Chap. X.] TREES FOR CITIES. 153 



The eyils that affect the trees in Kensington Gardens — old age, 

 injury from overcrowding or from exhaustion of the ground, or 

 from the trees being in unsuitable positions— are such as would 

 work like results everywhere else. Old trees die at last, and if 

 we fail to raise an annual crop, decay soon begins to be disagreeably 

 conspicuous. The difficulties of planting even in the very heart 

 of London are exaggerated. In Printing-house Square, under the 

 very windows of the ' Times ' office, are trees of the American 

 shrubby Trefoil (Ptelea trifoliata) as healthy and as large as we 

 have ever seen them in any collection in this country. Look at 

 the beautiful weeping Ash trees in Brunswick Square and else- 

 where in west-central London, and the excellent Catalpas seen 

 here and there (in the Marylebone Koad, for instance), that are 

 covered with handsome blossoms and large shade-giving leaves. 

 Look, also, at the Hawthorns and other trees of the Kosaceous 

 order in the Botanic Gardens, Eegent's Park, where the soil is 

 very cold, at the Sumach, Py^uses, Medlars, snowy Mespilus, 

 Bird Cherry, Tulip-tree, Sir Charles Wager's Maple, flowering 

 Ash, and many other trees, which anyone who cares about trees 

 may see thriving in London. Let one-fifth of the means and skill 

 now devoted to the building of glass-houses and the culture of 

 tender plants in London parks be diverted to the systematic and 

 judicious planting of hardy trees ; and, in due time, the parks of 

 London will become the finest Arboretum of deciduous trees in 

 the world, for there is no city where they thrive better, no city 

 with anything like the same grand opportunities for planting. 



It is a curious fact that there are no big trees in the streets or 

 avenues of Paris ! And not only no big trees, but scarcely a 

 medium-sized one ! It is not the fault of the poor trees, or the 

 soil, or the air. It is caused by a system of management 

 apparently based on the notion that trees, like soldiers, are best 

 arranged in close order, or like the poor fellows who find a last 

 rest in the Fosse Commune without any earth between the boxes. 

 There is no evidence whatever that any one responsible for the 

 street-trees of Paris has the least idea of the beauty of hardy trees 

 when well developed. At best they are only seen a little better 

 grown than in the nursery-garden. They are everywhere with 

 heads crowded together — starving for want of space above and 

 below. Two or three Planes usually stand where one fairly- 



