by all 

 legal means to secure the enforcement of such 

 regulations as shall assure proper protection for 

 our trees. As it is, the care of the trees in our 

 public grounds, parks, and streets is too often 

 placed in the hands of those who are ignorant 

 of the principles of vegetable physiology, and 

 tffl, a A ^ \ their efforts to prune 



and cut down trees 

 are guided only by 

 ' what seems to them 

 temporary conven- 

 ience, or by what 

 commends itself to 

 their not infrequently 

 perverted sense of 

 the beautiful. When 

 the whim seizes them 



110. Living brace in a Newtown and they wish ' to get 

 Pippin apple tree. 



rid of a stately tree, 



it is only necessary for them to say that it is 

 rotten, and dangerous because likely to fall. 

 Many times I have seen trees whose shade could 

 ill be spared, cut down because their trunks were 



