144 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



There is, it appears to me, a point to be brought out here in 

 this particular locality. Do 3'ou do enough of tree planting? I 

 ride along the great railroad thoroughfares of the State, and find 

 too frequently, in towns and town surroundings, that the aspect is 

 rather that of scarcity' of trees, when I regard the country from 

 the stand-point of landscape gardening. It appears clear to my 

 mind that the tendency should be rather toward superabundance 

 of trees. I do not suggest that your roads be literally lined by 

 trees, or your many beautiful vistas be closed by masses of 

 foliage. This would be a mistake. It would give you a country 

 quite as monotonous as the other extreme. My suggestion is that 

 you should consider this whole region adjacent to the city, as one 

 vast suburban park, to be laid out as a park, where the whole, so 

 far as may be, should be under one leading plan or idea of land- 

 scape gardening. A clump of oaks here, of elms there, of pines 

 or spruces yonder, but each on the soil and location best suited 

 for an enduring, vigorous life, so that you may have the fences 

 and unsightly diseased trees removed. Above all, plant almost 

 exclusively our native trees, for, as Professor Sargent has clearly 

 shown, they are by all odds the longer lived. 



It would appear clear that if the State is justified in over step- 

 ping the rights of private property to ensure an actual benefit, so 

 too, it might be equally justified in according special privileges or 

 special rewards to guard against public calamit3^ I make this 

 statement as preliminar}'^ to the suggestion that it might be well if 

 more general bounties than have yet been offered for tree planting 

 were allowed bj* the State to such regions as that of Cape Cod. 

 The question has risen more than once with me, as to whether 

 the removal of trees from that sandy projection has not been 

 followed by a fiercer and more disastrous sweep of the winds than 

 once existed there. It would appear as though this idea could 

 find some support from your local history and tradition. Near 

 Cape Henlopen, the moving of an immense sand dune threatens 

 to be a very serious matter for the future, unless measures are 

 taken to arrest it. Within the. brief period since the settlement 

 of the country such changes have taken place in this moving mass 

 as to indicate with some certaintj", that it may prove a formidable 

 foe in the future. How many other such illustrations the coast 

 would furnish, it is hard to say, but probably enough to merit 

 attention from our legislators, and appropriations from the States 

 interested. 



