III. A 0tmi (toe l^gBtem 



^tmia to Plant 



In any serious consideration of street tree planting in 

 Manhattan it is evident that not all streets are equally avail- 

 able or advisable for this purpose. Narrow sidewalks, exces- 

 sive congestion, commercial traffic, high buildings, under- 

 ground construction, all of these together or in various com- 

 binations eliminate many streets from the list of those prac- 

 ticable or possible for satisfactory tree growth. 



On account of this fact it may appear perhaps that any 

 tree growth, even if it is secured, must be scattered and hap- 

 hazard, and that no continuity can be had. Again, owing 

 to the high cost of planting under the existing conditions, 

 and with the rapid deterioration of the existing trees, the 

 task of securing permanent street tree planting in Manhat- 

 tan may indeed seem hopeless in its immensity. 



It would certainly appear that if any worth-while results 

 are to be obtained we must have a plan or program towards 

 which to work, that is, an organized system or selection of 

 streets upon which to concentrate our efforts. 



To select these streets and then coordinate thein into an 

 organic scheme of city decoration has suggested to the writer 

 the idea of a street tree system, and what is more natural 

 than to .unite this system in some way with the city park 

 areas which, with the street trees, supply the horticultural 

 decoration of the city. 



In this way the idea of a street tree system as a scheme of 

 inter-park connections had its origin. 



One of the important city planning features in most mod- 

 ern American cities is the park system, and there are few 

 progressive cities of today which do not have such a system 

 under construction or cherish ambitious plans for such a con- 

 summation. In fact this scheme of organizing the various 

 park units into a correlated whole and connecting them by 



C23) 



