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Advantages of Town Trees. — Not onlv for the cheer- 

 ful aspect produced by trees when planted alongside streets 

 and thoroughfares, but also from a sanitary point of view, 

 they are of special value and importance. That a quantity 

 of healthy-growing foliage has a wonderful effect in purifying 

 the atmosphere is a recognised fact, and certainly far more 

 than compensates for any damage to health that might be 

 occasioned by its decay in autumn. Bearing on the question 

 of trees in towns, Dr. Phene, at the Social Science Congress 

 at Edinburgh, remarked as follows : — 



" To the occupants of houses in streets having a northern 

 aspect, the glare of reflected light is injurious ; but the effect 

 would be much modified by the coolness to the eye produced 

 by the green of trees. In ancient surgery, persons having 

 weak or declining sight were advised to look at the emerald. 

 In the old style of building, the streets being narrow, were 

 both cooler, from the sun not being able to penetrate there 

 with direct rays, and less subject to noxious exhalations from 

 the scouring and purifying effects of the scorching air to 

 which narrow streets were subject, so that while there was 

 no space for trees, there was also less necessity. Wide 

 streets, on the contrary, are hotter, and require the shade of 

 trees to cool them, and, as in the case of London, which has 

 so far done to a great extent without trees in its streets, not 

 only are modern streets compulsory wide, but the enormous 

 increase in the Metropolitan buildings renders every sanitary 

 question one of importance, and the chemical properties of 

 trees, as shown by experiment, gives them an important 

 standing on that ground, irrespective of ornament or the 

 pleasure they produce. But that which is important in such 

 localities is more imperatively demanded in poorer districts 

 on the score of health, as during the last year alone 21,000 

 new houses were erected in London, producing 400 streets, 

 with 71 miles and 468 yards of promenade." 



Excessive Planting and Choice of Trees. — Exces- 

 sive planting should certainly be guarded against, but a point 

 of far greater importance is the suiting of the trees to the 

 positions they are to occupy. Planting the plane, poplar, 

 lime, and such like trees of giant growth in narrow, confined 

 streets, is a crying evil, and should not be tolerated, par- 

 ticularly with such numbers of moderate-sized specimens at 

 command that have proved themselves particularly suitable 



