STREET AND HIGHWAY PLANTING. 79 



course this practice does not give wonderfully beautiful effects, but it 

 has considerable merit over no planting at all, and if properly carried 

 out might have considerable formal dignity. 



The spacing in the parking depends largely upon the species. The 

 distance between curb and sidewalk should be about half and half, with 

 the tree nearer the sidewalk than the curb, if there is any difference. 

 As to the spacing between specimens, one might generalize and say at 

 least twenty feet more than the spread of the top at maturity, and for 

 trees producing very dense or black shade twenty-five or thirty feet 

 more. For palms, or trees whose maximum spread is soon attained, 

 with little chance of an increase, the distance added need not be so great, 

 but a planting of palms too closely set takes from their dignity and 

 formality, rendering them rather less elegant. This spacing must be 

 done with consideration of the best needs of the street, and not with 

 regard to the property frontages, although most owners will doubtless 

 object if there is not a tree in front of their place. 



In most cases the plan will call for uniform spacing, but the problem 

 of poles, lamp-posts, water hydrants, house water and gas connections 

 will interfere, and then a respacing of all the trees should result and 

 not merely the moving of the one specimen which can not go in place. 

 Mr. Solataroff* gives the ruling that "trees should be kept away at least 

 eight feet from lamp-posts and about ten feet from water hydrants/* 

 Another phase of the question of spacing, which may come up in the 

 treatment of narrow streets, is the question of opposite or alternate 

 planting. For extremely narrow streets the latter is advisable., but 

 in other cases the former gives rather more attractive results. 



In Los Angeles it was noted that a few streets had been planted 

 with trees between the inner edge of the sidewalk and the property line, 

 leaving no other parking. This gives an excellent opportunity for the 

 development of the tree, but is rather poor, since it gives a maximum 

 of shade to the house with a minimum to the roadway and to the pedes- 

 trian. The effect is also somewhat unfinished. The use of a double 

 row is never advisable, since a hedge-like growth soon results, which 

 cuts off all light and air. 



The question of one or more than one species to the street has many 

 adherents on both sides, but the followers of indiscriminate planting 

 have yet to produce a street in California which is really ideal. By 

 indiscriminate planting is meant a mixture of species and not a combi- 

 nation of species in a definite plan to produce a certain landscape effect. 

 The custom of alternating two species is very common, but from those 

 examples noted it seems hardly as desirable as a planting of one species. 



These are questions which must be determined on the ground and for 

 which there is no help but a fine sense of the fitness of things. 



"Shade Trees for Towns and Cities," page 76. 



