FIFTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 99 



Signs. 



By L. W. Ripley, Tree Warden, Glastonbury. 



Mr. Chaimian, friends, and brother wardens : I had iny 

 magazine ah loaded and was going to give you the two barrels 

 at dififerent times, but now I am going to fire it all off at once. 

 I was going to talk about the two kinds of signs. The first, 

 the signs of the times, and, second, the advertising signs. We 

 all know, very well that one of the most encouraging signs 

 we have to-day is the growing sentiment all over our land 

 in favor of making it a land of beauty. Now this matter of 

 signs that I am to talk about particularly is the matter of 

 advertising signs. If I had handled the advertising sign 

 business in our town according to the lines laid down by Judge 

 Root, I am afraid that there wouldn't have been very much 

 done, because I should have been scared myself to do anything, 

 but as it is now, I must have the telephone company and the 

 electric railway company, and all the abutting property owners 

 scared stiff, because nobody touches the limb of a tree without 

 coming to my house and getting my permission. Perhaps the 

 law does not permit that, but I rest my case on that last stat- 

 ute passed where it says the tree warden shall have the care 

 and control all the shade trees, and it goes on and defines 

 what those shade trees are, so I think I have got control in 

 Glastonbury of all the shade trees that are more than six 

 inches in circumference two feet from the ground, and I have 

 everybody else in Glastonbury thinking so too. Now it is 

 true, as Mr. Hale told you, that this law was passed because 

 some person destroyed a row of maples an eighth of a mile 

 long abutting on his property, and the Legislature thought it 

 wise to pass a law so that that couldn't happen again in the 

 future. But the trouble is we have got a lot of statutes made 

 by lawyers that don't mean anything, they are all mixed up, 

 and ail a tree warden can do is to just look at one or two of 

 them. I have got them here right on the first page, where it 

 says a tree warden has the care and control of all the shade 

 trees. Noav we had in our town, and I suppose you have in 



