where present tree-clad hills little gems of beauty meet 

 the eye at every turn. In the AVest every such scene 

 is marred with the obtrusive newness, the scars and 

 debris of construction. Not so in New England; all 

 construction ceased years ago, the gems have been 

 polished, they have grown inseparably into their set- 

 tings, and every trace of structural dust has long since 

 been washed away. 



There are four features which strike the traveller in 

 New England very favorably, the large proportion of 

 this old and densely populated country that is yet tim- 

 bered; the splendid roads over which the automobiles 

 roll without a bump mile after mile; the old colonial 

 houses so beautiful in their ancient settings and yet so 

 plain, the only American type of residential architec- 

 ture ; and the magnificent shade trees. 



Those beautiful shade trees, especially, draw the ad- 

 miration of everyone. Elms three feet through arch 

 the streets sixty feet above the pavement, perfect in 

 shape and majesty. Even the most hardened mate- 

 rialist could not drive into Litchfield or Amherst with- 

 out feeling the presence of those mighty guardians of 

 the city's ease. There they stood in revolutionary 

 times amidst the crude beginning of things, and in the 

 generations that followed they have grown so inti- 

 mately into the lives and history of the people that now 

 we feel that with the passing of these trees must pass 

 the glory of these present towns. Destroy these cen- 

 tury-old trees and you would do more to destroy the 

 fascination of New England than you could by any 

 other single act. 



