TREE PRUNING. 



The climate of the United States renders it de- 

 sirable that oar highways should be bordered with 

 trees. 1 They are necessary to protect the traveller 

 from the cold winds of winter and the excessive heat 

 of the summer sun. This necessity is recognized ; 

 and city and roadside trees are everywhere planted. 

 Such plantations, however, too often suffer from total 

 neglect, or from injurious systems of pruning, which 

 shorten rather than prolong the lives of trees, and 

 diminish their usefulness and beauty. 



Des Cars' method of pruning might well be adopted 

 by all persons in charge of highway plantations ; and 

 the advantage of such a system being thus demon- 

 strated, its general application to purely economic 

 plantations, and to the timber trees scattered over 

 the country, will naturally follow. 



C. S. SARGENT. 



BROOKLINE, 1881. 



1 The importance of following in all street and roadside planting 

 the rule which requires that every connected street must be planted 

 with a single variety of tree should be insisted on. This plan is 

 universally adopted in Europe, and its advantages over that which 

 mixes various trees widely differing in habit, rapidity of growth, and 

 longevity in the same street plantation, are very great. This will be 

 seen by comparing the effect produced by the rows of Elms on the 

 Mall in Central Park, or by the magnificent avenues of Live-oaks near 

 Savannah, and on Cumberland Island, Georgia, with the mixed plan- 

 tations too often seen in this country, and in which alternating Elms 

 aud Maples form a favorite combination. 



