Shade Trees for Prairie Cities. 



By a. Knechtel, Inspector Dominion Forest Reserves. 



A city may have its public buildings, 

 hotels, churches and residences as mag- 

 nificent as possible, and yet it will never 

 be truly attractive unless made so by 

 parks, boulevards, streets and lawns 

 properly planted with trees. 



City adornment does not come about 

 haphazard. It needs strenuous effort, 

 well directed, and artistic sense of a high 

 order. Many cities appoint a commis- 

 sion whose sole duty it is to improve the 

 city from an aesthetic point of view. 

 They lay out new parks and boulevards 

 and improve those that already exist. 

 In the newer parts of the city they de- 

 termine the width that streets shad 

 have and the portion of those streets 

 that must be reserved for the planting 

 of trees. They decide the species of 

 trees to be set, and give attention to the 

 manner of planting, guarding and caring 

 for them. 



For the purpose of planting the city 

 with trees, each city supports a tree 

 nursery. In some places property 

 owners are furnished trees free of charge, 

 in others a price is fixed which covers 

 merely the cost of raising the trees. 

 Parks, boulevards and streets are con- 

 sidered public property and are planted 

 at public expense. Bulletins No. 1 and 

 2 of the Forestry Branch, Department 

 of the Interior, Ottawa, give details re- 

 garding the making and care of such a 

 nursery. A competent man should be 

 employed to manage it, however. 



In the Canadian prairie provinces the 

 following trees are suitable for planting: 



Broadleaf trees — Canoe birch, Euro- 

 pean white birch, cut-leaf birch, green 

 ash, mountain ash, American elm, Cot- 

 tonwood, hackberry, Manitoba maple, 

 Russian poplar, balm of Gilead, silver- 

 leaf poplar, golden willow, sharp-leaf wil- 

 low, and laurel leaf willow. (The On- 

 tario white maple might also be grown). 



Evergreens — Lodgepole pine, Scotch 

 pine, jack pine, white spruce, Colorado 

 talue spruce, Engelmann spruce, Norway 

 spruce. (Western white pine might 

 possibly do well). 



Deciduous Conifers — Tamarack, 

 western larch, European larch. 



Shrubs — Caragana, red ;^dogwood, 

 buffalo berry, black-berried elder, 

 flowering currant, Tartarian honey- 

 suckle, mountain or Ginnala maple, 

 purple lilac, white lilac, Persian lilac, 

 Jasikea lilac, Van Houtte's spirea, 

 Reeves' spirea, snowball, Russian choke 

 cherry, sumach, service crab, Rugosa 

 rose, Ayrshire rose, Carmen rose. 



Climbers — Virginia creeper, panicled 

 clematis, hops. 



Birch, Ash and Maple. 



Considering the hardiness of the 

 white birch and the rapidity with which 

 it grows, I wonder that the tree has not 

 been planted more in these provinces. 

 It extends northward to the Arctic 

 circle. The color of the bark, the hard- 

 ness of the wood, and the toughness and 

 gracefulness of the branches make it a 

 much more desirable tree than the 

 poplar. In the winter, when the leaves 

 are off, the dark branches contrast most 

 charmingly with the white trunks. Of 

 the European white birch there are 

 three main varieties. The ordinary tree 

 of the woods has branches quite similar 

 to those of the Canadian tree. The 

 weeping variety has very long slender 

 branches that hang down almost ver- 

 tically . Then there is a cut -leaf variety, 

 the leaves deey^ly intersected. All three 

 varieties should be hardy in the North- 

 west. 



The green ash is by some botanists 

 considered only a variety of the Ontario 

 white ash. It is native to Manitoba and 

 Saskatchewan. An interesting thing 

 about the ash and Manitoba maple is 

 that the leaves are compound and the 

 fruit has long wings. It grows rather 

 slowly in this country but is quite hardy. 



The Manitoba maple or box elder has 

 been planted more extensively in the 

 northwest than any other tree. The 

 attractiveness of the streets of Portage 

 la Prairie is dvie to this tree. It is a 

 mistake, however, to continue to plant 

 the tree to the exclusion of better species. 

 Winnipeg, when about the size of Port- 

 age la Prairie, had little else than Mani- 

 toba maple, but now there are many 

 streets planted with elm, ash and birch. 



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