160 TREES EOR CITY PARKS, AVENUES, 



in the climate of our modern London ; the case was perhaps 

 different some years ago. But from any general planting 

 of trees in London, especially in leading thoroughfares, 

 however wide, I cannot expect agreeable results. I cannot 

 dismiss from my mind that mournful spectacle I have so 

 often witnessed with depressed spirits, all through the after- 

 summer (as Germans call it) and the autumn, of gloomy 

 civic avenues, every trunk Hack and filthy, with all its fur- 

 rows clogged with soot, the branches showing symptoms of 

 speedy decay, the scanty withered foliage distilling a drizzle 

 of mingled smoke and moisture. — Misodendros." 



These opinions are as erroneous as they are emphatic ; 

 yet it is not to be wondered at that similar ones are enter- 

 tained by the general public, when we find those who ought 

 to know equally ignorant on the subject. Not long ago, 

 I was walking up Regent Street with a landscape gardener 

 who had mostly worked in pure air, and he almost ridiculed 

 my statement that trees could be grown in perfect health 

 and beauty in London. I felt it was useless to argue with 

 him, but remembering the splendid Planes in BerkeleySquare, 

 a few minutes enabled me, through his own eyes, to cure 

 him for ever of the erroneous opinion that trees cannot be 

 grown well in London. It is the custom in Paris and 

 other continental cities to plant trees with care, to provide 

 them with good soil, to spend a great deal of money in attend- 

 ing to them and watering them, and yet neither in all Paris, 

 nor in any continental city with which I am acquainted, can 

 such noble examples as these be found. 



But some may say, An open square at the West-end of town 

 may do that which the smoky, densely-packed city will not. 

 If these persons, who are evidently not yet acquainted with 

 Stationers' Hall Court, will inquire for that narrow enclosure 

 the next time they are passing near Paternoster Row — or 

 St. Paul's Cathedral, to select a more conspicuous land- 

 mark — they will find in it a noble Plane tree looking as 

 happy as if it were in its native forest. It grows in what 

 to a tree is practically a brick well, and yet to stand under 

 it in summer and look up the bole towards the top of the 

 tree, is to get a glimpse of tree-beauty of the most refreshing 



