106 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Its public trees now number over 100,000. Sixty thousand dollars 

 per annum is spent in the work of caring for them ; and this amount 

 has relatively a greater purchasing power in Paris than it has here. 

 The city has established nurseries for the groA\-th of suitable trees 

 for street planting, even to the extent of growing a proportion of 

 them to a large size, so that gaps made by death in the avenues of 

 trees may be filled with trees of even size, thus maintaining symmet- 

 rical effect. 



The Puritan Fathers of Old Boston apparently were mindful 

 of the advantage to the city of street planting. The records of 200 

 years ago show this. Ordinances were passed providing for the 

 planting and the protection of trees from vandal hands, for there 

 were, as there arc today, mischievous destroyers, who "cut, hacked 

 and spoyled trees," for the detection and conviction of whom one- 

 half of the penalty imposed was paid to the informer. 



From the researches of j\Ir. Albert Matthews, in the old records 

 of Boston, we find that three rows of trees were planted on Tre- 

 niont street mall, by the selectmen, or by private individuals of 

 public spirit, between 1725 and 1784; a few of the latter planting 

 existed until quite recently. The Beacon street mall was laid out 

 and planted in 1816, and the Charles street mall in 1824. These 

 references, gleaned from iVIr. IMatthews' interesting compilation 

 bearing on the subject of the early planting and care of public trees, 

 show that the ancestors of the present generation fully appreciated 

 the value of trees for beautifying the streets and public places. 

 This is further shown by the number of fine trees with which New 

 England towns and waysides are endowed. 



It is much to be regretted that the citizen of Boston of today does 

 not appreciate the value of street trees as did his ancestors. This 

 is evidenced by the starved and mangled specimens to be seen on 

 every hand, whose branches are hacked and cut by linemen, whose 

 roots are poisoned by leaking gas pipes, or mutilated by careless 

 ditch diggers, and whose trunks are scarred by the gnawing of 

 generations of unhitched horses, or by the knives of mischievous 

 and destructive persons. When one sees these battle-scarred veter- 

 ans on the streets enduring ill-use year after year, and often decade 

 after decade, yet still j^utting forth leaves in the spring, in a struggle 

 for existence, one cannot but realize that nature has endowed many 



