PLANTING OF STREETS AND WAYSIDES. 107 



of our trees with remarkable endurance and great adaptability for 

 the embellishment of our streets. 



Tree-lined streets not only form an artistic and appropriate con- 

 nection between the home and the parks or open country, but they 

 have an educational value and an elevating influence on a large 

 proportion of the city dwellers, for whom, for the greater part of 

 their lives, the trees of the street are all of sylvan beauty they are 

 permitted to enjoy between their infrequent visits to the parks or 

 to the country. 



Trees ameliorate the heated conditions of summer temperatures, 

 not only by the shade they aft'ord, but by the large amount of moist- 

 ure they draw from the ground and evaporate. They are also good 

 sanitary agents, in that they absorb stagnant water through their 

 roots, and exhale through their leaves life-giving oxygen. The 

 value of trees from a sanitary point of view is illustrated by the 

 action of the New York Medical Society, which passed this resolu- 

 tion, "That, one of the most effective means for mitigating the 

 intense heat of the summer months and diminishing the death rate 

 among children, is the cultivation of an adequate number of trees 

 in the streets." This is further emphasized by the fact that the 

 bill presented to the Legislature of New York, asking that the street 

 trees of the City of New York be placed under the care of the Park 

 Commissioners, was drawn by a physician, a member of the State 

 Board of Health, and was introduced merely as a sanitary measure. 



Boston is well to the front in civic pride and achievement; its 

 public bathing facilities, its playgrounds, and gymnasia, its system 

 of parks, its libraries and its art collections, as well as its many other 

 public institutions give evidence of this preeminence in public 

 spirit. In view of this, it is hard to understand why such apathy 

 as is found here in Boston should exist with regard to the planting 

 and the care of trees in its streets, seeing that they stand for so much 

 that is for the well-being of the city and the comfort of its inhabit- 

 ants. Even in the streets newly planned or laid out little or no 

 provision is being made for trees. Such a policy is sadly detrimen- 

 tal to the city's interests ; streets without trees in time are apt to be 

 relegated to squalor and obscurity. Imagine the effect if Boston 

 should wake up to a realization of its wasted opportunities and 

 should plant trees in the sun-baked streets of the Back Bay district ! 



