94 HEDGES, WINDBREAKS, SHELTERS, ETC. 



making things match well together. In here stands 

 a great barberry bush, that all winter is so red that 

 you can warm your fingers by it. Here come the 

 earliest violets, like finger-tips of Spring thrust 

 through the snow. 



While planting windbreaks we have of course 

 to consuk our neighbors' wishes and tastes, if they 

 are near enough to be affected by what we propose. 

 It is morally illegal to cut off the pleasures of a neigh- 

 bor by a high hedge, a row of trees or a fence. With 

 neighborly good will we can generally manage not 

 to infringe on other's tastes or desires. I trust we 

 shall see before long co-operation and town systems 

 of establishing defenses against the wind. No per- 

 son should be privileged to destroy that which affects 

 his neighbor's crops and comforts as well as his own. 

 If street trees should be under the protection of the 

 law, so also should windbreaks and strips of forest 

 land. Towns should assume the right in very 

 exposed points to plant trees at public expense on 

 private property. Co-operative tree planting, I 

 think, may yet do a great deal for the general good 

 of horticulture. I would especially recommend the 

 establishment of rural societies, whose object it shall 

 be to set out trees for the public welfare, and to pro- 

 tect others in which the public has a general interest. 

 Such societies will have much also to do in the way 

 of investigating the causes of tree diseases, and their 

 remedies. In central New York such a society has 

 existed at Clinton for forty-five years, and it has fos- 

 tered rural improvement in every direction. The 

 meetings are held monthly, and the range of discus- 

 sion covers every topic pertaining to the welfare of 



