244 TREES AS GOOD CITIZENS 



appeal to the highest officer of the town or city, followed 

 by an appeal to the courts if the objector considers it of 

 enough importance. This feature has been found well 

 worth while. 



Study of the various laws and observation of their 

 workings suggest that an ideal arrangement would be a 

 combination of the best features of the laws of New Jersey, 

 Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. This could be achieved 

 through an enactment requiring that every city or town 

 appoint a shade tree commission, and that this body 

 employ a trained expert to give attention to the interests 

 of the trees. Provision should be made, of course, for 

 revenue for carrying on the work. The plan might well 

 be extended to provide that towns too small for an arrange- 

 ment of this kind might combine with other towns and 

 organize a joint council to handle shade tree matters for 

 all of the towns involved. One expert could thus serve 

 several towns with slight cost to each of them. Division 

 of the expense would be easily determined on a basis of 

 property valuation, population and area. A plan of this 

 kind has large possibilities in the way of inviting interest 

 in shade trees in communities which might otherwise con- 

 sider themselves too small to undertake the proper hand- 

 ling of the question. 



A good state law should have the support of good local 

 laws in the communities throughout the state. Important 

 cities in the three states named have followed up the pass- 

 age of general laws by the passage of local ordinances and 

 special laws. Some of these municipal governments have 

 been working under such legislation for a number of years, 

 and in many of them the results have been highly satis- 

 factory. Examples of carefully framed and extremely 

 practical regulations are the ordinances in effect in New- 

 ark, New Jersey; Philadelphia and Johnstown, Pennsyl- 



