1907.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 33. 185 



is worth from $150 or $200 in the valuation of that prop- 

 erty; and if such a tree is killed by gas, the abutter is 

 entitled to damages. In most of the cases of gas poisoning 

 the companies have settled with the abutters, allowing any- 

 where from $5 to $150 a tree. In other States courts have 

 decided that an owner of land which abuts on a city street 

 and which is planted with shade trees is entitled to have 

 such trees protected against negligence or wilful destruction 

 at the hands of a third party. A large, handsome tree taken 

 from a well-kept avenue is a greater loss to the abutter's 

 property than a similar tree on a poor, ill-kept street. More- 

 over, a tree half-killed by the teeth of horses is not worth 

 as much as one in good condition. In some cities gas com- 

 panies have settled with the city for the loss of trees. 



According to tree laws in Massachusetts, gas companies are 

 undoubtedly subject to a fine for injuring or causing the 

 death of a tree, in addition to the damages for causing a 

 deterioration of property owing to the loss of such trees, 

 since the laws relating to injuries to shade trees are explicit. 

 In some cases the abutter is satisfied if new trees are planted 

 to replace the old ones. 



Undoubtedly much of the loss arising from gas the past 

 few years has been due to inferior work in laying pipes. In 

 one small city, where four miles of pipe were laid, we were 

 able to find one hundred trees which were injured beyond 

 recovery from gas poisoning, two years after the gas mains 

 were laid; and we venture to say that three or four hundred 

 other trees in the same locality were more or less affected by 

 gas, many of which will subsequently die a premature death. 



Germination and Growth in Soils of Different 

 Texture. 



It requires only a casual glance at the flora of any region 

 to note the fact that soil texture plays an important part in 

 the distribution and adaptation of plants. Soil, however, is 

 so intimately connected with and modified by other factors, 

 such as organic matter, arrangement of the particles of the 

 soil, chemical constituents, the presence of living organisms 

 and differences in the amount of water, that it is a most diffi- 



