National and public parks and tree planting 1 6 1 



surface, and the large sums spent on their keeping. 

 Everywhere in them we see vast surfaces neglected, or 

 only planted with a few commonplace trees ; everywhere 

 evidence that no thought is given to enduring and 

 distinct and artistic planting; everywhere monotony 

 in the materials used. A number of trees become 

 popular, and are planted in about the same proportion, 

 and thus we find the same types of vegetation every- 

 where, and the capacities of our parks as national 

 gardens are undeveloped. 



A suggestion. The plan likely to give us the noblest 

 public parks is to treat all the parks and gardens of a 

 great city as a whole, and to establish as far as possible 

 in each a distinct type of the finer vegetation. We 

 might devote one city park chiefly to deciduous trees ; a 

 suburban one like Richmond to evergreen forest trees ; 

 another to the almost countless flowering trees and 

 shrubs that are the glory of the grove in all northern 

 countries. Or we might have a square or a park 

 mainly of British trees and shrubs, another of Euro- 

 pean, another of American, and so on. In such ways 

 we might help the men in charge to more individuality, 

 and free them from paltry rivalry with one another in 

 the matter of ' bedding plants '. They could then take 

 up subjects best suited to the ground, and develop their 

 beauty and variety to the extent of their knowledge. 

 In the vast expanse of our public gardens there is 

 not one interesting branch of tree culture or flower 

 culture which we could not develop in a way hitherto 

 unexampled. 



Few of our botanic gardens at present give much 

 idea of the variety and beauty of trees, and none gives 

 any worthy expression of even the vegetation of Europe 



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