Tree Planting on Streets and fiigl)va^. 



By WILLIAM F. FOX. 



TREE PLANTING is one of the best expressions of altruism. The man who 

 plants trees is thinking of others rather than himself. He enables people to 

 gratify their love of the beautiful, to enjoy better health, to become more 

 prosperous ; he makes the world better and happier. 



Trees purify and cool the air, increase the value of surrounding property, and are 

 pleasing to the eye. They should be placed along the highways, on our village and 

 city streets, on lawns and in parks, on schoolhouse grounds, on the farm, in the 

 dooryard, and wherever shade or shelter may be needed. Planted in commemora- 

 tion of persons or events, they become living monuments that endure when the 

 inscriptions on the yellow, moss-covered marbles of the churchyard are no longer 

 legible. 



Higl)wa^ Planting. 



Trees should be set out along every road for shade. In addition, the farm lanes 

 can be lined advantageously with fruit or nut-bearing trees that will bring money to 

 their owner and add to the attractive appearance of his surroundings. Objections 

 may be made in some localities to placing trees along a public road, because their 

 shade would tend to make it wet and muddy. If such conditions exist, the fault is 

 in the road, and not in the trees ; there are some very muddy highways along 

 which nothing has been planted. Although a row of trees may retard somewhat 

 the evaporation of moisture at the surface of the roadbed, at the same time they 

 drain its foundation by the rapid absorption of water through their roots. When a 

 roadbed is properly constructed, drained and ditched, the trees will do no harm ; 

 on the contrary, they will furnish a grateful shade to the traveler, and prevent dust 

 without creating mud. 



There are roads along which no trees are allowed, because some resident argues 

 that the sun is needed to dry up the mud and sloughs which in spring make travel- 

 ing slow and difficult. But in summer the sun-baked mud is pulverized under the 

 wagon wheels, creating clouds of dust that are worse than the mud. With a well- 

 built highway, shaded by trees, both of these nuisances would be avoided. Even a 



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