258 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



wild carrot, and every one of those pestilent weeds or 

 bushes that grow by our roadsides and ought to be mowed 

 down, I hesitate. No, I do not hesitate. There is no 

 doubt that the legislation in New York which makes it a 

 penal offence for a man to allow weeds to grow by his 

 roadside, like thistles and sedges and the wild carrot, which 

 is one of the most pernicious things, is commendable. The 

 cultivation of our roadsides is a beautiful thing. I have 

 been president of the rural club in our beautiful village of 

 Greenfield, and we take care of our highways. We keep 

 them clean. We, by direct action or by personal influence, 

 persuade the people who own premises by the side of the 

 road to keep them nicely. During the summer season we 

 do not allow any papers or rubbish of any kind to remain 

 in the streets. Our trees are trimmed up. We set out 

 every year two or three hundred trees on the streets leading 

 from the village, — elms and maples; and at about this 

 season of the year we engage a good, judicious man, with 

 one or two assistants, to trim all the trees of the village 

 streets, unless there be objection by the land owners, which 

 seldom occurs. Our new trees that are six, eight or ten 

 years old, were set out, as you know the custom is (and 

 perhaps that is the true way to set out a tree), when they 

 were two, three or four inches in diameter, simply saplings, 

 and allowed to start from the top. In the course of time 

 they make beautiful trees. The little branches that come 

 out from the stalk twelve or fifteen feet high, growing in all 

 directions, horizontally and often downward, should be 

 trimmed off, and the tree gradually trimmed up until you 

 get a regular form, not less than twelve feet from the 

 ground. That throws the sap up into the top ; and it is 

 astonishing how quickly you can make a beautiful tree if 

 the trimming is properly done. That is what we do every 

 autumn, as being the most convenient time. 



The Chairman. Gentlemen, we have invited here repre- 

 sentatives from the carriage industries of Boston. Is there 

 anybody here, from those industries, interested in roads? 

 Is there anybody representing the horse industry, interested 

 in roads ? Is there anybody here representing the popular 

 machine of the day, the bicycle? Apparently not. 



