PREVENTION OF WOUNDS 231 



The myriads of woes of the street trees have 

 long been the subject of lament by the friends of 

 trees. That street trees In this country should at 

 the same time be loved and praised so universally 

 as they are, and so universally maltreated, is a 

 subject of perennial astonishment. We plant a 

 thousand trees and promptly murder nine hun- 

 dred of them. The explanation possibly lies in 

 our traditional idea, surviving from the period 

 when we were subduing the forest primeval, that 

 trees are a good bit like weeds, growing anywhere 

 and standing any kind of treatment. It is an in- 

 teresting sidelight on our municipal organizations 

 that much of the damage to trees is inflicted by 

 city employees. On one street the department of 

 street trees will be setting young trees, while in 

 the next street a gang of men may be chopping 

 down fine trees which happen to be a few inches 

 inside of a line laid down by an engineer who has 

 never been in the neighborhood. The tree war- 

 den alone ought to be empowered to cut down 

 trees, or even to remove large roots. 



The subject of the protection and care of street 

 trees has been treated so thoroughly by Dr. 

 Fernow and Mr. Solotaroff, that nothing further 

 need here be said about it. 



This discussion of the right making and dress- 

 ing a;id the prevention of wounds, however, does 

 not exhaust what is to be said about avoiding the 



