CHAPTER III 

 SPECIES FOR STREET-PLANTING 



It is appreciated by the writer that any attempt made to 

 ^ive a list of trees suitable for street-planting must neces- 

 sarily be inadequate. The choice of material is one phase 

 of tree-planting which cannot be of general application to 

 cities situated in different sections of the country. A 

 planter can usually receive valuable help from his State Ex- 

 periment Station. Frequently, however, the same species 

 will not do as well in one part of a city as in another, or 

 even in different parts of the same street. Only very care- 

 ful study of local conditions and experience, extending over 

 a period of years, can aid in determining what species to 

 plant. One of the best ways perhaps of deciding upon this 

 point is to note the trees in one's vicinity and see which do 

 best. 



Study and experimentation reveal the fact that the num- 

 ber of trees suitable for street-planting in any locality is 

 very limited. This need not be surprising if the severe con- 

 ditions under which city trees grow are recalled. In the 

 city of Washington, where the street-trees have been under 

 municipal control since 1872, some thirty varieties of trees 

 have been experimented with. Now all of the desirable 

 street-trees of that city can be included in ten or twelve 

 varieties. The same is true of the city of Paris, where the 

 list of species, represented by more than a hundred individ- 



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