STREET AND HIGHWAY 1'I.A NTI .\ <;. 



89 



advantage of the iron guard is its durability, and, in some cases, its 

 beauty. Unfortunately, there are many times when it is not a thing 

 of beauty. Of all these, the iron guard is the most durable and the 

 most expensiv % e, the expense in most cases being prohibitive. 



Instead of incurring this expense, some of our southern California 

 towns have enacted ordinances which prevent hitching to or near a tree, 

 within a certain distance. At first there were a few violations, but 

 now it is the accepted scheme of thing's and so far as was noted there 

 are no cases of mutilation of bark or trunks of trees in those towns. 

 Whether this would hold in a great city or not we can not say. Cer- 



5HAP,5IZE 

 PE5IGPI OF 



THE GRILL nay 

 A;. 



Fig. 46. 



Fig. 47. 



tainly the intense civic pride of these cities does much to make their 

 respective ordinances effectual. 



When we begin to have our trees uniformly throughout our towns, 

 one other feature will rise to importance. That is: the use of grills 

 in the down-town district. A grill is a cast-iron screen of some kind 

 which is put over the soil about the base of a tree to prevent its being 

 packed down by tramping. Every tree must have a certain area of 

 unpaved soil about its base or it can not live and thrive. And in those 

 parts of the town where there is a great amount of walking to and fro, 

 the ground becomes packed down so that it is no longer easily permeated 

 by air and water. In this state the tree can not thrive. It is to prevent 

 this that the grill is useful. These grills are at best an item of consid- 

 erable expense, but they are a means to an end which is worth far more 



