140 PLAIN AXD PLEASANT TALK 



SPRING-WORK FOR PUBLIC-SPIRITED MEN. 



Shade-trees. — One of the first things that will require 

 your action is, the planting of shade-trees. Get your neigh- 

 bors to join with you. Agree to do four times as much as 

 your share, and you will, perhaps, then obtain some help. 

 Try to get some more to do the same in each street of your 

 village or town. 



Locusts^ of course you will set for immediate shade. 

 They will in three years afford you a delightful verdant 

 umbrella as long as the street. But maples form a charm- 

 ing row, and the autumnal tints of their leaves and the 

 spring flowers add to their beauty. They grow quite 

 rapidly, and in six years, if the soil is good and the trees 

 properly set, they will begin to cast a decided shadow. 

 Elms are, by far, the noblest tree that can be set, but they 

 will have their own time to grow. It is best then to set 

 them in a row of other trees, at about fifty or a hundred 

 feet apart, the intervening space to be occupied with 

 quicker-growing varieties. 



The beech, buckeye, horse-chesnut, sycamore, chestnut, 

 and many others may be employed with advantage. Now, 

 do not let your court-house square look any longer so bar- 

 ren. 



Avenues may be lined with rows of trees, but squares 

 and open spaces should have them grouped or scattered in 

 small knots and parcels in a more natural manner. 



May-weed. — There was never a better time to extermin- 

 ate this villainous, stinking weed than summer-time will be. 

 Just as soon as the first blossoms show, " up and at it." Club 

 together in your streets and agree to spend one day a-mow- 

 ing. Keep it down thoroughly for one season and it will 

 no longer bedrabble your wife's and daughter's dresses, 

 nor fill the air with its pungent stench, or weary the eye 

 with its everlasting white and yelloAV. 



Side-walks. — What if your neighbors are lazy ; what if 



