PRUNING OF TREES AND SHRUBS 31 



9 or i oft. of houses and other buildings, 

 the result being that in a few years heavy 

 pruning becomes a necessity, the natural 

 beauty of the trees is destroyed, and, worse 

 still, a repetition of the trimming must be 

 carried out at frequent periods. A point, 

 of the greatest importance in town planting, 

 is suiting the trees to the positions they are 

 to occupy. The Lime is perhaps one of the 

 most cruelly treated of all suburban London 

 trees ; for the lopping and beheading to which 

 it is annually subjected, and which it tries 

 bravely to support, strikes every lover of the 

 natural with feelings of regret and shame that 

 so beautiful and noble a tree should be so 

 tortured and disfigured. For the first ten 

 years after being planted in its restricted 

 space, it looks everything that could be 

 desired, but when the confined boundary 

 limit is attained the windows darkened, the 

 patch of garden rendered useless by the over- 

 hanging branches, and the pedestrian on the 

 footpath annoyed then comes the retribution, 

 and, the saw and the pruning knife being 



