SHOULD OUR CITY TREES BE LABELED? 



BY ALBERT A. HANSEN 



THE value of trees on our city streets has never been 

 more fully emphasized than during the last decade. 

 Due perhaps to this movement we now frequently 

 hear of the city forester, a term which would have been 

 quite foreign to us not many years ago. 



The planting of trees on the city streets is now such an 

 integral part of the "city beautiful" that the present time 

 seems ripe for a closely allied movement which will 

 tend, perhaps, to enhance the value of the plants, namely, 

 a movement for the proper labeling of all the trees which 

 now beautify our city high- 

 ways and adorn the public 

 squares and other places. 



To the average street pe- 

 destrian a tree is just a tree ; 

 he gives little thought to the 

 name of the plant because he 

 knows well that reliable in- 

 formation on the subject is 

 not readily to be obtained. 

 All of us, however, are in- 

 terested in plants, an inter- 

 est which seems born within 

 us. The average person is 

 always desirous of calling 

 things by their correct name, 

 a feature characteristic es- 

 pecially of children. That 

 the proper naming of piants 

 does present a popular inter- 

 est is fully attested to by the 

 interested groups which so 

 frequently congregate around 

 the labels in such places as 

 botanical gardens and parks 

 where trees are thoroughly 

 placarded. This fact was 

 rather forcibly brought to 

 the writer's attention during 

 the past summer while 

 spending an afternoon in 

 one of the beautiful parks of Chicago where the trees 

 were all named with artistic labels. The interest created 

 was well shown by the number of people who paused to 

 read the signs and then took a second glance at the 

 specimen as though to more firmly fix its characteristics 

 in mind. Walking through the capitol grounds in Wash- 

 ington while the linden was in fruit, the writer was 

 amused to see a group of children gather several of the 

 curious bracted fruits and carry them to a nearby police- 

 man for identification! Such procedure, of course, 

 would be rendered entirely unnecessary if the chil- 

 dren's thirst for knowledge could have been satisfied by 

 glancing at a label upon the trunk of the fruiting linden. 



A RECOMMENDED TYPE OF TREE LABEL 



This label bears the common name of the tree as well as its scientific 

 name and native habitat and it is made of heavy zinc. 



People enjoy labels; they always seem to attract the 

 eye and interest the reader. Oftentimes there is the 

 necessity of wasting a few minutes perhaps at the rail- 

 road station, or on the street corner while waiting for 

 the car; time may fall upon our hands in a thousand 

 different ways. Could these otherwise wasted moments 

 be more profitably spent than in the study of the sur- 

 rounding vegetation? This study may be aided greatly 

 by the use of neat and attractive labels, and an interest 

 be thus created which might prove an asset in the form 



of increased civic pride. The 

 influence might be far-reach- 

 ing; let us say, for instance, 

 that a certain tree causes a 

 particularly strong impres- 

 sion because of beauty of 

 foliage , shape or any other 

 of the many characters 

 which constitute the beauty 

 of trees. A desire may thus 

 be created for the posses- 

 sion of similar trees for 

 planting around the home or 

 possibly along the neighbor- 

 hood street. The desire can 

 be more readily gratified if 

 the label conveys the infor- 

 mation by which more of the 

 same kind may be obtained. 

 A knowledge of the names 

 of plants is woefully lacking 

 in city-dwellers, even among 

 the well educated classes. 

 We are reminded of the pub- 

 lic school class of children 

 no member of which could 

 correctly name all five of 

 such common plants as the 

 buttercup, rose, goldenrod, 

 columbine, and daisy! The 

 proper labeling of plants 

 would transform the city into a huge botanical garden ; the 

 resulting educational value would prove invaluable. A 

 reasonable familiarity would also tend to arouse a desire 

 to protect the plants and such sights as the mutilation of 

 trees due to telegraph wires, the biting of horses and a 

 dozen other causes, would perhaps be rendered rare 

 because of the pressure of public opinion. The effect 

 of reading a label upon an unknown tree is much the 

 same as being introduced to a stranger; it gives one a 

 feeling of kindly interest that increases as the new found 

 friend is more frequently met, because it is human nature 

 to take more interest in the things we know by name 

 rather than by mere sight. Not the least attractive 



