MUNICIPAL CONTROL OF SHADE TREES 229 



datory should be sufficient to prevent injury from lack of 

 care of work already begun. A period of minimum care 

 and attention, while a board and the people or their repre- 

 sentatives are coming to a new understanding of one 

 another's position, is not necessarily a detriment, provided 

 a reasonable maintenance has been possible in the interim, 

 but without such care the results are ruinous, and work 

 would better not be started than be undertaken with the 

 possibility of such a period of neglect occurring. 



In New Jersey, 100 towns and cities have manifested 

 recognition of the worth of trees by creating shade tree 

 commissions. Every community in Massachusetts is 

 safeguarding its trees through an appointed guardian, 

 vested with adequate power. Other states and individual 

 cities are giving increasing attention and appropriations 

 to undertakings of the same nature and are making 

 increasingly liberal expenditures to preserve existing trees 

 and provide new ones to meet recognized needs. In the 

 face of this, it is safe to assume that the practical American 

 spirit will not be slow to insist that, if the municipality 

 spends public funds for planting and protecting its trees, 

 every precaution shall be taken to prevent private agen- 

 cies or individuals from causing trees damage, which would 

 undo the work and destroy the fruits of the labor and 

 money expended for the conservation of shade and the 

 beautification of the community. 



After a proper governing board is provided, the secur- 

 ing of a competent executive is a matter of ordinary busi- 

 ness procedure. It is usually desirable that he shall be not 

 only a good executive but also a man with a knowledge of 

 trees and trained in their care, so that he may be a com- 

 petent adviser of the board as well as its executive. 



There has been a most unfortunate tendency to call 

 such a man a "Forester" and the department that employs 



